COLLECTED POEMS
The measure of his jingle. I am old,
And you are young. Be sure, I may go back
To squeak for you the tunes of yesterday
On my old fiddle—or what's left of it—
And give you as I'm able a young sound;
But all the while I do it I remain
One of Apollo's pensioners (and yours),
An usher in the Palace of the Sun,
A candidate for mattocks and trombones
(The brass-band will be indispensable),
A patron of high science, but no critic.
So I shall have to tell him, I suppose,
That I read nothing now but Wordsworth, Pope,
Lucretius, Robert Burns, and William Shakespeare.
Now this is Mr. Killigrew's performance:
"'Say, do you go to London Town,
You with the golden feather?'—
'And if I go to London Town
With my golden feather?'—
'These autumn roads are bright and brown,
The season wears a russet crown;
And if you go to London Town,
We'll go down together'
"I cannot say for certain, but I think
The brown bright nightingale was half assuaged
Before your Mr. Killigrew was born.
If I have erred in my chronology,
No matter,—for the feathered man sings now:
"'Yes, I go to London Town'
(Merrily waved the feather),
'And if you go to London Town,
Yes, we'll go together'
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