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ENTOR Don't mind me, I beg you, old fellow,--I'll do very well here alone; You must not be kept from your "German" because I've dropped in like a stone. Leave all ceremony behind you, leave all thought of aught but yourself; And leave, if you like, the Madeira, and a dozen cigars on the shelf. As for me, you will say to your hostess--well, I scarcely need give you a cue. Chant my praise! All will list to Apollo, though Mercury pipe to a few. Say just what you please, my dear boy; there's more eloquence lies in youth's rash Outspoken heart-impulse than ever growled under this grizzling mustache. Go, don the dress coat of our tyrant,--youth's panoplied armor for fight,-- And tie the white neckcloth that rumples, like pleasure, and lasts but a night; And pray the Nine Gods to avert you what time the Three Sisters shall frown, And you'll lose your high-comedy figure, and sit more at ease in your gown. He's off! There's his foot on the staircase. By Jove, what a bound! Really now Did I ever leap like this springald, with Love's chaplet green on my brow? Was I such an ass? No, I fancy. Indeed, I remember quite plain A gravity mixed with my transports, a cheerfulness softened my pain. He's gone! There's the slam of his cab door, there's the clatter of hoofs and the wheels; And while he the light toe is tripping, in this armchair I'll tilt up my heels. He's gone, and for what? For a tremor from a waist like a teetotum spun; For a rosebud that's crumpled by many before it is gathered by one. Is there naught in the halo of youth but the glow of a passionate race--'Midst the cheers and applause of a crowd--to the goal of a beautiful face? A race that is not to the swift, a prize that no merits enforce, But is won by some faineant youth, who shall simply walk over the course? Poor boy! shall I shock his conceit? When he talks of her cheek's loveliness, Shall I say 'twas the air of the room, and was due to carbonic excess? That when waltzing she drooped on his breast, and the veins of her eyelids grew dim, 'Twas oxygen's absence she felt, but never the presence of him? Shall I tell him first love is a fraud
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