tchedness?

Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew,
When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two;

When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide,
With the many larks of London flaring up on every side;

When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come,
Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb;

Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh, heavens!
Brandy at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking-hot at Evans';

Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears,
Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of years--

Saw Jack Sheppard, noble stripling, act his wondrous feats again,
Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy chain;

Might was right, and all the terrors which had held the world in awe
Were despised and prigging prospered, spite of Laurie, spite of law.

In such scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passion's edge was rusted,
And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted!

Since, my heart is sore and withered, and I do not care a curse
Whether worse shall be the better, or the better be the worse.

Hark! my merry comrades call me, bawling for another jorum;
They would mock me in derision, should I thus appear before 'em.

Womankind no more shall vex me, such, at least, as go arrayed
In the most expensive satins, and the newest silk brocade.

I'll to Afric, lion-haunted, where the giant forest yields
Rarer robes and finer tissue than are sold at Spitalfields.

Or to burst all chains of habit, flinging habit's self aside,
I shall walk the tangled jungle in mankind's primeval pride;

Feeding on the luscious berries and the rich casava root,
Lots of dates and lots of guavas, clusters of forbidden fruit.

Never comes the trader thither, never o'er the purple main
Sounds the oath of British commerce, or the accents of Cockaigne.

There, methinks, would be enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents;
Sink the steamboats! Cuss the railways! Rot, oh, rot the Three per
Cents!

There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have space to breathe, my
cousin!
I will take some savage woman--nay, I'll take at least a dozen.

There I'll rear my young mulattoes, as no Bond Street brats are reared:
They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard,

Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon,
Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo, in the mountains of the