Twenty Golden Years Ago. By Mangan, James Clarence. O, the rain, the weary, dreary rain, How it plashes on the window-sill! Night, I guess too, must be on the wane, Strass and Gass around are grown so still. Here I sit, with coffee in my cup - Ah! 'twas rarely I beheld it flow In the taverns where I loved to sup Twenty golden years ago! Twenty years ago, alas! -but stay, On my life, 'tis half-past twelve o'clock! After all, the hours do slip away. Come, here goes to burn another block! For the night, or morn, is wet and cold, And my fire is dwindling rather low: - I had fire enough, when young and bold, Twenty golden years ago! Dear! I don't feel well at all, somehow: Few in Weimar dream how bad I am; Floods of tears grow common with me now, High-Dutch floods, that Reason cannot dam. Doctors think I'll neither live nor thrive If I mope at home so -I don't know! Am I living now? I was alive Twenty golden years ago. Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone, Not quite bookless, though, unless I choose; Left with nought to do, except to groan, Not a soul to woo, except the Muse - O! this, this is hard for me to bear, Me, who whilom lived so much en haut, Me, who broke all hearts like chinaware Twenty golden years ago! Perhaps 'tis better Time's defacing waves Long have quenched the radiance of my brow; They who curse me nightly from their graves Scarce could love me were they living now. But my loneliness hath darker ills: Such dun duns as Conscience, Thought, and Co., Awful Gorgons! worse than tailor's bills Twenty golden years ago! Did I paint a fifth of what I feel, O, how plaintive you would ween I was! But I won't, albeit I have a deal More to wail about than Kerner has! Kerner's tears are wept for withered flowers, Mine for withered hopes; my scroll of woe Dates, alas, from youth's deserted bowers, Twenty golden years ago. Yet, may Deutchland bardlings flourish long! Me, I tweak no beak among them; hawks Must not pounce on hawks: besides, in song I could not once beat all of them by chalks. Though you find me, as I near my goal, Sentimentalizing like Rousseau, Ah, I had a grand Byronian soul Twenty golden years ago! Tick-tick, tick-tick! -Not a sound save Time's, And the wind-gust as it drives the rain. Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes, Go to bed, and rest thine aching brain! Sleep! no more the dupe of hopes or schemes; Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow - Curious anticlimax to thy dreams Twenty golden years ago!