Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GARRET, by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GARRET, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: With pensive eyes the little roon I view
Last Line: Give me the days when I was twenty-one!
Subject(s): Friendship


WITH pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long;
With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
And a light heart still breaking into song:
Making a mock of life, and all its cares,
Rich in the glory of my rising sun,
Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Yes; 't is a garret -- let him know 't who will --
There is my bed -- full hard it was and small;
My table there -- and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys, that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun;
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears:
We rise -- we join in the triumphant strain --
Napoleon conquers -- Austerlitz is won --
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Let us begone -- the place is sad and strange --
How far, far off, these happy times appear;
All that I have to live I'd gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here --
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power,
From founts of hope that never will outrun,
And drink all life's quintessence in an hour,
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!




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