With pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long;
With a wild mistress, a stanch1 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, 'tis a garret, -- let him know't who will, --
There was 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.

And see my little Lizzy, first of all;
She comes with pouting lips and sparkling eyes
Behold, how roguishly she pins her shawl
Across the narrow casement, curtain-wise;
Now by the bed her petticoat glides down,
And when did woman look the worse in none?
I have heard since who paid for many a gown,
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 fount of hope that never will outrun,
And drink all life's quintessence in an hour,
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!