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My book. [With] Six photographs of the heroic times
My book Six photographs of the heroic times - With Author:James Henry Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: POET'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The Registry preserves the date, Thirteenth December, Ninety eight, When first the spindle of my fate Began to twirl, and at Fi... more »fteen Of Hoggin once, now College, Green, In the Irish capital of our Queen, I entered on this mortal state, Nearly two thousand years too late, A chubby, handsome, healthy boy, My father's pride, my mother's joy. At two years old I 'd learned to walk And my half-native language talk; Forty months older went to school, Where I was forced to live by rule, To spell, make figures, and to hammer Hard at the quirks and que'rks of grammar. My Master was one Joseph Hiitton, Black browed, black dressed, black every button; Grim, feruled tyrant! skilled to rule By fear, not love, his ill-taught school; Who could of Christian charity preach, Yet knew each schoolboy by his breech. At ten I first began to dance; At twelve I 'd written a romance Full of the Arabian tales and Homer, Minerva, Mars, and caliph Omar. At fourteen, sent to grope for knowledge Among the monks of Trinity College, I learned each had an income clear Of twice five hundred pounds a year; For which he took an oath to preach Staunch orthodoxy, and to teach Saint Patrick's rising generation To know, by certain calculation, How many times four pops make eight, And why a curved line is not straight. Fifteen and half years old, one day — 'Twas in this flowery month of May — A pair of bhie eyes beamed on me So softly, sweetly, tenderly, I all at once forgot books, knowledge, And orthodoxy and my college; All vanished, like dissolving views, From my young brain, or, if ye choose, From my poor heart, and in their place Came airs angelic, forms of gr...« less