Just Eton boys, grown heavy

 

I've always loved these lines by Praed, although I did not go to Eton. I wonder if David Cameron, Boris Johnson and the Archbishop of Canterbury do. 

In Parliament I fill my seat,
With many other noodles;
And lay my head in Jermyn Street,
And sip my hock at Boodles.
But often, when the cares of life
Have set my temples aching,
When visions haunt me of a wife,
When duns await my waking ...
I wish that I could run away
From House, and Court, and Levee,
Where bearded men appear today
Just Eton boys, grown heavy;
That I could bask in childhood’s sun,
And dance o’er childhood’s roses,
And find huge wealth in one pound one,
Vast wit in broken noses;
And play Sir Giles at Datchet Lane,
And call the milk-maids Houris;
That I could be a boy again,
A happy boy, at Drury’s.

Mr. Cameron belongs to White's, of course, though I feel Brooks's is his spiritual home because I think he is a Whig.

It is amazing to me who many very good, classic authors, like Praed, are not read by my generation or younger people. He is a wonderful light poet and has the easiness of the wits of either Charleses' days.