Envoy - To Charles Baxter

Do you remember     That afternoon - that Sunday afternoon! -     When, as the kirks were ringing in,     And the grey city teemed     With Sabbath feelings and aspects,     LEWIS - our LEWIS then,     Now the whole world's - and you,     Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,     Laden with BALZACS     (Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),     The first of many times     To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay     So long, so many centuries -     Or years is it! - ago?     Dear CHARLES, since then     We have been friends, LEWIS and you and I,     (How good it sounds, 'LEWIS and you and I!'):     Such friends, I like to think,     That in us three, LEWIS and me and you,     Is something of that gallant dream     Which old DUMAS - the generous, the humane,     The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven! -     Dreamed for a blessing to the race,     The immortal Musketeers.     Our ATHOS rests - the wise, the kind,     The liberal and august, his fault atoned,     Rests in the crowded yard     There at the west of Princes Street.    We three -     You, I, and LEWIS! - still afoot,     Are still together, and our lives,     In chime so long, may keep     (God bless the thought!)     Unjangled till the end.     W. E. H.     CHISWICK, March 1888