Fugitive Pieces

  Oh! could LE SAGE’s⁸ demon’s gift,
    Be realized at my desire,
  This night my trembling form he’d lift,
    And place it on St. Mary’s spire.

2.

  Then would unroof’d old Granta’s Halls
    Pedantic inmates full display,
  Fellows who dream on lawn, or stalls,
    The price of hireling votes to pay.

3.

  Then would I view each rival Wight,
    PETTY and PALMERSTON survey,
  Who canvass now with all their might,
    Against the next elective day.

4.

  One on his power and place depends,
    The other on the Lord knows what,
  Each to some eloquence pretends,
    But neither will convince by that.

5.

  The first indeed may not demur,
    Fellows are sage reflecting men,
  And know preferment can occur,
    But very seldom, now and then.

6.

  They know the Chancellor has got,
    Some pretty livings in disposal,
  Each hopes that one may be his lot,
    And therefore smiles at his proposal.

7.

  Now from corruption’s shameless scene,
    I’ll turn mine eye, as night grows later,
  And view unheeded, and unseen,
    The studious sons of Alma Mater.

8.

  There in apartments small and damp,
    The candidate for college prizes,
  Sits poring by the midnight lamp,
    Goes late to bed and early rises.

9.

  He surely well deserves to gain them,
    And all the honours of His college,
  Who striving hardly to obtain them,
    Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge.

10.

  Who sacrifices hours of rest,
    To scan precisely metres attic,
  And agitates his anxious breast,
    In solving problems mathematic.

11.

  Who reads false quantities in Sele,[9]
    Or puzzles o’er the deep triangle,
  And robs himself of many a meal,
    In barbarous latin[10] doom’d to wrangle.

12.

  Renouncing every pleasing page,
    From authors of historic use,
  Preferring to the lettered sage,
    The square of the hypothenuse.[11]

13.

  But harmless are these occupations,
    Which hurt none but the hapless student;
  Compared with other recreations,
    Which bring together the imprudent.

14.

  Whose daring revels shock the sight,
    When vice and infamy combine,
  When drunkenness and dice unite,
    And every sense is steep’d in wine.

15.

  Not so the methodistic crew,
    Who plans of reformation lay,
  In humble attitude they sue,
    And for the sins of others pray.

16.

  Forgetting that their pride of spirit,
    And exultation in their trial;
  Detracts most largely from the merit,
    Of all their boasted self-denial.

17.

  ’Tis morn,—­from these I turn my sight,
    What scene is this which meets the eye,
  As numerous crowd array’d in white,[12]
    Across the green in numbers fly.

18.

  Loud rings in air, the chapel bell,
    ’Tis hush’d,—­what sounds are these I hear,
  The organ’s soft celestial swell,
    Rolls deeply on the listening ear.

19.

  To this is join’d the sacred song,
    The royal minstrel’s hallowed strain,
  But he who hears the music long,
    Will never wish to hear again.

20.

  Our choir would scarcely be excus’d,
    Even as a band of raw beginners,
  But mercy now must be refus’d,
    To such a set of croaking sinners.

21.

  If David when his toils were ended,
    Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
  To us his psalms had ne’er descended,
    In furious mood he would have tore ’em.

22.

  The luckless Israelites when taken,
    By some inhuman tyrant’s order,
  Were ask’d to sing, by joy forsaken,
    On Babylonian river’s border.

23.

  But had they sung in notes like these,
    Inspir’d by stratagem, or fear,
  They might have set their hearts at ease,
    The devil a soul had stay’d to hear.

24.

  But if I write much longer now,
    The deuce a soul will stay to read,
  My pen is blunt, the ink is low,
    ’Tis almost time to stop, indeed.

25.

  Therefore farewell, old GRANTA’s spires,
    No more like Cleofas I fly,
  No more thy theme my muse inspires,
    The reader’s tired, and so am I.

October 28, 1806.

[Footnote 8:  The Diable Boiteux of LE SAGE, where Asmodeus the Demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for his inspection.]

[Footnote 9:  Sele’s publication on Greek metres is not remarkable for its accuracy.]

[Footnote 10:  Every Cambridge man will assent to this,—­the Latin of the Schools is almost unintelligible.]

[Footnote 11:  The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square of the Hypothenuse, is equal to the squares of the other two sides of a right angled triangle.]

[Footnote 12:  On a Saint Day, the Students wear Surplices in Chapel.]

* * * * *