A College Career

I     When one is young and eager,          A bejant and a boy,     Though his moustache be meagre,          That cannot mar his joy     When at the Competition     He takes a fair position,     And feels he has a mission,          A talent to employ.     With pride he goes each morning          Clad in a scarlet gown,     A cap his head adorning          (Both bought of Mr. Brown);      He hears the harsh bell jangle,     And enters the quadrangle,     The classic tongues to mangle          And make the ancients frown.     He goes not forth at even,          He burns the midnight oil,     He feels that all his heaven          Depends on ceaseless toil;     Across his exercises     A dream of many prizes     Before his spirit rises,          And makes his raw blood boil.     II     Though he be green as grass is,          And fresh as new-mown hay     Before the first year passes          His verdure fades away.      His hopes now faintly glimmer,     Grow dim and ever dimmer,     And with a parting shimmer          Melt into 'common day.'     He cares no more for Liddell          Or Scott; and Smith, and White,     And Lewis, Short, and Riddle          Are 'emptied of delight.'     Todhunter and Colenso     (Alas, that friendships end so!)     He curses in extenso          Through morning, noon, and night.     No more with patient labour          The midnight oil he burns,     But unto some near neighbour          His fair young face he turns,      To share the harmless tattle     Which bejants love to prattle,     As wise as infant's rattle          Or talk of coots and herns.     At midnight round the city          He carols wild and free     Some sweet unmeaning ditty          In many a changing key;     And each succeeding verse is     Commingled with the curses     Of those whose sleep disperses          Like sal volatile.     He shaves and takes his toddy          Like any fourth year man,     And clothes his growing body          After another plan      Than that which once delighted     When, in the days benighted,     Like some wild thing excited          About the fields he ran.     III     A sweet life and an idle          He lives from year to year,     Unknowing bit or bridle          (There are no proctors here),     Free as the flying swallow     Which Ida's Prince would follow     If but his bones were hollow,          Until the end draws near.     Then comes a Dies Irae,          When full of misery     And torments worse than fiery          He crams for his degree;      And hitherto unvexed books,     Dry lectures, abstracts, text-books,     Perplexing and perplexed books,          Make life seem vanity.     IV     Before admiring sister          And mother, see, he stands,     Made Artium Magister          With laying on of hands.     He gives his books to others     (Perchance his younger brothers),     And free from all such bothers          Goes out into all lands.