THE SONG OF THE SHIRK.
WITH a countenance weary and worn,
With eyelids all heavy and red,
An Undergrad sat, in his nightgown torn,
Reading his Paley in bed.
Read, read, read,
Till his voice is quite feeble and low,
He can read no more, so in accents poor,
He sang of the dire Littlego.
Read, read, read,
While the Rooks are cawing around;
And read, read, read,
Till of Cabs I hear the sound.
If only last time I had passed,
And had left all this Littlego work,
I'd become a Jew or a "pious Hindoo,"
Or perhaps a barbarous Turk.
Read, read, read,
It's nothing but read all day;
Read, read, read,
Till I read myself away,
Paley and Euclid so hard,
Mathematics with Latin and Greek,
I only wish I had read them before,
For the Exam begins in a week.
O, men, who Examiners are,
Recollect when the period arrives
'Tis not only the papers you're setting this time,
But a limit to Undergrad's lives.
Read, read, read,
By days, by month, by year,
Reading forsooth so uncommonly hard,
That you feel excessively queer.
But why do I sing of them?
Their hearts are like pieces of stone,
I believe I ought to shun the thought
Of Examiners when I'm alone.
It makes me almost mad
To think of that awful sight;
O, dear, that to some the papers are stiff,
While to others they're easy and light.
Read, read, read,
My reading will never stop;
And what's its reward? a name in a list,
Where the bottom's as good as the top.
This tumbled bed, with its shaky legs,
Yon room in disorder so great,
All attired with cards, tobacco, and wine,
It shows that I kept it up late.
Read, read, read,
How full my time has been.
My reading I bless (?) for I possess
No leisure to read Light Green.
Hard Latin and odious Greek,
Hard Greek and odious Latin,
Their very dread makes me think this bed
Is the worst I ever sat in.
Read, read, read,
Till my brain becomes infirm;
Read, read, read,
In this and the Lenten Term.
And then the men who have passed,
As I see them in the street,
Will laugh at me, and twit, and jeer,
Whenever them I meet.
O, but to get through now—
A "Second" I would not mind,
With the "General" looming in front,
And the "Littlego" left behind.
Then to think of the feelings of those,
Who cannot these subjects acquire,
Is enough to give one the direst of woes
(Not to mention the wrath of your sire).
O, but for one short look
At the Euclid or Paley paper,
For one short glance, I soon would dance,
And cut about and caper.
A little peeping would ease my heart,
But from those papers hated,
My eyes must keep, for every peep
Might make me rusticated.
With a countenance weary and worn,
With his nose, alas! awfully red,
The Undergrad blew out his candle's flame,
And settled himself in his bed.
"Read, read, read,"
In his troubled sleep he said.
Examiners think on his piteous face,
If he's plucked, you know 'tis your disgrace,
So in the "First" or "Second" place
The man who reads Paley in bed.
P. M. W.
Light Green, Cambridge (W. Metcalfe and Son), 1882.