What shall I write of? What subject indite of?
All my vis viva is failing;
Emeritus sum; Mons Parnassus is dumb, and my
prayers to the Nine unavailing.—
Thus in vain have I often attempted to soften
the hard heart of Mr. Arenae;
Like a sop, I must throw him some sort of a
poem, in spite of unwilling Camenae.
* * * * * *
No longer I roam in my Johnian home, no more
in the "wilderness" wander;
And absence we know, for the Poet says so,
makes the heart of the lover grow fonder.
I pine for the Cam, like a runaway lamb that
misses his woolly-backed mother;
I can find no relief for my passionate grief, nor
my groanings disconsolate smother.
Say, how are you all in our old College Hall?
Are the dinners more costly, or plainer?