I trod, by the falls of the Handeck,
On the end of a penny cigar;
As I roamed in the woods above Landeck
A hair-pin my pleasure did mar:
To the Riffel in vain I retreated,
Mr. Gaze and the Gazers were there;
On the top of the Matterhorn seated
I picked up a lady's back hair!
From the Belle Vue in Thun I was hunted
By "'Arry" who wished to play pool;
On the Col du Bonhomme I confronted
The whole of a young ladies' school.
At Giacomo's Inn in Chiesa
I was asked to take shares in a mine;
With an agent for "Mappin's new Razor"
I sat down at Baveno to dine.
On the waves of Lake Leman were floating
Old lemons (imagine my feelings!),
The fish in Lucerne were all gloating
On cast-away salads and peelings;
And egg-shells and old bones of chicken
On the shore of St. Moritz did lie:
My spirit within me did sicken—
Sweet Solitude, where shall I fly?
Disconsolate, gloomy, and undone
I take in the "Dilly" my place;
By Zurich and Basel to London
I rush, as if running a race.
My quest and my troubles are over;
As I drive through the desolate street
To my Club in Pall Mall, I discover
Sweet Solitude's summer retreat.
MEDITATIONS OF A
CLASSICAL MAN ON A MATHEMATICAL PAPER
DURING A LATE FELLOWSHIP EXAMINATION.
Woe, woe is me! for whither can I fly?
Where hide me from Mathesis' fearful eye?
Where'er I turn the Goddess haunts my path,
Like grim Megoera in revengeful wrath:
In accents wild, that would awake the dead,
Bids me perplexing problems to unthread;
Bids me the laws of x and y to unfold,
And with "dry eyes" dread mysteries behold.
Not thus, when blood maternal he had shed,
The Furies' fangs Orestes wildly fled;
Not thus Ixion fears the falling stone,
Tisiphone's red lash, or dark Cocytus' moan.
Spare me, Mathesis, though thy foe I be,
Though at thy altar ne'er I bend the knee,
Though o'er thy "Asses' Bridge" I never pass,
And ne'er in this respect will prove an ass;
Still let mild mercy thy fierce anger quell! oh
Let, let me live to be a Johnian fellow!
* * * * * *
She hears me not! with heart as hard as lead,
She hurls a Rhombus at my luckless head.
Lo, where her myrmidons, a wrangling crew,
With howls and yells rise darkling to the view.
There Algebra, a maiden old and pale,
Drinks "double x," enough to drown a whale.
There Euclid, 'mid a troop of "Riders" passes,
Riding a Rhomboid o'er the Bridge of Asses;
And shouts to Newton, who seems rather deaf,
I've crossed the Bridge in safety Q.E.F.
There black Mechanics, innocent of soap,
Lift the long lever, pull the pulley's rope,
Coil the coy cylinder, explain the fear
Which makes the nurse lean slightly to her rear;
Else, equilibrium lost, to earth she'll fall,
Down will come child, nurse, crinoline and all!
But why describe the rest? a motley crew,
Of every figure, magnitude, and hue:
Now circles they describe; now form in square;
Now cut ellipses in the ambient air:
Then in my ear with one accord they bellow,
"Fly wretch! thou ne'er shalt be a Johnian Fellow!"