I then observed, ‘What makes you look
So singularly glum?’
No notice of my words he took.
I said, ‘Pray, are you dumb?’
‘Oh no!’ he said, ‘I do not think
My power of speech is lost,
But when one’s hopes are black as ink,
Why, talking is a frost.
‘You see, I’m in for Math. again,
And certain to be ploughed.
Please tell me where I could obtain
An inexpensive shroud.’
I told him where such things are had,
Well made, and not too dear;
And, feeling really very sad,
I left him on the pier.
THE M.A. DEGREE
after wordsworth
It was a phantom of delight
When first it gleamed upon my sight,
A scholarly distinction, sent
To be a student’s ornament.
The hood was rich beyond compare,
The gown was a unique affair.
By this, by that my mind was drawn
Then, in my academic dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay
Before me then was my M.A.
I saw it upon nearer view,
A glory, yet a bother too!
For I perceived that I should be
Involved in much Philosophy
(A branch in which I could but meet
Works that were neither light nor sweet);
In Mathematics, not too good
For human nature’s daily food;
And Classics, rendered in the styles
Of Kelly, Bohn, and Dr. Giles.
And now I own, with some small spleen,
A most confounded ass I’ve been;
The glory seems an empty breath,
And I am nearly bored to death
With Reason, Consciousness, and Will,
And other things beyond my skill,
Discussed in books all darkly planned
And more in number than the sand.
Yet that M.A. still haunts my sight,
With something of its former light.