FOOTNOTES:
[34:1] First published in Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1895, i. 28, 29. The lines were included in a letter to Mrs. Evans, dated February 13, 1792.
A FRAGMENT FOUND IN A LECTURE-ROOM[35:1]
Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,
And bog and desolation reign supreme;
Where all Boeotia clouds the misty brain,
The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.
Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly, [5]
Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:
The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,
And Wit congeal'd stands fix'd in wintry trance.
But to the sounds with duteous haste repair
Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care; [10]
And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,
Pleas'd with the song uplifts her heavy head,
The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,
Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile. . . .
[Caetera desunt.]
1792.