First grasp’d these barbarous weapons, bitter cause
Of foul disgrace, and many a dolorous groan,
To hapless school-boy!—Could it not suffice
I groaned and toil’d beneath the merciless weight
By stern relentless tyranny impos’d;
But scourges too, and cudgels, were reserv’d
To goad my harrow’d sides: this wretched life
Loading with heavier ills! a life expos’d
To all the woes of hunger, toil, distress;
Cut off from every genial source of bliss;