He leans himself 'gainst Learning's iron gate,

While all the future frowns upon his track,

And all the past conspires to pull him back;

When, with tired resolution in his looks,

He bends above the cabalistic books,

And strives, with knitted forehead throbbing hot,

To learn what older students have forgot;

And wonders how the Romans and the Greeks

Could cry aloud and spare their jaws and cheeks;

And wants the Algebraic author put