Granta
Oh! could Le Sage’s demon’s gift
Be realized at my desire,
This night my trembling form he’d lift
To place it on St. Mary’s spire.
Then would, unroof’d, old Granta’s halls
Pedantic inmates full display;
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls’
The price of venal votes to pay.
Then would I view each rival wight,
Petty and Palreerston survey;
Who canvass there with all their might,
Against the next elective day.
Lo! candidates and voters lie
All lull’d in sleep, a goodly number;
A race renown’d for piety
Whose conscience won’t disturb their slumber.
Lord H—, indeed, may not demur:
Fellows are sage, reflecting men:
They know preferment can occur
But very seldom,—now and then.
They know the Chancellor has got
Some pretty livings in disposal:
Each hopes that one may be his lot,
And therefore smiles on his proposal.
Now from the soporific scene
I’ll turn mine eye, as night grows later,
To view, unheeded and unseen,
The studious sons of Alma Mater.
There, in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college prizes
Sits poring by the midnight lamp;
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.
He surely well deserves to gain them,
With all the honours of his college,
Who, striving hardly to obtain them,
Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge:
Who sacrifices hours of rest
To scan precisely meres Attic;
Or agitates his anxious breast
In solving problems mathematic:
[...] Read more
poem by Byron (1807)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
