2.

  Then would unroof’d old Granta’s Halls
    Pedantic inmates full display,
  Fellows who dream on lawn, or stalls,
    The price of hireling votes to pay.

3.

  Then would I view each rival Wight,
    PETTY and PALMERSTON survey,
  Who canvass now with all their might,
    Against the next elective day.

4.

  One on his power and place depends,
    The other on the Lord knows what,
  Each to some eloquence pretends,
    But neither will convince by that.

5.

  The first indeed may not demur,
    Fellows are sage reflecting men,
  And know preferment can occur,
    But very seldom, now and then.

6.

  They know the Chancellor has got,
    Some pretty livings in disposal,
  Each hopes that one may be his lot,
    And therefore smiles at his proposal.

7.

  Now from corruption’s shameless scene,
    I’ll turn mine eye, as night grows later,
  And view unheeded, and unseen,
    The studious sons of Alma Mater.

8.

  There in apartments small and damp,
    The candidate for college prizes,
  Sits poring by the midnight lamp,
    Goes late to bed and early rises.

9.

  He surely well deserves to gain them,
    And all the honours of His college,
  Who striving hardly to obtain them,
    Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge.

10.

  Who sacrifices hours of rest,
    To scan precisely metres attic,
  And agitates his anxious breast,
    In solving problems mathematic.

11.

  Who reads false quantities in Sele,[9]
    Or puzzles o’er the deep triangle,
  And robs himself of many a meal,
    In barbarous latin[10] doom’d to wrangle.

12.

  Renouncing every pleasing page,
    From authors of historic use,
  Preferring to the lettered sage,
    The square of the hypothenuse.[11]

13.

  But harmless are these occupations,
    Which hurt none but the hapless student;
  Compared with other recreations,
    Which bring together the imprudent.

14.

  Whose daring revels shock the sight,
    When vice and infamy combine,
  When drunkenness and dice unite,
    And every sense is steep’d in wine.

15.

  Not so the methodistic crew,
    Who plans of reformation lay,
  In humble attitude they sue,
    And for the sins of others pray.

16.

  Forgetting that their pride of spirit,
    And exultation in their trial;
  Detracts most largely from the merit,
    Of all their boasted self-denial.

17.

  ’Tis morn,—­from these I turn my sight,
    What scene is this which meets the eye,
  As numerous crowd array’d in white,[12]
    Across the green in numbers fly.