THE END OF APRIL

This is the time when larks are singing loud
   And higher still ascending and more high,
This is the time when many a fleecy cloud
   Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky,
This is the time when most I love to lie
   Stretched on the links, now listening to the sea,
Now looking at the train that dawdles by;
   But James is going in for his degree.

James is my brother.  He has twice been ploughed,
   Yet he intends to have another shy,
Hoping to pass (as he says) in a crowd. 
   Sanguine is James, but not so sanguine I.
 If you demand my reason, I reply: 
   Because he reads no Greek without a key
And spells Thucydides c-i-d-y;
   Yet James is going in for his degree.

No doubt, if the authorities allowed
   The taking in of Bohns, he might defy
The stiffest paper that has ever cowed
   A timid candidate and made him fly. 
Without such aids, he all as well may try
   To cultivate the people of Dundee,
Or lead the camel through the needle’s eye;
   Yet James is going in for his degree.

Vain are the efforts hapless mortals ply
   To climb of knowledge the forbidden tree;
Yet still about its roots they strive and cry,
   And James is going in for his degree.

 THE SCIENCE CLUB

Hurrah for the Science Club! 
   Join it, ye fourth year men;
Join it, thou smooth-cheeked scrub,
   Whose years scarce number ten

Join it, divines most grave;
   Science, as all men know,
As a friend the Church may save,
   But may damage her as a foe.

(And in any case it is well,
   If attacking insidious doubt,
Or devoting H—–­ to H—–­,
   To know what you’re talking about.)

 Hurrah for the lang-nebbit word! 
   Hurrah for the erudite phrase,
That in Dura Den shall be heard,
   That shall echo on Kinkell Braes!

Hurrah for the spoils of the links
   (The golf-ball as well as the daisy)! 
Hurrah for explosions and stinks
   To set half the landladies crazy!

Hurrah for the fragments of boulders,
   Surpassing in size and in weight,
To be carried home on the shoulders
   And laid on the table in state!

Hurrah for the flying-machine
   Long buried from sight in a cupboard,
With bones that would never have been
   Desired of old Mother Hubbard!

 Hurrah for the hazardous boat,
   For the crabs (of all kinds) to be caught,
For the eggs on the surface that float,
   And the lump-sucker curiously wrought!

Hurrah for the filling of tanks
   In the shanty down by the shore,
For the Royal Society’s thanks,
   With Fellowships flying galore!

Hurrah for discourses on worms,
   Where one listens and comes away
With a stock of bewildering terms,
   And nothing whatever to pay!