Fearless they leap, and every youngster feels
His Alma active in his hands and heels. 
   These are the sons of farmers, and they come
With partial fondness for the joys of home;
Their minds are coursing in their fathers’ fields,
And e’en the dream a lively pleasure yields;
They, much enduring, sit th’ allotted hours,
And o’er a grammar waste their sprightly powers;
They dance; but them can measured steps delight,
Whom horse and hounds to daring deeds excite? 
Nor could they bear to wait from meal to meal,
Did they not slily to the chamber steal,
And there the produce of the basket seize,
The mother’s gift! still studious of their ease. 
Poor Alma, thus oppress’d forbears to rise,
But rests or revels in the arms and thighs. 
   “But is it sure that study will repay
The more attentive and forbearing?”—­Nay! 
The farm, the ship, the humble shop, have each
Gains which severest studies seldom reach. 
   At College place a youth, who means to raise
His state by merit and his name by praise;
Still much he hazards; there is serious strife
In the contentions of a scholar’s life: 
Not all the mind’s attention, care, distress,
Nor diligence itself, ensure success: 
His jealous heart a rival’s powers may dread,
Till its strong feelings have confused his head,
And, after days and months, nay, years of pain,
He finds just lost the object he would gain. 
   But grant him this and all such life can give,
For other prospects he begins to live;
Begins to feel that man was form’d to look
And long for other objects than a book: 
In his mind’s eye his house and glebe he sees,
And farms and talks with farmers at his ease;
And time is lost, till fortune sends him forth
To a rude world unconscious of his worth;
There in some petty parish to reside,
The college boast, then turn’d the village guide: 
And though awhile his flock and dairy please,
He soon reverts to former joys and ease,
Glad when a friend shall come to break his rest,
And speak of all the pleasures they possess’d,
Of masters, fellows, tutors, all with whom
They shared those pleasures, never more to come;
Till both conceive the times by bliss endear’d,
Which once so dismal and so dull appear’d. 
   But fix our Scholar, and suppose him crown’d
With all the glory gain’d on classic ground;
Suppose the world without a sigh resign’d,
And to his college all his care confined;
Give him all honours that such states allow,
The freshman’s terror and the tradesman’s bow;
Let his apartments with his taste agree,
And all his views be those he loves to see;
Let him each day behold the savoury treat,
For which he pays not, but is paid to eat;
These joys and glories soon delight no more,
Although, withheld, the mind is vex’d and sore;
The honour too is to the place confined,
Abroad they know not each superior mind: