Lyra Frivola | Page 5

what has become of our
midshipmites,
the terror of every foe,
And the captain brave who dares the wave
when the stormy winds do blow?
CHORUS
_For the tar may roam, but the tar comes home
to wherever his home may be,
With a Yo, heave ho, and a o e to, [1]
and a
Master of Arts Degree_!
They have gone to imbibe the classical lore

of Learning's ancient seat
(They are sadly at sea in the classics as
yet, though classis is Latin for fleet),
It is there you will find those
naval men,
by the Isis and eke the Cher.,
For Scholarship is the only ship that is
fit
for a bold Jack Tar.
He has bartered his rum for a coach and a
crib, at the First Lord's stern decree,
And he learns the use of the
rocket and
squib (which are useful as lights at sea):
And they train him in part of
the nautical
art, as much as a landsman can,
For they teach him to paddle the gay
canoe,
and to row the rash randan.
Should he e'er be inclined his Tutors and
Deans to look with contempt upon
(Observing the maxims of Raleigh
and
Drake, who never thought much of a Don),
Let him think there are
things in the nautical
line that even a Don can do,
For only too well are examiners versed
in
the way to plough the Blue!
Though a Captain per se is an excellent

thing for repelling his country's foes,
He is better by far, as an engine
of war, with
a knowledge of Logic and Prose:
And a bold A.B. is the nation's pride,
in
his rude uncultured way,
But prouder still will the nation be when
he's also a bold B.A.!
CHORUS
For the Horse Marine will be Tutor and Dean,
in the glorious days to be,
With his Yo, heave ho, and his o e to, [1]
and a
Master of Arts degree!
[1. Transcriber's note: the character group "o e to" was transliterated
from the Greek characters omicron (with the rough-breathing
diacritical), eta (with the rough-breathing diacritical), tau, and omicron
(with the soft-breathing diacritical).]
A DREAM
In sleep the errant phantasy,
No more by sense imprisoned,
Creates
what possibly might be
But actually isn't:
And this my tale is past
belief,
Of truth and reason emptied,
'Tis fiction manifest--in brief

I was asleep, and dreamt it.
I met a man by Isis' stream,
Whose phrase discreet and prudent,

Whose penchant for a learned theme
Proclaimed the Serious Student:

I never knew a scholar who
Could more at ease converse on
The
latest Classical Review
Than that superior person.
He spoke of books--all manly sports
He deemed but meet for scoffing:


He did not know the Racquet Courts--
He'd never heard of
golfing--
Professors ne'er were half so wise,
Nor Readers more
sedate!
He was--I learnt with some surprise--
An undergraduate.
Another man I met, whose head
Was crammed with pastime's annals,

And who, to judge from what he said,
Must simply live in flannels:

A shallow mind his talk proclaimed,
And showed of culture no
trace:
One "book" and one alone he named--
His own--'twas on the
Boat-race.
"Of course," you cry, "some brainless lad,
Some scion of ancient
Tories,
Bob Acres, sent to Oxford _ad
Emolliendos mores_,

Meant but to drain the festive glass
And win the athlete's pewter!"

There you are wrong: this person was
That undergraduate's Tutor.

Twas but a dream, I said above,
In concrete truth deficient,

Belonging to the region of
The wholly Unconditioned:
Yet, when I
see how strange the ways
Of undergrad. and Don are,
Methinks it
was, in classic phrase,
Not upar_ less than _onar. [1]
[1. Transcriber's note: the words "upar" and "onar" were transliterated
from the Greek as follows: "upar"--upsilon (possibly with the
rough-breathing diacritical), pi, alpha, and rho; "onar"--omicron
(possibly with the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha, and rho.]
THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE
I gazed with wild prophetic eye
Into the future vast and dim:
I saw
the University
Indulge its last and strangest whim:
It did away with
Mods and Greats,
Its other Schools abolished all:
And simply made
its candidates
Read Science Agricultural.
They learnt to hoe: they learnt to plough:
To delve and dig was all
their joy:
But O in ways we know not now

Those candidates we did

employ:
No more, accepting of a bribe
To take these persons off
our hands,
We sent them off, a studious tribe,
To distant climes and
foreign lands.
We did not then examine in
The subjects which we could not teach

To those who Honours aimed to win
We taught their subjects, all and
each
We made the Professoriate
Take from its Professorial shelf

Authorities of ancient date,
And teach the candidates itself
My scanty page could ne'er contain
Of works the long and learned list

By which it was their plan to train
The sucking agriculturist:
In
brief, the arts of tilling land
Sufficiently imparted were
By great
Professor Ellis, and
By great Professor Bywater.
One taught th' aspiring candidate
In Hesiod each alternate day:
One
showed him how the crops rotate
From Cato De Re Rustica:
The
bee that in our bonnets lurks
He taught to yield its honied store
By
reading Columella's works
And also Virgil (Georgic Four).
Yet not by