The Scarlet Gown | Page 5

Warmly the light
Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay--
Blue, fringed with white.

That's no December sky!
Surely 'tis June
Holds now her state on high,
Queen of the noon.
Only the tree-tops bare
Crowning the hill,
Clear-cut in perfect air,
Warn us that still
Winter, the aged chief,
Mighty in power,
Exiles the tender leaf,
Exiles the flower.
Is there a heart to-day,
A heart that grieves
For flowers that fade away,
For fallen leaves?
Oh, not in leaves or flowers
Endures the charm
That clothes those naked towers
With love-light warm.
O dear St. Andrews Bay,
Winter or Spring
Gives not nor takes away
Memories that cling
All round thy girdling reefs,
That walk thy shore,
Memories of joys
and griefs
Ours evermore.

A COLLEGE CAREER
I
When one is young and eager,
A bejant and a boy,
Though his moustache be meagre,
That cannot mar his joy
When at the Competition
He takes a fair
position,
And feels he has a mission,
A talent to employ.
With pride he goes each morning
Clad in a scarlet gown,
A cap his head adorning
(Both bought of Mr. Brown);
He hears the harsh bell jangle,
And
enters the quadrangle,
The classic tongues to mangle
And make the ancients frown.
He goes not forth at even,
He burns the midnight oil,
He feels that all his heaven
Depends on ceaseless toil;
Across his exercises
A dream of many
prizes
Before his spirit rises,
And makes his raw blood boil.
II
Though he be green as grass is,
And fresh as new-mown hay
Before the first year passes
His verdure fades away.
His hopes now faintly glimmer,
Grow dim

and ever dimmer,
And with a parting shimmer
Melt into 'common day.'
He cares no more for Liddell
Or Scott; and Smith, and White,
And Lewis, Short, and Riddle
Are 'emptied of delight.'
Todhunter and Colenso
(Alas, that
friendships end so!)
He curses in extenso
Through morning, noon, and night.
No more with patient labour
The midnight oil he burns,
But unto some near neighbour
His fair young face he turns,
To share the harmless tattle
Which
bejants love to prattle,
As wise as infant's rattle
Or talk of coots and herns.
At midnight round the city
He carols wild and free
Some sweet unmeaning ditty
In many a changing key;
And each succeeding verse is

Commingled with the curses
Of those whose sleep disperses
Like sal volatile.
He shaves and takes his toddy
Like any fourth year man,
And clothes his growing body
After another plan
Than that which once delighted
When, in the
days benighted,
Like some wild thing excited

About the fields he ran.
III
A sweet life and an idle
He lives from year to year,
Unknowing bit or bridle
(There are no proctors here),
Free as the flying swallow
Which Ida's
Prince would follow
If but his bones were hollow,
Until the end draws near.
Then comes a Dies Irae,
When full of misery
And torments worse than fiery
He crams for his degree;
And hitherto unvexed books,
Dry lectures,
abstracts, text-books,
Perplexing and perplexed books,
Make life seem vanity.
IV
Before admiring sister
And mother, see, he stands,
Made Artium Magister
With laying on of hands.
He gives his books to others
(Perchance
his younger brothers),
And free from all such bothers
Goes out into all lands.
THE WASTER'S PRESENTIMENT
I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
For though I toil not, neither

do I spin,
I shall be spun.
April approaches. I have not begun
Schwegler or Mackintosh, nor will begin
Those lucid works till April
21.
So my degree I do not hope to win,
For not by ways like mine degrees are won;
And though, to please
my uncle, I go in,
I shall be spun.
THE CLOSE OF THE SESSION
The Session's over. We must say farewell
To these east winds and to this eastern sea,
For summer comes, with
swallow and with bee,
With many a flower and many a golfing swell.
No more the horribly discordant bell
Shall startle slumber; and all men agree
That whatsoever other things
may be
A cause of sorrow, this at least is well.
The class-room shall not open wide its doors,
Or if it does, such opening will be vain;
The gown shall hang unused upon a nail;
South Street shall know us
not; we'll wipe the Scores
From our remembrance; as for Mutto's Lane,
Yea, even the memory of this shall fail.

A BALLAD OF THE TOWN WATER
It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;
And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.
They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,
Till they found a civil, civil engineer,
And unto him did say:
'Now tell to us, thou civil engineer,
If this be fit to drink.'
And they showed him a cup of the town water,
Which was as black as ink.
He took three sips of the town water,
And black in the face was he;

And they turned them back and fled away,
Amazed that this should be.
And he has