MEGALOMANIA, BY A FOURTH YEAR MAN (AFTER MILTON) by RONALD ARBUTHNOTT KNOX

HENCE, vain Committee meetings,
Of politics and social fervour born,
Meals at the Grid, and grinds that break the morn:
Hence, peaceful punt and noisy Quad,
To some retreat by man untrod,
Some limbo yet impenetrate of Keating's.
But come, my goddess that shalt be,
Humaniores Literae;
Come, with lecture-haunting haste,
And note-books cunningly enlac'd,
Come with Hope and simple Faith
And philosophick Shibboleth,
And ancient History in thy train,
Pensive, sober, and humane.
When I rise, no punctual Dean
Shall summon me at 1.15,
No jealous pen the record keep
Betwixt my Matins and my sleep.
So to breakfast, and anon
I rise t' attend the drowsy don,
Telling his rosary evermore
Of Tacit, Grote, and Diodore:
Still will I walk, from dawn to dusk
In raiment sordid and subfusc,
Ever, in thought, the candid tie
Shall be my neck's phylactery.
And I will take, 'neath wintry skies,
My postmeridian exercise
To Ferry Hincksey, or the Parks,
Now in Oxon, now in Berks,
With an uncomplaining friend
Discoursing wisely of the End:
(Wherewith the nimble Stagirite
Commenc'd his work, and said, when night
O'ertook him prating of the Meoov,
"Let us begin" -- the Second Lesson).
Then will I to my books again
Till the whisky'd hour of ten,
Or such time as the weary'd Progs
Call in their base-informing dogs.
Such life might well the Gods beseem.
Then to bed at night, to dream
Of Alphas struggling with a pair
Of Categories in the air.
Love-lorn Idealists, that seek
Presentations most unique,
And golfers playing, frantick souls,
Round Copulas of eighteen Wholes.
And ever, to delude my foes,
Wrap me in a cynick pose
Of intellectual despair,
Holier than hermit's shirt of hair.
These give me, and a score of dates,
And I will get a_______in Greats.

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