And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller betwixt life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength and skill, A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright, With something of an angel light. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. ―――― THE M.A. DEGREE. It was a phantom of delight When first it gleamed upon my sight, A scholarly distinction, sent To be a student’s ornament; I did not know nor did I care What work there might be to prepare, For all my mind to work was drawn Then, in my academic dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay Before me then was my M. A. I saw it upon nearer view, A glory, yet a bother too! For I perceived that I should be Involved in much Philosophy (A branch in which I could but meet Works that were more obscure than sweet); In Mathematics, scarcely good For human nature’s daily food; And Classics――rendered in the styles Of Kelly, Bohn, and Dr. Giles. And now I own, with some small spleen, A most confounded ass I’ve been; The glory seems an empty breath, And I am nearly bored to death With Reason, Consciousness, and Will, And other things beyond my skill, Discussed in books all darkly plann’d And more in number than the sand.―― Yet that M.A. still haunts my sight With something of its former light. From _The University News Sheet_. St. Andrews. N.B. March 24, 1886. ―――― ON AUBERON HERBERT. He was a Great Panjandrum, quite, When first he burst upon our sight; An Admirable Crichton, sent To be the nation’s ornament. His eyes possessed the Sphinx’s glare, The Sphinx’s, too, his stony air; But all things else about him drawn In tints of the millennial dawn. A mighty sage, a Mentor great, To chide, to chivvy, and to slate. We saw him upon nearer view A Radical, yet a Tory too! With thoughts from Party bondage free, And steps of chartered liberty. A diction his in which did meet Tart enmities and phrases sweet. A creature far too wise and good For civic nature’s daily food. For Salisbury’s schemes or Gladstone’s wiles; He rates, and rallies, and reviles. And now cantankerously serene He pitches into “The Machine,” Breathing hot wrath in every breath On Gladstone and his shibboleth. Having the will, if not the skill, All schemes――save _his_――to scotch or kill. A perfect Oracle――nobly planned, To scold, to scathe, and to command. And yet with an admixture slight Of _blague_ and bounce, and blatherumskite! _Punch._ June 5, 1886. ――――:o:―――― DUSTY BOB. _A Parody upon the style of Wordsworth, one of the Lake Poets, and author of “The Oxford Street Fiddler,” &c._