TO AN UNAPPRECIATIVE UNIVERSITY
WITH all my mental pabulum I like to be a ruminant,
Not gobble up too hastily my fodder ;
My mind is busy as a bloomin’ spider or a bloomin’ ant,
But I don’t despise the necessary plodder.
I’m assured by all who know me I’m a most transcendent
genius ;
I’m as clever as a Cayley or a Newton ;
I breast the tape with Kelvin, and with Ramsay, and
Arrhenius,
But I copy the stolidity that’s Teuton.
I envy not the lightning of the insight of an Oscar Wilde ;
My mental motto is Festina lente;
I might have made the eminent composerman of “ Tosca ”
wild,
I admit that I have certainly made plenty.
But I find that in a Tripos (tis the Moral Scientific)
I have never time to understand the question ;
When the clock strikes I am only just beginning a terrific
Answer after the completest of digestion.
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