Arthur Clement Hilton
The Vulture and the Husbandman
By Louisa Caroline.
(‘Lewis Carroll’)
N.B.—A Vulture is a rapacious and obscene bird, which destroys its prey by plucking it limb from limb with its powerful beak and talons.
A Husbandman is a man in a low position of life, who supports himself by the use of the plough.
—Johnson’s Dictionary.
The rain was raining cheerfully,
As if it had been May;
The Senate-House appeared inside
Unusually gay;
And this was strange, because it was
A Viva-Voce day.
The men were sitting sulkily,
Their paper work was done;
They wanted much to go away
To ride or row or run;
‘It’s very rude,’ they said, ‘to keep
Us here, and spoil our fun.’
The papers they had finished lay
In piles of blue and white.
They answered everything they could,
And wrote with all their might,
But, though they wrote it all by rote,
They did not write it right.
The Vulture and the Husbandman
Beside these piles did stand,
They wept like anything to see
The work they had in hand,
‘If this were only finished up,’
Said they, ‘it would be grand!’
‘If seven D’s or seven C’s
We give to all the crowd,
Do you suppose,’ the Vulture said,
‘That we could get them ploughed?’
‘I think so,’ said the Husbandman,
‘But pray don’t talk so loud.’
‘O undergraduates, come up,’
The Vulture did beseech,
‘And let us see if you can learn
As well as we can teach;
We cannot do with more than two
To have a word with each.’
Two Undergraduates came up,
And slowly took a seat,
They knit their brows, and bit their thumbs,
As if they found them sweet,
And this was odd, because you know
Thumbs are not good to eat.
‘The time has come,’ the Vulture said,
‘To talk of many things,
Of Accidence and Adjectives,
And names of Jewish kings,
How many notes a sackbut has,
And whether shawms have strings.’
‘Please, sir,’ the Undergraduates said,
Turning a little blue,
‘We did not know that was the sort
Of thing we had to do.’
‘We thank you much,’ the Vulture said,
‘Send up another two.’
Two more came up, and then two more;
And more, and more, and more;
And some looked upwards at the roof,
Some down upon the floor,
But none were any wiser than
The pair that went before.
‘I weep for you,’ the Vulture said,
‘I deeply sympathize!’
With sobs and tears he gave them all
D’s of the largest size,
While at the Husbandman he winked
One of his streaming eyes.
‘I think,’ observed the Husbandman,
‘We’re getting on too quick.
Are we not putting down the D’s
A little bit too thick?’
The Vulture said with much disgust
‘Their answers make me sick.’
‘Now, Undergraduates,’ he cried,
‘Our fun is nearly done,
Will anybody else come up?’
But answer came there none;
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d ploughed them every one!
The Heathen Pass-Ee
Being the Story of a Pass Examination. By Bred Hard.
(Bret Harte)
Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for plots that are dark
And not always in vain,
The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar,
And the same I would rise to explain.
I would also premise
That the term of Pass-ee
Most fitly applies,
As you probably see,
To one whose vocation is passing
The ‘ordinary B.A. degree.’
Tom Crib was his name.
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply,
But his face it was trustful and childlike,
And he had the most innocent eye.
Upon April the First
The Little-Go fell,
And that was the worst
Of the gentleman’s sell,
For he fooled the Examining Body
In a way I’m reluctant to tell.
The candidates came
And Tom Crib soon appeared;
It was Euclid. The same
Was ‘the subject he feared,’
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was wary and weird.
Yet he did what he could,
And the papers he showed
Were remarkably good,
And his countenance glowed
With pride when I met him soon after
As he walked down the Trumpington Road.
We did not find him out,
Which I bitterly grieve,
For I’ve not the least doubt
That he’d placed up his sleeve
Mr. Todhunter’s excellent Euclid,
The same with intent to deceive.
But I shall not forget
How the next day at two
A stiff paper was set
By Examiner U...
On Euripides’ tragedy, Bacchae.
A subject Tom ‘partially knew.’
But the knowledge displayed
By that heathen Pass-ee,
And the answers he made
Were quite frightful to see,
For he rapidly floored the whole paper
By about twenty minutes to three.
Then I looked up at U...
And he gazed upon me.
I observed, ‘This won’t do.’
He replied, ‘Goodness me!
We are fooled by this artful young person,’
And he sent for that heathen Pass-ee.
The scene that ensued
Was disgraceful to view,
For the floor it was strewed
With a tolerable few
Of the ‘tips’ that Tom Crib had been hiding
For the ‘subject he partially knew.’
On the cuff of his shirt
He had managed to get
What we hoped had been dirt,
But which proved, I regret,
To be notes on the rise of the Drama,
A question invariably set.
In his various coats
We proceeded to seek,
Where we found sundry notes
And—with sorrow I speak—
One of Bohn’s publications, so useful
To the student of Latin or Greek.
In the crown of his cap
Were the Furies and Fates,
And a delicate map
Of the Dorian States,
And we found in his palms which were hollow,
What are frequent in palms,—that is dates.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for plots that are dark
And not always in vain,
The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.
Octopus125
By Algernon Charles Sin-burn.
(Swinburne)
Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed,
Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?
With thy bosom bespangled and banded
With the hues of the seas and the skies;
Is thy home European or Asian,
O mystical monster marine?
Part molluscous and partly crustacean,
Betwixt and between.
Wast thou born to the sound of sea-trumpets?
Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess
Of the sponges—thy muffins and crumpets,
Of the seaweed—thy mustard and cress?
Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral,
Remote from reproof or restraint?
Art thou innocent, art thou immoral,
Sinburnian or Saint?
Lithe limbs, curling free, as a creeper
That creeps in a desolate place,
To enrol and envelop the sleeper
In a silent and stealthy embrace,
Cruel beak craning forward to bite us,
Our juices to drain and to drink,
Or to whelm us in waves of Cocytus,
Indelible ink!
O breast, that ’twere rapture to writhe on!
O arms ’twere delicious to feel
Clinging close with the crush of the Python,
When she maketh her murderous meal!
In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden,
Let our empty existence escape;
Give us death that is glorious and golden,
Crushed all out of shape!
Ah! thy red lips, lascivious and luscious,
With death in their amorous kiss!
Cling round us, and clasp us, and crush us,
With bitings of agonized bliss;
We are sick with the poison of pleasure,
Dispense us the potion of pain;
Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure
And bite us again!