The Scarlet Gown: Being Verses by a St. Andrews Man
‘They could none of them bide, for the world was wide, And the sky above was blue.’

p. 96

p. 97THE END OF APRIL

p. 97

This is the time when larks are singing loud And higher still ascending and more high, This is the time when many a fleecy cloud Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky, This is the time when most I love to lie Stretched on the links, now listening to the sea, Now looking at the train that dawdles by; But James is going in for his degree.

James is my brother. He has twice been ploughed, Yet he intends to have another shy, Hoping to pass (as he says) in a crowd. Sanguine is James, but not so sanguine I. p. 98 If you demand my reason, I reply:  Because he reads no Greek without a key And spells Thucydides c-i-d-y; Yet James is going in for his degree.

p. 98

No doubt, if the authorities allowed The taking in of Bohns, he might defy The stiffest paper that has ever cowed A timid candidate and made him fly. Without such aids, he all as well may try To cultivate the people of Dundee, Or lead the camel through the needle’s eye; Yet James is going in for his degree.

Vain are the efforts hapless mortals ply To climb of knowledge the forbidden tree; Yet still about its roots they strive and cry, And James is going in for his degree.

p. 99THE SCIENCE CLUB

p. 99

Hurrah for the Science Club! Join it, ye fourth year men; Join it, thou smooth-cheeked scrub, Whose years scarce number ten

Join it, divines most grave; Science, as all men know, As a friend the Church may save, But may damage her as a foe.

(And in any case it is well, If attacking insidious doubt, Or devoting H--- to H---, To know what you’re talking about.)

p. 100Hurrah for the lang-nebbit word! Hurrah for the erudite phrase, That in Dura Den shall be heard, That shall echo on Kinkell Braes!

p. 100

Hurrah for the spoils of the links  (The golf-ball as well as the daisy)! Hurrah for explosions and stinks To set half 
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