Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/68

28 THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE EXAMINATION.

in the midst, surrounded by his peers,

his ample front sublime uprears:

Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God,

While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod;

As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,

His voice, in thunder, shakes the sounding dome;

Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,

Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules.

Happy the youth! in Euclid's axioms tried,

Though little vers'd in any art beside;

Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to pen,

Scans Attic metres with a critic's ken.