But not a single Conic Section.

I recollect those harsh affairs,
The morning bells that gave us panics;
I recollect the formal prayers,
That seemed like lessons in Mechanics;
I recollect the drowsy way
In which the students listened to them,
As clearly, in my wig, to-day,
As when, a boy, I slumbered through them.

I recollect the tutors all
As freshly now, if I may say so,
As any chapter I recall
In Homer or Ovidius Naso.
I recollect, extremely well,
"Old Hugh," the mildest of fanatics;
I well remember Matthew Bell,
But very faintly, Mathematics.

I recollect the prizes paid
For lessons fathomed to the bottom;
(Alas that pencil-marks should fade!)
I recollect the chaps who got 'em,--
The light equestrians who soared
O'er every passage reckoned stony;
And took the chalks,--but never scored
A single honor to the pony!

Ah me! what changes Time has wrought,
And how predictions have miscarried!
A few have reached the goal they sought,
And some are dead, and some are married!
And some in city journals war;
And some as politicians bicker;
And some are pleading at the bar--
For jury-verdicts, or for liquor!

And some on Trade and Commerce wait;
And some in schools with dunces battle;
And some the Gospel propagate;
And some the choicest breeds of cattle;
And some are living at their ease;
And some were wrecked in "the revulsion;"
Some served the State for handsome fees,
And one, I hear, upon compulsion!

LAMONT, who, in his college days,
Thought e'en a cross a moral scandal,
Has left his Puritanic ways,
And worships now with bell and candle;
And MANN, who mourned the negro's fate,
And held the slave as most unlucky,
Now holds him, at the market rate,
On a plantation in Kentucky!

TOM KNOX--who swore in such a tone
It fairly might be doubted whether
It really was himself alone,
Or _Knox_ and Erebus together--
Has grown a very altered man,
And, changing oaths for mild entreaty,
Now recommends the Christian plan
To savages in Otaheite!

Alas for young ambition's vow!
How envious Fate may overthrow it!--
Poor HARVEY is in Congress now,
Who struggled long to be a poet;
SMITH carves (quite well) memorial stones,
Who tried in vain to make the law go;
HALL deals in hides; and "PIOUS JONES"
Is dealing faro in Chicago!

And, sadder still, the brilliant H