o have a Musical Degree:
Some say that it the title was and others say the gown
That captive took the soaring soul of Bach Beethoven Brown.

But ah! our Statues grovelling command their candidates
To satisfy examiners in Smalls, and Mods., and Greats,
To learn those verbs irregular which men of taste abhor,
Before you can a Doctor be or e'en a Bachelor!

O mores! and O tempora! can pedantry compel
Musicians who write choruses to construe them as well?
Is this (I ask) the way to deal with genius great and high?
Why fetter it with Latin Prose? and Echo answers "Why?"

Beethoven Brown is famous still, though ignorant of Greek,
He writes cantatas every month and anthems once a week:
And still in every capital and each provincial town
Piano organs play the tunes of Bach Beethoven Brown;

Earls, Viscounts, Dukes, and R-y-lties his music throng to hear:
Already he's a Baronet, and soon he'll be a Peer:
And--thrice a year this awful news a nation's heart appals,
That great Sir Bach Beethoven Brown is ploughed again in Smalls!

QUIETA MOVERE

"Any leap in the dark is better than standing still."--_New Proverb_.

Talk not to us of the joys of the Present,
Say not what is is undoubtedly best:
Never be ours to be merely quiescent--
Anything, everything rather than rest!

Placid prosperity bores us and vexes:
What if philosophers Latin and Greek
Say that well-being's a Status and _Exis_? [1]
Nothing should please you for more than a week.

Tinkering, doctoring, shifting, deranging,
Urged by a constant satiety on,
Ever the new for the newer exchanging,
Hazarding ever the gains we have won--

Only perpetual flux can delight us,
Blown like a billow by winds of the sea:
Still let us bow to the shrine of St. Vitus--
_Vite Sanctissime, ora pro me_!

Pray, that when leaps in the darkness uncaring
End in a fall (as they probably will),
Mine be the credit for valiantly daring,
Others be charged with defraying the bill!

[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Exis" was transliterated from the
Greek as follows: Epsilon (with the rough-breathing diacritical), xi,
iota, sigma.]

GRAECULUS ESURIENS

There came a Grecian Admiral to pale Britannia's shore--
In Eighteen Ninety-eight he came, and anchored off the Nore;
An ultimatum he despatched (I give the text complete),
Addressing it "_To Kurio_, the Premier