University of Virginia Library

The Discontented Student

A True Story

Returned from college R--- gets a wife
To be the joy and comfort of his life:
But ere the honeymoon was in the wane
He sighs for college and his books, again
To his thought on all occasions flock:
Like Madam Shandy, thinking of the clock.
But, sad mishap! when Phoebus gilds the skies,
If to his favorite authors he applies,
Bright Venus throws her cestus o'er the book;
In vain he tries upon the page to look;
As Cupid blind, the classic page no more
Delights his raptured sight as heretofore.
Like that sagacious beast, who placed between
Two cocks of hay—one dry, the other green,
Can neither taste; our scholar every night
Thinks of his books; and of his bride by light.
Untasted joys breed always discontents;
Thus to his sire, his rage the scholar vents.
“Would that in Italy I had been born,
And, early, of each vile encumbrance shorn,
Which now seduces all my thoughts away
From Classic studies or by night, or day.
Uninterrupted then I might have read
Or in my elbow chair, or in my bed;
Till drowsy grown, and nodding o'er the book
Upon the enchanting page I craved to look
And then in rapturous dreams renewed the joy
Till taking, I resumed the blest employ.
But now in vain I quit the genial bed,
My wife—a plague!—keeps running in my head
In ev'ry page I read my raging fires
Portray her yielding to my fierce desires.”
“G--- d--- your books!” the testy father said
“I'd not give --- for all you've read.”