The End Of April

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.
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.

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.

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

Midnight

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The Best Pipe

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Cairnsmill Den--Tune: 'A Roving'

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The City Of Golf

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A College Career

I

When one is young and eager,
    A bejant and a boy,
Though his moustache be meagre,
    That cannot mar his joy
When at the Competition
He takes a fair position,
And feels he has a mission,
    A talent to employ.

With pride he goes each morning
    Clad in a scarlet gown,
A cap his head adorning
    (Both bought of Mr. Brown);
He hears the harsh bell jangle,
And enters the quadrangle,
The classic tongues to mangle
    And make the ancients frown.

He goes not forth at even,
    He burns the midnight oil,
He feels that all his heaven
    Depends on ceaseless toil;
Across his exercises
A dream of many prizes
Before his spirit rises,
    And makes his raw blood boil.

II

Though he b...

Robert Fuller Murray

Adventure Of A Poet

As I was walking down the street
    A week ago,
Near Henderson's I chanced to meet
    A man I know.

His name is Alexander Bell,
    His home, Dundee;
I do not know him quite so well
    As he knows me.

He gave my hand a hearty shake,
    Discussed the weather,
And then proposed that we should take
    A stroll together.

Down College Street we took our way,
    And there we met
The beautiful Miss Mary Gray,
    That arch coquette,
Who stole last spring my heart away
    And has it yet.

That smile with which my bow she greets,
    Would it were fonder!
Or else less fond--since she its sweets
    On all must squander.
Thus, when I meet her in the streets,
    I sadly ponder,
And after her, as she r...

Robert Fuller Murray

A Swinburnian Interlude

Short space shall be hereafter
    Ere April brings the hour
Of weeping and of laughter,
    Of sunshine and of shower,
Of groaning and of gladness,
Of singing and of sadness,
Of melody and madness,
    Of all sweet things and sour.

Sweet to the blithe bucolic
    Who knows nor cribs nor crams,
Who sees the frisky frolic
    Of lanky little lambs;
But sour beyond expression
To one in deep depression
Who sees the closing session
    And imminent exams.

He cannot hear the singing
    Of birds upon the bents,
Nor watch the wildflowers springing,
    Nor smell the April scents.
He gathers grief with grinding,
Foul food of sorrow finding
In books of dreary binding
    And drearier contents.

One hope alone su...

Robert Fuller Murray

Reflections Of A Magistrand. On Returning To St. Andrews

In the hard familiar horse-box I am sitting once again;
Creeping back to old St. Andrews comes the slow North British train,

Bearing bejants with their luggage (boxes full of heavy books,
Which the porter, hot and tipless, eyes with unforgiving looks),

Bearing third year men and second, bearing them and bearing me,
Who am now a fourth year magnate with two parts of my degree.

We have started off from Leuchars, and my thoughts have started too
Back to times when this sensation was entirely fresh and new.

When I marvelled at the towers beyond the Eden's wide expanse,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's manse

With some money in his pocket, with some down upon his cheek,
With the elements of Latin, with the rudiments of Greek.

...

Robert Fuller Murray

Thirty Years After

Two old St. Andrews men, after a separation of nearly thirty years, meet by chance at a wayside inn.    They interchange experiences; and at length one of them, who is an admirer of Mr. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, speaks as follows:

If you were now a bejant,
    And I a first year man,
We'd grind and grub together
In every kind of weather,
When Winter's snows were regent,
    Or when the Spring began;
If you were now a bejant,
    And I a first year man.

If you were what you once were,
    And I the same man still,
You'd be the gainer by it,
For you--you can't deny it--
A most uncommon dunce were;
    My profit would be nil,
If you were what you once were,
    And I the same man still.

If you were last in Latin,
    And I ...

Robert Fuller Murray

Hic Vir, Hic Est.

Often, when o'er tree and turret,
Eve a dying radiance flings,
By that ancient pile I linger
Known familiarly as "King's."
And the ghosts of days departed
Rise, and in my burning breast
All the undergraduate wakens,
And my spirit is at rest.

What, but a revolting fiction,
Seems the actual result
Of the Census's enquiries
Made upon the 15th ult.?
Still my soul is in its boyhood;
Nor of year or changes recks.
Though my scalp is almost hairless,
And my figure grows convex.

Backward moves the kindly dial;
And I'm numbered once again
With those noblest of their species
Called emphatically 'Men':
Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,
Through the streets, with tranquil mind,
And a long-backed fancy-mongrel
Trailing casually ...

Charles Stuart Calverley