V.

Will the pedant name her next?
Crabbed with a crabbed text
Sits he in his study nook,
With his elbow on a book,
And with stately crossed knees,
And a wrinkle deeply thrid
Through his lowering brow,
Caused by making proofs enow
That Plato in "Parmenides"
Meant the same Spinoza did,--
Or, that an hundred of the groping
Like himself, had made one Homer,
Homeros being a misnomer
What hath he to do with praise
Of Earth or aught? Whene'er the sloping
Sunbeams through his window daze
His eyes off from the learned phrase,
Straightway he draws close the curtain.
May abstraction keep him dumb!
Were his lips to ope, 't is certain
"Derivatum est" would come.