BALLADE OF TRIPOS FEVER
O smMuUG! in your desolate room,
Whatever’s the matter with you?
Your face is a picture of gloom,
Your pulse is a hundred and two,
Your eyelids are glued as with glue,
A towel is tied to your head,
You might be a man with the Flu!
“The Trip! and I wish I were dead!”
O blood! Mighty being ve whom
Our novelists say what is true!
You swear, and you fuss, and you fume,
And the saddest of books—if the view
That I catch of your dainty canoe
Be accurate—heavy as lead,
Are piled as you yawn and say “ Phew!
The Trip! and I wish I were dead!”
O ordin’ry persons! Who ‘lume
Your College (you are but a few)—
You seem to consider your doom
A natural duty to do.