(Written after a Day's Work on a Thesis for History.)

WITH fingers inky and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A student sat in a lonely room,

With a towel about his head.

Grind, grind, grind!

From books both little and big;

And, cudgelling ever his weary mind,

He sang The Song of the Dig.

Grind, grind, grind!

The thesis is but begun;

Grind, grind, grind!

My work will never be done.

It 's - Oh! to be a slave

To the desk of a merchant's clerk,

Where a student has never a brain to save,

Worn out by this extra work.

Professors with purpose stern,

To whom complaints are vain,

No sources of history you exhaust,

But a weary human brain.

Grind, grind, grind!

With never a one to save,

Digging at once with a pen and a spade

For a thesis and early grave.

Grind, grind, grind!

Autumn and winter and spring;

And grind, grind, grind!

When the Christmas joy-bells ring.

While the holly-wreath and cross,

Cards, toy-shops, the daily press,

And everything flings taunts at me

Of the long two weeks' recess.

Oh! but for one short day

To feel as I used to feel,

When we flew o'er the glittering ice, shod well

With the narrow winged steel.

Oh, that the thesis imposer

Could feel some keen remorse,

Perceiving something worthy thought

Outside of his special course.