My Tityrus! and is’t a fact
(As wondrous facts there are)
That History’s scenes thou wouldst enact
Beside the banks of Cher?
Wilt thou for pomps like these desert
Thy calm and cloistered lair,
Not quite so young as once thou wert,
Nor (pardon me) so fair?

We saw thee stalk in youthful prime
With high Proctorial mien:
We saw the majesty sublime
Which marked the Junior Dean;
O pundit grave! O sage M.A.!
Say in what happy part
Thou wilt before the crowd display
Thy histrionic art!

With cranium bald, which ne’er again
Will need the barber’s shear,
Wilt thou present in Charles his train
Some long-locked Cavalier?
A sober Don for all to see
Who once didst walk abroad,
Wilt now an Ancient Briton be
And painted blue with woad?

Me from such scenes afar remove,
And hide my shuddering head
Where Nature doth in field and grove
Her fairer pageant spread:
There will I meditating lie
’Mid summer’s calm delights,—
But thou wilt walk adown the High
My Tityrus,—in Tights. . . .