by Coleridge · Cluster: Education · Self-Made Man · Wheel
Abstract
A satirical fragment depicting Cambridge mathematical study as a dreary bog where the owl Mathesis drives off the Muses and Dulness reigns.
Connections
Motifs: River Themes & Concepts: Education, Imagination Forms & Genres: Fragment, Satire Historical References: Greek Mythology
Testo integrale / Full text
Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,
And bog and desolation reign supreme;
Where all Boeotia clouds the misty brain,
The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.
Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly, 5
Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:
The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,
And Wit congeal’d stands fix’d in wintry trance.
But to the sounds with duteous haste repair
Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care; 10
And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,
Pleas’d with the song uplifts her heavy head,
The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,
Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile… .
[Caetera desunt.]
1792.