Ad Magistrum Ludi

By Robert Louis Stevenson

NOW in the sky

And on the hearth of

Now in a drawer the direful cane,

That sceptre of the . . . reign,

And the long hawser, that on the back

Of Marsyas fell with many a whack,

Twice hardened out of Scythian hides,

Now sleep till the October ides.

In summer if the boys be well.