THE PANACEA

It is Research of which I sing,

Research, that salutary thing!

None can succeed, in World or Church,

Who does not prosecute Research:

For some read books, and toil thereat

Their intellect to waken:

But if you think Research is that

You’ re very much mistaken.

All in Columbia’ s blesséd States

They have no Smalls, or Mods, or Greats,

Nor do their faculties benumb

With any cold curriculum:

O no! for there the ambitious Boy,

Released from schools and birches,

At once pursues with studious joy

Original Researches:

A happy lot that Student’ s is,

— I wish that mine were like to his,—

Where in the bud no pedants nip

His Services to Scholarship:

And none need read with care and pain

Rome’ s History, or Greece’ s,

But each from his creative brain

Evolves semestrial Theses!

On books to pore is not the kind

Of thing to please the serious mind,—

I do not very greatly care

For such unsatisfying fare:

To seek the lore that in them lurks

Would last ad infinitum:

Let others read immortal works,—

I much prefer to write’ em!