V.

Will the pedant name her next? Crabbed with a crabbed text Sits he in his study nook, With his elbow on a book, And with stately crossed knees, And a wrinkle deeply thrid Through his lowering brow, Caused by making proofs enow That Plato in "Parmenides" Meant the same Spinoza did,-- Or, that an hundred of the groping Like himself, had made one Homer, _Homeros_ being a misnomer What hath _he_ to do with praise Of Earth or aught? Whene'er the sloping Sunbeams through his window daze His eyes off from the learned phrase, Straightway he draws close the curtain. May abstraction keep him dumb! Were his lips to ope, 't is certain "_Derivatum est_" would come.