not at all metaphysical:--

THE WASTER'S PRESENTIMENT

I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
For though I toil not, neither do I spin,
I shall be spun.

April approaches. I have not begun
Schwegler or Mackintosh, nor will begin
Those lucid works till April 21.

So my degree I do not hope to win,
For not by ways like mine degrees are won;
And though, to please my uncle, I go in,
I shall be spun.

Here we must quote, from _The Scarlet Gown_, one of his most tender
pieces of affectionate praise bestowed on his favourite city:--

A DECEMBER DAY

Blue, blue is the sea to-day,
Warmly the light
Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay--
Blue, fringed with white.

That's no December sky!
Surely 'tis June
Holds now her state on high,
Queen of the noon.

Only the tree-tops bare
Crowning the hill,
Clear-cut in perfect air,
Warn us that still

Winter, the aged chief,
Mighty in power,
Exiles the tender leaf,
Exiles the flower.

Is there a heart to-day,
A heart that grieves
For flowers that fade away,
For fallen leaves?

Oh, not in leaves or flowers
Endures the charm
That clothes those naked towers
With love-light warm.

O dear St. Andrews Bay,
Winter or Spring
Gives not nor takes away
Memories that cling

All round thy girdling reefs,
That walk thy shore,
Memories of joys and griefs
Ours evermore.

'I have _not_ worked for my classes this session,' he writes (1884), 'and
shall not take any places.' The five or six most distinguished pupils
used, at least in my time, to receive prize-books decorated with the
University's arms. These prize-men, no doubt, held the 'places' alluded
to by Murray. If _he_ was idle, 'I speak of him but brotherly,' having
never held any 'place' but that of second to Mr. Wallace, now Professor
of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, in the Greek Class (Mr. Sellar's). Why
was one so idle, in Latin (Mr. Shairp), in Morals (Mr. Ferrier), in Logic
(Mr. Veitch)? but Logic was unintelligible.

'I must confess,' remarks Murray, in a similar spirit of pensive regret,
'that I have not had any ambition to distinguish myself either in
Knight's (Moral Philosophy) or in Butler's.' {1}

Murray then speaks with some acrimony about earnest students, whos