darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls,
But on the branches of no living tree,
And overlook the learned family;
While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch,
Drops feather on the nose of Dominie,
Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research
In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge--now a birch.

VII.

No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue,
Such as would magisterial hams imbed,
But sitteth lowly on a beechen log,
Secure in high authority and dread:
Large, as a dome for Learning, seems his head,
And, like Apollo's, all beset with rays,
Because his locks are so unkempt and red,
And stand abroad in many several ways:--
No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baize.

VIII.

And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows
O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue,
That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows
A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue;
His nose,--it is a coral to the view;
Well nourish'd with Pierian Potheen,--
For much he loves his native mountain dew;--
But to depict the dye would lack, I ween,
A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green.

IX.

As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short
As Spenser had, ere he composed his Tales;
But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught,
So that the wind his airy breast assails;
Below, he wears the nether garb of males,
Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee;--
Thence further down the native red prevails,
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie:--
Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pie.

X.

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap
His function in a magisterial gown,
That shows more countries in it than a map,--
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown,
Besides some blots, standing for country-town;
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide;
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown,
He turns the garment of the other side,
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied!

XI.

And soe he sits, amidst the little pack,
That look for shady or for sunny noon,
Within his visage, like an almanack,--
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon:
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon,
With horrid chill each little heart unwarms,
Knowing that infant show'rs will follow soon,
And with forebodings of near wrath and storms
They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms.

XII.

Ah! luckless wight, who cannot then repe