The Waster's Presentiment

The Waster's Presentiment

Original Text
Robert F. Murray: his Poems, with a memoir by Andrew Lang (London: Longmans, Green, 1894): xxxv-vi. PR 5101 M5A6 1894 Robarts Library
2    Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
4          I shall be spun.
5April approaches. I have not begun
7Those lucid works till April 21.
8So my degree I do not hope to win,
9    For not by ways like mine degrees are won;
10And though, to please my uncle, I go in,
11          I shall be spun.

Notes

1] spun: failed (OED, "spin," v., 13). Back to Line
3] "Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these" (Luke 12.27). Back to Line
6] Schwegler or Mackintosh: perhaps Albert Schwegler (1819-57), German historian of philosophy, and Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), modern historian. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1894
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2001
Form