Mathematics

Mathematics

Original Text
The Works of Arthur Clement Hilton (Of Marlborough & Cambridge) Author of "The Light Green" Together with his Life and Letters, ed. Robert P. Edgcumbe (Cambridge: Macmillan and Bowes, 1902): 134-36. PR 4790 H27A12 Robarts Library
1I've really done enough of sums,
2    I've done so very many,
3That now instead of doing sum
4    I'd rather not do any.
5I've toiled until my fingers are
6    With writing out of joint;
7And even now of Decimals
8    I cannot see the point.
9Subtraction to my weary mind
10    Brings nothing but distraction,
11And vulgar and improper I
12    Consider every fraction.
13"Practice makes perfect," so they say.
14    It may be true. The fact is
15That I unhappily am not
16    Yet perfect in my Practice.
17Discount is counted troublesome
19For cubic root I entertain
20    A strongly rooted hate.
21The heathen worship stocks and stones;
22    My pious soul it shocks
23To be instructed thus to take
24    An Interest in Stocks.
25Of Algebra I fear I have
26    A very vague impression;
27I study hard, but fail to make
29In Euclid too I always climb
32    Is anything but plane.
33"Apply yourself," my master said,
34    When I my woes confided,
35"And, when you multiply, bestow
36    Attention undivided."
37Oh, if one master tries so hard
38    Tyrannical to be,
39How out of all Proportion I

Notes

18] pate: head, skull. Back to Line
28] Harmonical Progression: a progression, the reciprocals of whose terms form an arithmetic progression, that is, a series of integers separated from one another by a constant. Back to Line
30] Asses' Bridge: the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid's Elements. Back to Line
31] superficies: surface. Back to Line
40] Rule of Three: the so-called golden rule, a method of finding a fourth number from three known numbers, of which the first has the same proportion to the second as the third does to the fourth. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1869
Publication Notes
Cambridge
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme