Vacation's gone - and pleas and strife
Begin to blossom into life;
And Westminster is overflown
With wit peculiarly its own;
Chief justices with brethren three
Swagger in ermined majesty;
Yet these, like other things, declare
What short-lived fools we mortals are;
For Hilary Term begins to wane
To Easter's transitory reign,
And Trinity's hot sunbeams now
Descend on Michaelmas's snow;
Succeeding Terms their loss atone
But we, when once our days are flown,
With Littleton and Blackstone lie
Like records in the Treasury.
And who can tell, if we shall stay
To earn the fees we touched to-day?
For with the wealth we leave behind
The uninheritable mind
Is what our heirs shall never find.