Fight through ignorance, want, and care -
Through the griefs that crush the spirit;
Push your way to a fortune fair,
And the smiles of the world you-ll merit.
Long, as a boy, for the chance to learn -
For the chance that Fate denies you;
Win degrees where the Life-lights burn,
And scores will teach and advise you.
My cultured friends! you have come too late
With your bypath nicely graded;
I-ve fought thus far on my track of Fate,
And I-ll follow the rest unaided.
Must I be stopped by a college gate
On the track of Life encroaching?
Be dumb to Love, and be dumb to Hate,
For the lack of a college coaching?

You grope for Truth in a language dead -
In the dust -neath tower and steeple!
What know you of the tracks we tread?
And what know you of our people?
-I must read this, and that, and the rest,-
And write as the cult expects me? -
I-ll read the book that may please me best,
And write as my heart directs me!

You were quick to pick on a faulty line
That I strove to put my soul in:
Your eyes were keen for a -dash- of mine
In the place of a semi-colon -
And blind to the rest. And is it for such
As you I must brook restriction?
-I was taught too little?- I learnt too much
To care for a pedant-s diction!

Must I turn aside from my destined way
For a task your Joss would find me?
I come with strength of the living day,
And with half the world behind me;
I leave you alone in your cultured halls
To drivel and croak and cavil:
Till your voice goes further than college walls,
Keep out of the tracks we travel!