In Memoriam Examinatoris Cuiusdam

Lo, where yon undistinguished grave Erects its grassy pile on One who to all Experience gave An Alpha or Epsilon!

The world and eke the world's content, And all therein that passes, With marks numerical (per cent.) He did dispose in classes:

Not his to ape the critic crew Which vulgarly appraises The Good, the Beautiful, the True In literary phrases:

He did his estimate express In terms precise and weighty,-- And Vice got 25 (or less,) While Virtue rose to 80.

Now hath he closed his earthly lot All in his final haven,-- (And be the stone that marks the spot On one side only graven,)

Bring papers on his grave to strew Amid the grass and clover, And plant thereby that pencil blue Wherewith he looked them over!

There, freed from every human ill And fleshly trammels gross, he Lies in his resting-place until The final Viva Voce:

So let him rest till crack of doom Of mortal tasks aweary,-- And nothing write upon his tomb Save [Greek text: beta]--(?).