James Kenneth Stephen
Ode on a Retrospect of Eton College
(Gray)
Ye bigot spires, ye Tory towers,
That crown the watery lea,
Where grateful science still adores
The aristocracy:
A happy usher once I strayed
Beneath your lofty elm trees’ shade,
With mind untouched by guilt or woe:
But mad ambition made me stray
Beyond the round of work and play
Wherein we ought to go.
My office was to teach the young
Idea how to shoot:
But, ah! I joined with eager tongue
Political dispute:
I ventured humbly to suggest
That all things were not for the best
Among the Irish peasantry:
And finding all the world abuse
My simple unpretending views,
I thought I’d go and see.
I boldly left the College bounds:
Across the sea I went,
To probe the economic grounds
Of Irish discontent.
My constant goings to and fro
Excited some alarm; and so
Policemen girded up their loins,
And, from his innocent pursuits,—
Morose unsympathetic brutes,—
They snatched a fearful Joynes.
Escaped, I speedily returned
To teach the boys again:
But ah, my spirit inly burned
To think on Ireland’s pain.
Such wrongs must out: and then, you see,
My own adventures might not be
Uninteresting to my friends:
I therefore ventured to prepare
A little book, designed with care,
To serve these humble ends.
Our stern head-master spoke to me
Severely:—‘You appear
(Horresco referens) to be
A party pamphleteer.
If you must write, let Cæsar’s page
Or Virgil’s poetry engage
Your all too numerous leisure hours:
But now annihilate and quash
This impious philanthropic bosh:
Or quit these antique towers.’
It seems that he who dares to write
Is all unfit to teach:
And literary fame is quite
Beyond an usher’s reach.
I dared imprisonment in vain:
The little bantling of my brain
I am compelled to sacrifice.
The moral, after all, is this:—
That here, where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
A Sonnet
(Wordsworth)
Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times—good Lord! I’d rather be
Quite unacquainted with the ABC
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.
Sincere Flattery of R. B.
(Browning)
Birthdays? yes, in a general way;
For the most if not for the best of men:
You were born (I suppose) on a certain day:
So was I: or perhaps in the night: what then?
Only this: or at least, if more,
You must know, not think it, and learn, not speak:
There is truth to be found on the unknown shore,
And many will find where few will seek.
For many are called and few are chosen,
And the few grow many as ages lapse:
But when will the many grow few: what dozen
Is fused into one by Time’s hammer-taps?
A bare brown stone in a babbling brook:—
It was wanton to hurl it there, you say:
And the moss, which clung in the sheltered nook
(Yet the stream runs cooler), is washed away.
That begs the question: many a prater
Thinks such a suggestion a sound ‘stop thief!’
Which, may I ask, do you think the greater,
Sergeant-at-arms or a Robber Chief?
And if it were not so? still you doubt?
Ah! yours is a birthday indeed if so.
That were something to write a poem about,
If one thought a little. I only know.
P.S.
There’s a Me Society down at Cambridge,
Where my works, cum notis variorum,
Are talked about; well, I require the same bridge
That Euclid took toll at as Asinorum:
And, as they have got through several ditties
I thought were as stiff as a brick-built wall,
I’ve composed the above, and a stiff one it is,
A bridge to stop asses at, once for all.
Sincere Flattery of W. W. (Americanus)
(Whitman)
The clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder,
The whistle of the railway guard dispatching the train to the inevitable collision,
The maiden’s monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal,
The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural;
All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea to let your very ribs re-echo with:
But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player.
To A. T. M.
(F. W. H. Myers)
See where the K., in sturdy self-reliance,
Thoughtful and placid as a brooding dove,
Stands, firmly sucking, in the cause of science,
Just such a peppermint as schoolboys love.
Suck, placid K.: the world will be thy debtor;
Though thine eyes water and thine heart grow faint,
Suck: and the less thou likest it the better;
Suck for our sake, and utter no complaint.
Near thee a being, passionate and gentle,
Man’s latest teacher, wisdom’s pioneer,
Calmly majestically monumental,
Stands: the august Telepathist is here.
Waves of perception, subtle emanations,
Thrill through the ether, circulate amain;
Delicate soft impalpable sensations,
Born of thy palate, quiver in his brain.
Lo! with a voice unspeakably dramatic,
Lo! with a gesture singularly fine,
He makes at last a lucid and emphatic
Statement of what is in that mouth of thine.
He could detect that peppermint’s existence,
He read its nature in the book of doom;
Standing at some considerable distance;
Standing, in fact, in quite another room.
Was there a faint impenetrable essence
Wafted towards him from the sucking K.?
Did some pale ghost inform him of its presence?
Or did it happen in some other way?
These are the questions nobody can answer,
These are the problems nobody can solve;
Only we know that Man is an Advancer:
Only we know the Centuries revolve.