human
Can you write me a poem about juggernaut, trojan and ny?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about juggernaut, trojan and ny:
  Nearly all the flights in this book have been first taken in the
permitted by the republic, which he had saved by (his) incredible
“Going to row to-day, Fane?”  It was little Bagley Wood, the cox.
_Galeotto fu il libro_, _e chi lo scrisse_.
If they are frivolous, these Universities!
Is it that one elects a new _Vice-Chancellor_?
Everywhere Professors in straw hats and Heads of Colleges _en
matelot_.
What a spectacle!
On the barges. . . .
Grouped on these venerable hulks, crowds of ladies excite our
admiration by their beauty and our respect by their intelligence.
After all, they are adorable, these English misses!
On the bank. . . .
One hears the portentous echo of the _Five-Minutes-Gun_.
Moment tremendous!
They have started: one sees already the _strokesman_ of the
Why these pistols? . . .
A little brutal, these English: but of a force, a virility!
I myself who speak to you am infected by this enthusiasm.
I am out of breath, what?  I wish to stop.
Arrest yourselves, my friends too impetuous!
I appeal to you in the name of France, who respects you: do not
annihilate me, do not pulverize me. . . . .
Vain appeal!  One would say the car of Juggernaut.
I am knocked down: I am _criblé_ with kicks: I am massacred.
The fact can no longer be disguised that grave international
On the other hand, the _Olympian Times_ comments severely on the
Trojan bonds are quoted to-day at 53.8 (a fall of 0.2).
The attitude of the Olympian Powers causes considerable anxiety.
committed.
M. Nymphidius has been commissioned to form a Ministry.
I quote from the Court Journal:—
“The Emperor Nero reigns in the hearts of His People.  Persons
asserting the contrary will be decapitated.”
“In what way do they act basely?” I asked.
“Why, of course it is base.  How can it be anything else?”
“I suppose so.”
“And neither of you becomes base?”
“Then it is not a base transaction?”
“It would seem so, at least.”
“Nor for any other material comfort?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” he replied.
Phaidrolithos or his friends did was base?”
wine-seller now is offering draughts of wine.”
But Philogeorgos was already out of hearing.
“Why will he not do it?” I asked.
“But, Socrates, it is always harmful that the citizens should be
consulted.  And that is why Askoïthios will not consult them.”
“Why, Phileleutheros,” I said, “are you not a democrat?”
“Of course I am.”
“And in a democracy do not the people rule?”
“I suppose so.”
“By saying what they wish to have done, or otherwise?”
“By saying so, I suppose.”
“But for what reasons do you choose such persons?” I asked.
“I do not altogether praise your definition; but it will do.”
“But the Nomothetae, Socrates, will prevent them.”
“Hardly,” I replied.  “For your leaders of the Ecclesia, who are
“They are not many, certainly.”
“Oh no, sir; I hold a ‘Daily Thunderer’ Scholarship.”
“It isn’t quite that, sir,” put in the youth; “it was for the
(“I _knew_ it was dear at the price,” the Tutor murmured.)
“The Scholarship?” asked the Tutor, weakly.
“No,” said the scholar; “the ‘Encyclopædia Pananglica.’”
Comenius, too.  Homer and Comenius—”
“Do you know _any_ Greek or Latin at all?”
“Am I then to understand,” the Tutor asked, “that you are _not_
acquainted with the Greek and Latin Classics?”
“Not considerable,” replied the American.  “In fact, not any.”
“And to what, then, have your studies been directed?”
For a long time he remained wrapt in meditation.
“The—the voyage?” exclaimed the Rhodes Scholar.
“Certainly,” said the Tutor, “during the voyage.  During the long
Gentlemen, I commend you to our Alma Mater beyond the seas.”
“But you will be, my dear sir—you will be!” cried the Tutor, with
Character is so frequent as to be a drug, a positive drug: but in
University of Oxford, never backward in the march of progress, is
residents—indeed, of some among your own fellow students—are most
The Tutor, with a sigh of relief, renewed his perusal of the
undergraduate read the English book for himself?”
“What,” he cried indignantly, “are we to think of a curriculum—so
“Assuredly,” I replied, “there can be only one opinion about it.”
“Indeed,” I said; “I am pained to hear it.”
“He is, I suppose,” said I, “reading for a Final Honour School.”
And, upon my word, I really don’t see why he shouldn’t.
monotonous, and it isn’t improving.”
“Why don’t you bring them up to date?” asked the visitor.
“All right,” said the Tutor, “suggest an occupation.”
“Let me see,” said the Ruler of the Shades, and he pondered a few
“Yes, yes,” Pluto agreed; “the occupations would be practically
“I’m a bicyclist myself,” objected the Tutor.
Poor Mr. Atkins!  He is a most respectable man, and an excellent
He says he has seen enough of that kind of thing.
This is the tale that is told of an almost universally respected
For the better defence of his native land, and to free her from
continual warlike alarms,
Death on the battlefield,—or at least the expense of buying a
uniform,—was the patriots’ chiefest glory;
Provided always that he discouraged a tendency to Militarism and
Regular armies tended to that: and in view of the state of
international conditions he
Being convinced as he was that an army recruited and trained on a
This being so, he did not propose to devise any scheme or with
cut-and-dried details to fetter a
Patriot Public which quite understood of itself that England
Expects—et cetera.
The Right Honourable Gentleman resumed his seat amid loud and
That patriotic self-sacrifice was a Priceless National Asset:
Of that truly august conception, a Nation in Arms:
likely to get for it;
Then, some time after that (it’s really impossible to say what
happened in between) when business at last had resumed its usual
working,
Then the public met and resolved like the person whose case is
recorded in fable
Be profaned by the feet of Cossacks, Chasseurs, Bashi-Bazouks, or
And I don’t think they talked very big about Nations in Arms, or
inscribed on their banners any particularly inspiring motto,
But they learnt to shoot and to drill, not more or less but quite
Essence of boredom! stupefying Theme!
Whereon with eloquence less deep than full,
Still maundering on in slow continuous stream,
All can expatiate, and all be dull:
Bane of the mind and topic of debate
That drugs the reader to a restless doze,
Thou that with soul-annihilating weight
Crushest the Bard, and hypnotisest those
Who plod the placid path of plain pedestrian Prose:
Lo! when each morn I carefully peruse
(Seeking some subject for my painful pen)
No other topic floats into my ken
Save this alone: or Dr. Clifford slates
Dogmas in general: or the dreadful ban
Of furious Bishops excommunicates
Such simple creeds as Birrell, hopeful man!
Thinks may perhaps appease th’ unwilling Anglican.
Lo! at Society’s convivial board
(Whereat I do occasionally sit,
In hope to bear within my memory stored
Some echo thence of someone else’s wit),
Or e’er the soup hath yielded to the fish,
A heavy dulness doth the banquet freeze:
Lucullus’ self would shun th’ untasted dish
When lovely woman whispers, “Tell me, please,
What _are_ Denominational Facilities?”
From scenes like these my Muse would fain withdraw:
To Taff’s still Valley be my footsteps led,
Where happy Unions ’neath the shield of Law
Heave bricks bisected at the Blackleg’s head:
In those calm shades my desultory oat
Of Taxed Land Values shall contented trill,
Of Man ennobled by a Single Vote,—
In short, I’ll sing of anything you will,
Except of thee alone, O Education Bill!
(After seeing his Picture in the Press)
Working Man! whose psychic beauty
Still it is my pleasing duty
Painted by your friends to see,—
You, whose virtues ne’er can bore us,
Daily through their list we scan,
Let me swell th’ admiring chorus,
Let me hymn the Working Man!
You whose Leaders, highly moral,
Always shocked by war’s alarms,
Could not in their country’s quarrel
Contemplate the use of arms,
Yet, should strikes provide occasion,
Then by higher promptings led
Do with more than moral suasion
Break the erring Blackleg’s head:—
You, whose intellectual state is
Such that you are aiming at
Getting all your culture gratis
(Not that you’re alone in that),—
Always with the strict injunction
That whate’er be false or true
Every teacher’s simple function
Is to teach what pleases you:—
Not to gain by learned labour
Any sordid _quid pro quo_:
Not to rise above your neighbour
(Comrades ne’er are treated so):
Not to change your lowly station,
Not for rank and not for pelf,
Academic education
Only, only for itself,—
Yet in whose commercial dealings
Vainly we attempt to find
Those disinterested feelings
Which adorn the Student’s mind,—
Seeing that, O my high-souled brothers!
There your dream of happiness
Is (like mine, and several others’)
Earning more for working less!
’Tis not that I blame your getting
Anything you think you can:
’Tisn’t that which I’m regretting,
No—although the facts I mention
Sometimes wake a mild surprise—
Still—the truth’s beyond contention—
You are good, and great, and wise:
Swell my taxes: stint my fuel:
Last, to close the painful scene,
Send me, rather just than cruel,
Send me to the guillotine:
Ere the knife bisects my spinal
Cord, and ends my vital span,
This shall be my utterance final,
They tell me the Millennium’s come
(And I should be extremely glad
Could I but feel assured, like some,
They tell me of a bright To Be
When, freed from chains that tyrants forge
We shall by penalties persuade
The idle unrepentant Great
To serve (inadequately paid)
All working for the general good,
While painful guillotines confront
The individual who could
And won’t:
But horny-handed sons of toil,
Who now purvey our meats and drinks,
Our gardens devastate, and spoil
Our sinks,
Shall seldom condescend to take
That inconsiderable sum
For which they daily butch, and bake,
And plumb;
Such humble votaries of trade
No more shall follow arts like these;
Since most of them will then be made
And can I then (with some surprise
You ask) possess my tranquil soul,
And view with calm indifferent eyes
While partisans, in raucous tones,
With doleful wail or joyful shout
Proclaim that Brown is in, or Jones
Is out?
I can: I do: the reason’s plain:
That blissful day which prophets paint
Perhaps may come: perhaps again
It mayn’t:
And ere these ages blest begin
(For Rome, I’ve heard historians say,
Was only partly finished in
A day)
In men of sentiments sublime
’Tis possible we yet may trace
The influence of mellowing Time
O who can tell?  Ere Labour rouse
Its ever-multiplying hordes
To mend or end th’ obstructive House
And bid aristocrats begone,
And their hereditary pelf
Bestow with generous hand upon
Why, Mr. George,—his threats forgot
Which Earls and Viscounts cowering hear,—
Himself may be, as like as not,
Tomkins! when revolving lustres
Thin those shining locks that now
Wreathe their hyacinthine clusters
Round your intellectual brow,—
You who in your nobler station
Still are kind enough to seek
Our political salvation
Rather more than once a week,—
Think you, will your rightful value
Still be duly understood?
Will the British Public hail you
Always great and always good?
When the Peoples fight for Freedom
And the tyrant’s rage confront,
Will they call for you to lead ’em?
—No, my friend: I fear they won’t.
Soon or late are Truth’s apostles
Laid upon their destined shelf;
You, who talk of Ancient Fossils,
Tomkins! will be one yourself:
Dons and Men with gibe and sneer your
Ancient crusted ways will view,
Wondering oft with smile superior
What’s the use of Things like you!
All the schemes that win you glory,
Meant to mend our mortal mess—
These will simply brand you Tory,
Nothing more and nothing less:
You who waked the world from slumber,
You, who shone in Progress’ van,
You’ll be then a mere Back Number,
Obsolete as good Queen Anne!
You I see with zeal excessive
Dying then for causes, which
Now (forsooth) you call Progressive,
In reaction’s Final Ditch:
By Conservatives in caucus
(Ardent youth, reflect on that!)
Sent to stem the horrid raucous
No: I do not wish to quarrel
With your high exalted sense;
No: there isn’t any moral—
Not of any consequence:
Only, ’neath your exhortations
Passive while we’re doomed to sit,
Themes like these conduce to patience,—
And I thought I’d mention it.
My Tityrus! and is’t a fact
(As wondrous facts there are)
That History’s scenes thou wouldst enact
Beside the banks of Cher?
Wilt thou for pomps like these desert
Thy calm and cloistered lair,
Not quite so young as once thou wert,
Nor (pardon me) so fair?
We saw thee stalk in youthful prime
With high Proctorial mien:
We saw the majesty sublime
Which marked the Junior Dean;
O pundit grave!  O sage M.A.!
Say in what happy part
Thou wilt before the crowd display
Thy histrionic art!
With cranium bald, which ne’er again
Will need the barber’s shear,
Wilt thou present in Charles his train
Some long-locked Cavalier?
A sober Don for all to see
Who once didst walk abroad,
And painted blue with woad?
Me from such scenes afar remove,
And hide my shuddering head
Where Nature doth in field and grove
Her fairer pageant spread:
There will I meditating lie
’Mid summer’s calm delights,—
But thou wilt walk adown the High
My Tityrus,—in Tights. . . .
A Novelist, whose magic art,
Had plumbed (’twas said) the human heart,
Whom for the penetrative ken
Wherewith he probed the souls of men
The Public and the Public’s wife
Declared synonymous with Life,—
Sat idle, being much perplexed
What Attitude to study next,
Because he would not wholly tell
Which Pose was likeliest to sell.
To him the Muse: “Why seek afar
For things that on the threshold are?
Why thus evolve with care and pain
From your imaginative brain?
Put Artifice upon the shelf,—
Take pen and ink, and draw—Yourself!”
The author heard: he took the hint:
He photographed himself in print.
His very inmost self he drew. . . .
The critics said, “_This_ Will Not Do.
No more we recognize the art
Which used to plumb the human heart,—
This suffers from the patent vice
Of being not Art but Artifice.
’Tis deeply with the fault imbued
He’s written out; his skill’s forgot:
He only writes to Boil the Pot!
It is not true; it will not wash;
’Tis mere imaginative Bosh;
And if he can’t” (they told him flat)
“Get nearer to the Life than that,
He will not earn the Public’s pelf!”
This happens when you draw Yourself.
Or—I should say—it happens when
Such portraits are essayed by Men:
For presently a Lady came
And did substantially the same.
(Let everyone peruse this sequel
Who dreams that Man is Woman’s equal),—
She with a hand divinely free
Drew what she thought herself to be:
It did not much resemble Her
In moral strength or mental stature—
Yet did the critics all aver
It simply teemed with Human Nature!
In that dim and distant æon
When the proud Pelasgian still
Bounded on his native hill,
And the shy Iberian dwelt
Undisturbed by conquering Celt,
Ere from out their Aryan home
Somewhere in those ancient spots
Lived a man who painted Pots—
Painted with an art defective,
Quite devoid of all perspective,
Very crude, and causing doubt
When you tried to make them out,
Men (at least they looked like that),
Beasts that might be dog or cat,
Pictures blue and pictures red,
All that came into his head:
Not that any tale he meant
On the Pots to represent:
Simply ’twas to make them smart,
So the seasons onward hied,
And the Painter-person died—
But the Pot whereon he drew
Still survived as good as new:
Painters come and painters go,
Art remains _in statu quo_.
When a thousand years (perhaps)
Had proceeded to elapse,
Out of Time’s primeval mist
He by shrewd and subtle guess
Setting forth the various causes
For the drawings on the vases,
All the motives, all the plots
Of the painter of the pots,
Entertained the nations with
Based upon ingenious shots
Showing ages subsequent
What the painter really meant
(Which, of course, the painter hadn’t;
He’d have been extremely saddened
Had he seen his meanings missed
Next arrives the Prone to Err
Very ancient Chronicler,
All that mythologic lore
Swallowing whole and wanting more,
Crediting what wholly lacked
All similitude of Fact,
Building on this wondrous basis
All we know of early races;
So the Past as seen by him
Furnished from its chambers dim
Hypothetical foundations
Whence succeeding generations
Built, as on a basis sure,
Branches three of Literature,
Social Systems four (or five),
So that one may truly say
(Speaking in a general way)
All the facts and all the knowledge
Taught in School and taught in College,
All the books the printer prints—
Everything that’s happened since—
Feels the influence of what
Once was drawn upon that Pot,
Plus the curious mental twist
Of that Ætiologist!
But the Pot that caused the trouble
Lay entombed in earth and rubble,
Left about in various places,
In the way that early races—
Used to leave important Pots;
Till at length, to close the list,
Came and dug with care and pain,
Came and found the Pot again:
Made a version wholly novel
Of the Potman’s old design
(Others none were genuine).
Pots were in a special sense
All who Error hope to stem
Must begin by studying them;
So the Public (which, he said,
Had been grievously misled)
Must in all things freshly start
From his views of Ancient Art.
All (the learned man proceeded)
Otherwise who thought than he did,
Showed a stupid, base, untrue,
Obscurantist point of view;
Men like these (the sage would say)
Should be wholly swept away;
They, and eke the faults prodigious
Which beset their creeds religious,
Render totally impure
All their so-called Literature,
Lastly, sap to its foundation
All their boasted education,—
Just because they’ve quite forgot
What was meant, and what was not,
Pots are long and life is fleeting;
Artists, when their subjects treating,
Should be very, very far
Carefuller than now they are.
When by efforts literary you might scale the summits airy
Which the eminent in fiction are ascending every day,
Why obscurely crawl and grovel?—I will write (I said) a Novel!
So I started and I planned it in the ordinary way.
I’d a Heroine—a creature of resplendent form and feature,
With a spell in every motion and a charm in every look:
I’d a Villain—worse than Nero,—I’d a most superior Hero:
And the host of minor persons which is needed in a book:
Each was drawn from observation: yet was each a pure creation
Which revealed at once the genius of originating mind:
Not a man and not a woman but combined the Broadly Human
With a something quite peculiar of an interesting kind:
What a wealth of meaning inner in the things they said at dinner!
Half disclosing, half concealing a Profundity of Feeling
There they stood in grace and vigour, each imaginary figure,
Each a masterpiece of drawing for the world to wonder at:
There was really nothing more I had to find but just the story,
Nothing more, but just the story—but I couldn’t think of that.
Yet (I cried), in other writers, how the lovers and the fighters
Are conducted through the mazes of a complicated plan,—
How a Barrie or a Kipling guides the maiden and the stripling
Till they’re ultimately landed in the matrimonial state,—
And they die, or else they marry (in a Kipling or a Barrie)
Just as if the thing was ordered by unalterable Fate,—
While with me, alas! to balance my innumerable talents,
There’s a fatal imperfection and a melancholy blot:
All the forms of my creating stand continually waiting
For a charitable person to provide them with a Plot!
Still I put the endless query why I wander lone and dreary
(Barred from Eden like the Peri) minus fame and minus fee,
Why the idols of the masses have an entrée to Parnassus,
While a want of mere invention is an obstacle to me!
Arise, my _Muse_, and ply th’ extended Wing!
It is of Language that I mean to sing.
Thou mighty Medium, potent to convey
The clearest Notions in the darkest Way,
Diffus’d by thee, what Depth of verbal Mist
Our mental Processes more complex grow
Than those our Sires were privileged to know.
In Ages old, ere Time Instruction brought,
Such simple Names are now forever gone—
A Concept this, that a Noümenon:
As _Cambria’s_ Sons their Pride of Race increase
By joining _Ap_ to _Evan_, _Jones_, or _Rees_,
A prouder Halo decks the Sage’s Brow,
Perceptive once, he’s Apperceptive now!
Here sits Mentality (that erst was Mind),
By correlated Entities defin’d:
Here Monads lone Duality express
In bright Immediacy of Consciousness:
O who shall say what Obstacles deter
The Youth who’d fain commence Philosopher!
The painful Public with bewilder’d Brain
For Metaphysic pants, but pants in vain:
Too hard the Names, too weighty far the Load:
Language forbids, and _Br-dl-y_ blocks the Road.
From Themes like these I willingly depart,
And pass (discursive) to the Realms of Art.
Ye _Muses_ nine! what Phrases ye employ,
What wondrous Terms t’ express æsthetic Joy!
As once in Years ere _Babel’s_ Turrets rose
Contented Nations talk’d the self-same Prose:
As early _Christians_ in the Days of Yore
Took what they wanted from a common Store:
So different Arts th’ astonished Reader sees
Pool all their Terms, then choose whate’er they please.
’Mid critick Crews (where Intellect abounds)
Sound sings in Colours, Colours shine in Sounds:
When mimick Groves _Apelles_ decks with green,
Or _Zeuxis_ limns the vespertinal Scene,
_Staccato Tints_ delight th’ auscultant Eye
And soft _Andantes_ paint the conscious Sky:
Nor less, when Musick holds the list’ning Throng,
How crisply lucent glows th’ entrancing Song!
Each loud _Sonata_ boasts its lively Hue,
And _Fugues_ are red, and _Symphonies_ are blue.
Not mine to deem your Epithets misplac’d,
Ye learned Arbiters of publick Taste!
Yet such th’ Effect on merely human Wit,
Hail, Terminology! celestial Maid!
I see Democracy—an ardent Band
Who fain would read yet wish to understand—
Compell’d that Goal in alien Tongues to seek,
Claim as their Right (advised by _Mr. Snow_)
The sweet Simplicity of ὁ ἡ τό,—
While Dons con English till they’re pale and lean,
Relate, my Muse, the fame of him
Whose calling and peculiar mission
It was to wage with courage grim
A battle ’gainst effete Tradition!
When Movements moved, with holy zest
He scaled the breach and led the stormers,—
And was among the first and best
Regard his books with fear and loathing,
From Latin’s arbitrary rules
Deriving practically nothing:—
He said,—“O bounding human Boys,
Of all the fare whereon you batten,
What chiefly mars your simple joys?”
With one accord they answered “Latin!”
“Exactly so,” th’ Inquirer cried,
“This is the lore which cramps and stunts us;
A course that makes their pupils dunces?
Since with the rules of Latin Prose
They can’t be brought to yield compliance,
This Fact conclusively it shows—
They’ve all a natural bent for Science!”
They sought for Scientific Truth,
Guided the faltering steps of Youth
In biological researches:
The infant in his nurse’s care
In Science’ terms was taught to stammer:
They practised vivisection where
They used to cut their Latin grammar;
’Twas all in vain—the Human Boy
Remained unalterably chilly:
Still less than Virgil’s tale of Troy
He liked compulsory bacilli!
Much grieved the Zealot was thereat:—
“We’ll try,” he said, “a course of Spelling” . . .
But O, the way they hated that
Quite overcomes my power of telling!
“There must be ways,” the good man said,
“(Though hitherto perhaps we’ve missed ’em)
Of putting things within the head:
We’ve something wrong about the System:”
And musing on the sacred flame
Of Genius, and the cause that hid it,
He unto this conclusion came—
COMPULSION was the thing that did it.
“Within the Boy’s aspiring brain
For Study still there lies a craving,
And what is won against the grain
Is never really worth the having;
This boasted Categorical
Imperative is clearly vicious,—
Pastors and masters, one and all,
Must ascertain their pupils’ wishes!”
And now those simple human Boys,—
All, to a boy, for Culture yearning,—
Impede upon the path of Learning:—
Released from books and teachers both,
No intellectual pastures feed ’em;
And, if they lose in mental growth,
Think how they gain in moral freedom!
Whene’er you do to Meetings go, as many such there be
(And few and far those persons are who home return to tea),
Then take with you this principle, to cheer you on your way—
The less there is to talk about, the more there is to say.
Consult your hearers’ happiness, and state for their relief
That you’ll avoid prolixity and study to be brief:
For if you can’t be brief at once, ’twill comfort them to know
That you’ll arrive at brevity in half an hour or so.
Should e’er the Chairman censure you, as Chairmen oft will do,
And tell you that you miss the point, and bid you keep thereto,
(Though points are things, by Euclid’s law, that always must be
missed—
They have no parts or magnitude, and therefore don’t exist)—
Obey at once the Chairman’s hest (because, as you’re aware,
It is a most improper thing to argue with the Chair),
Accept his ruling patiently, without superfluous fuss,
And when you’ve spent your arguments yet somehow still go on
(It shows a want of enterprise to stop because you’ve done),
Don’t search about for topics new or vex your weary brain,
But take what someone else has said and say it all again.
And when at last your speech is o’er, be careful if you can
That none may hint—a horrid charge—that you’re a Party Man:
So speak for this and speak for that as blithely as you may,
But keep your mental balance true, and
Vote the other Way.
Two youths there were in days of yore
Jones had abilities galore,
While Robinson had none.
They met with corresponding fates:
And Jones, that genius proud,
Obtained in time a First in Greats:
While Robinson was ploughed.
Jones hoped that mental gifts like his
Might gain a Fellowship:
But ah! full many a slip there is
Between the cup and lip:
“You have a brain,” the College said,
“Which unassisted soars:
Abilities like yours!
Go—wealth awaits your gathering hand,
And empires crave your rule!
But Fellowships like ours are planned
To help the helpless fool.”
He tried the Press: he tried the Bar:
But still the Bar and Press
Said, “Not for him our openings are
Whose gifts ensure success:
Such posts are meant (’tis justice plain)
For those unhappy chaps
(Like Robinson) whom lack of brain
Unfairly handicaps!”
And now—yet check the rising tear:
It seems that long ago
Those Founders whom we all revere
Meant it to happen so—
Some lack of necessary food,
All in a garret lone,
Has ended Jones.  I thought it would.
But Robinson’s a DON.
A rumour and rumbling volcanic
Is heard in the Radical Press,
And Presidents tremble in panic
And Wardens their terrors confess:
How each with anxiety shivers,
The Dean with his fines and his gates,
The ruffian who ragged me in Divvers,
The pedant who ploughed me in Greats!
The doctrines degrading they taught, and
The Progress they nipped in the bud:
The things that they did when they oughtn’t
And failed to perform when they should:
The Questions prevented from burning,
The Movements forbidden to move,
Recoil on their centres of learning,
Their Parks and the System thereof!
Afar will Democracy chase it,
That gang of impenitent Dons
Who drowned the occasional Placet
By bawling their truculent Nons:
No idle and opulent College
Will feed that obstructionist clique,
Those scoffers at Practical Knowledge
Who vote for compulsory Greek.
And now when the Party of Labour,
Asserting its virtuous sway,
Annexes the wealth of its neighbour
In Labour’s traditional way,—
When purged of its various abuses
By Birrell’s beneficent rule,
This haunt of the obsolete Muses
Is changed to a charity school,—
When Fellows and bloated Professors
Their stipends are forced to disgorge,
(Obeying the fiat of Messrs.
Deprived by the wrath of the Nation
Of all their unmerited aids,
Perhaps to escape from starvation
They’ll take to respectable trades!
O wholly delectable vision!
I view with excusable glee
The fate of the shallow precisian
Who failed to appreciate Me;—
I fancy I see myself tossing
With blandly contemptuous mien
A penny for sweeping a crossing
To him who was formerly Dean!
Not in vain with quaint devices
Infants of the age of four
Build their mimic edifices
All upon the nursery floor;
Neither is the presage missed
When he doth the fact recall
How that Balbus built a wall!
Thus I mused on such-like theses,
While my errant fancy swam
Through the circumambient breezes
To the silver streams of Cam,—
There observed with pleased surprise
Still in touch at every stage
There, released from sloth and coma
(Alma Mater’s chief defect),
There they grant a new Diploma
To the budding Architect,
Take the blighted Builder’s art
To their academic heart,
Hope it may in time become
Part of their curriculum:
There they tell their College Porters
Not to think it strange or odd
When a load of bricks and mortar’s
Dumped within the College quad;
No indignant Tutor hauls
Him who scales the College walls,—
Plying on that airy perch
Thus I sang: I seemed to see an
Epoch made, the Future’s guide;
But my glad exultant pæan
Was not wholly justified:
Men whose names we all revere,
Stars in Architecture’s sphere,
Phrases used which don’t imply
Any genuine sympathy:
Hushed my lyre’s triumphant string—
Said in limpid Anglo-Saxon
What they thought about the thing:
“Seats of learning are designed
Not to teach a craft or trade,”
_That_ was what these persons said!
What! and must a thwarted Nation
Draw the obvious inference?
Doesn’t mean the quest of pence?
(Really, this extremely crude
Obscurantist attitude
Isn’t quite what one expects
From distinguished Architects!)
Here’s another dear illusion
Reft away and wholly gone:
O the spiritual confusion
Of the pained progressive Don!
If the facts are quite correct
As regards the Architect,
Comes the question, plain and clear,
_How about the Engineer_?
Now is the time when everything is glad,
Their vernal greenery the fields renew,
Each feathered songster chants with livelier tone,
And lambkins leap and cloudless skies are blue,
And all is gay and cheerful:—I alone
Am singularly sad;
Mine erstwhile happiness and calm content
Yields to a sense of sorrowful surprise:
Things that I thought were thus, are otherwise:
And all is grief, and disillusionment.
For He, who did in everything surpass
Our common world,—the Good, the Truly Great,
The Working Man, who shamed with standards high
Our obscurantists unregenerate,—
Is not, ’twould seem, better than you, or I,
Or any other ass:
The vision’s faded, as a snowflake melts;
Fallen is that idol from his high renown:
He hath waxed fat, and kicked, and tumbled down,
And we must seek ensamples somewhere else!
Where is it, Comrades! in this direful day—
That noble zeal for academic lore,
That reverence due for discipline, in which
He used to shine conspicuously o’er
O, does he now display
That ample breadth of calm impartial view,
That sober judgment and that balanced mind,
Which we were taught that we should always find,
O R---skin College, domiciled in you?
I have a Pupil: when his mental food
Fails (as it will) his appetite to sate,
What! does that patient much-enduring elf
Proclaim a strike? set pickets at my gate?
Boycott my lectures? give them for himself?
(Full oft I wish he would:)
Nay—when he finds those lectures dull and flat,
He asks no other: new ones might be worse:
Too well he knows that Cosmos’ ordered course
Meant him to hear, and me to talk like that.
Also I own I’m disappointed by
Your friends and patrons, British Working Man!
For they, methought, were champions of the Cause,
Fighters for Freedom, foremost in the van,
Not servile scruplers, bound by rules and laws,
Not men who dealt in dry
Respectable traditions: leaders true,
No timid Moderates, who would define
Too strict a boundary ’twixt Mine and Thine,
Potential martyrs, heart and soul with you:—
’Twas all illusion: they would feed you with
Mere talks on Temperance: when your spirit’s wings
Would soar to Sociology alone,
Whereby will come that blessed state of things
When none has property to call his own,
They give you—Adam Smith . . .
These too are fall’n: ah me, that I should live
To hear our brightest Radicals and best
By angry Labour in such terms addressed
As might apply to a Conservative!
To this conclusion I perforce must come,
’Twere best we parted: seeing that we, ’twould seem,
Haply have no appreciation of
Your high ambitions and your aims supreme,
Nor can we hope that you should greatly love
Our mental pabulum:
Depart, O Comrades! to some happier sphere
Where you can still be nobly on the make,
And mine, or plumb, or brew, or butch, or bake,—
Best to depart, and leave us mouldering here!
Yea, if ye scorn our learning overmuch,
Misguided sons of horny-handed toil!
Yet discontented with your lowly lot
Still pine to burn the sad nocturnal oil
’Mid academic culture, or ’mid what
Describes itself as such—
Go elsewhere, O my brothers! only go
To Bath, to Birmingham—where’er the Don
Teaches the sacred art of Getting On,——
—It is not far from here to Jericho.
It is Research of which I sing,
Research, that salutary thing!
None can succeed, in World or Church,
Who does not prosecute Research:
For some read books, and toil thereat
Their intellect to waken:
But if you think Research is _that_
You’re very much mistaken.
All in Columbia’s blesséd States
They have no Smalls, or Mods, or Greats,
Nor do their faculties benumb
With any cold curriculum:
O no! for there the ambitious Boy,
Released from schools and birches,
At once pursues with studious joy
A happy lot that Student’s is,
—I wish that mine were like to his,—
Where in the bud no pedants nip
And none need read with care and pain
Rome’s History, or Greece’s,
But each from his creative brain
Evolves semestrial Theses!
On books to pore is not the kind
Of thing to please the serious mind,—
I do not very greatly care
For such unsatisfying fare:
To seek the lore that in them lurks
Would last _ad infinitum_:
Let others read immortal works,—
I much prefer to write ’em!
When there wasn’t a relation between Oxford and the Nation, or a
Movement every day,
While the Heroes who propelled ’em were comparatively seldom of a
O the rapture singlehearted of that Period has departed, with its
In a manner inconsistent with the methods dim and distant of that
Minstrels! who your choicest notes
Keep for men who row in boats,
Mark with what exalted mien
He, amid the festal swarm,
Fashion’s glass and mould of form,
How in shape and how in features
Far surpassing other creatures,
How incomparable to
Common things like me and you!
He in whose transcendent state
All the ages culminate—
Could we ever keep him thus,
How delightful ’twere for us!
Could he, ’mid the admiring throng,
Ever beauteous, ever young,
Still abide for ever pent
In his true environment,
Wear that aureole still which now
Decks his high victorious brow!
Out, alas! that Fortune can’t
Ever give us what we want!
HE must quit this vernal stage:
HE must sink to middle age
(E’en the Poet’s soaring wit
Scarcely can envisage it):
Go with men of common clay
In to business every day:
Be perhaps a Brewer, or
None the fact to notice that
Haloes once adorned his hat:
Ay! the ways of Fate are odd:
Men are mortal . . .  Ichabod . . .
Yet shall stay by stream and tree
Something still of what was He,—
Plainly put, his More or Less
Very fine and very large,
Floating o’er his College barge:
Always while the world continues
Bards shall sing his thews and sinews,—
Here he rowed and here he ran,
Being rather more than man;—
Thus as ages onward go
Still he’ll great and greater grow,
Larger still in prose or rhyme
Looming down the aisles of time,
Till he sit, sublime and vast,
Men who lived in days of old
Lived and rowed in ages dark
Long ere Noah built the Ark,
Very, very famous oars,
Towering o’er our Browns and Smiths
Huge and grey, like Monoliths.
Thus the Hero’s happy fate
Keeps in store a blissful state,
All adown the Future dim,
Nearly worthy e’en of Him!
Dear Youth! whose wealth and lineage high
Each outward sign denotes,
The highly fashionable tie,
The latest thing in coats—
Imprinted on whose candid brow
No gazer could detect
(As e’en your enemies allow)
Who, ’spite your want of mental scope
And lack of Serious Aim,
Still left us, as we dared to hope,
More pensive than you came,
And thus at least, while critics vied
In pointing out our flaws,
For our continuance supplied
A kind of Final Cause:—
Your part is played, your turn is o’er:
Prepare to quit the stage:
It seems you’re not the person for
Though high your birth, though large your means,
I see—’tis sad, but true—
Soon, ’mid these academic scenes,
No corner left for you!
Ah! what avail the things that went
To build your prosperous lot,
The ample cash, the long descent,
The athlete’s frequent pot,
The waistcoat bright of ardent red
Or fascinating green,
The social charm that captive led
I see the Cherwell’s peaceful flood,
I see the courts of King’s
Invaded by a student brood
Which knows all kinds of things—
A crowd with high desires replete,
Whose recreations are
To sit at Professorial feet
And join a Seminar:
Bright Butterfly! your haunts of old
Are tenanted by men
Who realise what studies mould
These shall alone the blessings know
And You (I’m sure ’tis better so)
Will go to—Birmingham!
Lo, where yon undistinguished grave
Erects its grassy pile on
One who to all Experience gave
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
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