 | Between Doubting and Daring |  |
29
A Conjectural Emendation
(Antigone 4)
The old grey house this many a year stands lone,
With grass-lands wide begirt; and grey and old
This many a lonely year its master, grown
A bookworm haunting places blurred with mould,
In the long narrow brown-walled library reads,
Or oftener, haply, if the truth were told,
But wanders through a dream as memory leads
His steps forlorn; still, whithersoe'er it guide him,
Yon portly tome, green-clad like faded meads,
Lies open beside him.
With grass-lands wide begirt; and grey and old
This many a lonely year its master, grown
A bookworm haunting places blurred with mould,
In the long narrow brown-walled library reads,
Or oftener, haply, if the truth were told,
But wanders through a dream as memory leads
His steps forlorn; still, whithersoe'er it guide him,
Yon portly tome, green-clad like faded meads,
Lies open beside him.
Much learning gathered up the spread leaf shows:
One verse of Sophocles, a dubious text,
Whereon a stream of comment overflows,
Sprung variously, from this page to the next.
No scholar through that clouded script sees clear
How sad Antigone her fate sore vexed
Arraigned, and they to whom the words appear
That lift the haze do soothly but increase it.
Amongst them Thomas Dale Ατης ατ' ηρ
Inepte conjecit.
One verse of Sophocles, a dubious text,
Whereon a stream of comment overflows,
Sprung variously, from this page to the next.
No scholar through that clouded script sees clear
How sad Antigone her fate sore vexed
Arraigned, and they to whom the words appear
That lift the haze do soothly but increase it.
Amongst them Thomas Dale Ατης ατ' ηρ
Inepte conjecit.
His heavy pencil's point has underlined
With scoring blue and broad the censured name,
But Thomas Dale has never a whit repined,
Nay, rather prizes the recorded blame;
For so he trusts by power of printing press
He shall not pass away unknown to fame.
Deem you that note his essay's ill success
In pillory sets, whence fain he would release it?
A shrewder critic marks against your guess:
Inepte conjecit.
With scoring blue and broad the censured name,
But Thomas Dale has never a whit repined,
Nay, rather prizes the recorded blame;
30
He shall not pass away unknown to fame.
Deem you that note his essay's ill success
In pillory sets, whence fain he would release it?
A shrewder critic marks against your guess:
Inepte conjecit.
| Between Doubting and Daring | |