The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith ... Revised by the Author: Coll. ed. |
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 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
What to do with their tramping and chorusing so
Through the still hours of thought, with the lamp burning low?
Let me read as I will, I read nothing but words;
And somehow they run into quavers and chords—
Metaphysics in music, crabbed Latin in tunes,
With no more clear meaning than so many Runes:
At the trick of the singer they trip in light measure,
But shake from their folds the fine thought which they treasure.
What to do?—Why not join in their jolly carouse?
Ralph's a splendid young scamp, and has plenty of nous,
Ay, and more Greek and Latin than half of the fellows
Who are cramming for honours, dull, bilious, and jealous.
Now, were Socrates here, and saw how they mope,
And travail in pain with a theme, or a trope,
And drag out a thought as with pulleys and cranks,
How his jests would go crack like a whip on their flanks!
But for Ralph—there the Greek eye would brighten to witness
His beauty and vigour, his swiftness and fitness
For wisdom or valour, for pleasure or power,
For speech to the Demos, or maid in her bower,
For bridling the wild horse, or quaffing the bowl,
Or holding discourse of the gods and the soul:
For dear to the sage was a beautiful youth,
And the wholeness of manhood was precious as truth.
And I too am young; and my blood too is hot
With the lust of all broad roads where pleasure is got.
They think me a bookworm, a winner of prizes,
Full of priggish decorums, and learned surmises;
Precise as a Puritan; feeding on Scholia,
And Elzevir classics, and black Melancholia:
Yet the craving of passion is gnawing within,
And the strong human hanker to dally with sin.
Through the still hours of thought, with the lamp burning low?
Let me read as I will, I read nothing but words;
And somehow they run into quavers and chords—
Metaphysics in music, crabbed Latin in tunes,
With no more clear meaning than so many Runes:
At the trick of the singer they trip in light measure,
But shake from their folds the fine thought which they treasure.
What to do?—Why not join in their jolly carouse?
Ralph's a splendid young scamp, and has plenty of nous,
Ay, and more Greek and Latin than half of the fellows
Who are cramming for honours, dull, bilious, and jealous.
Now, were Socrates here, and saw how they mope,
And travail in pain with a theme, or a trope,
And drag out a thought as with pulleys and cranks,
How his jests would go crack like a whip on their flanks!
But for Ralph—there the Greek eye would brighten to witness
His beauty and vigour, his swiftness and fitness
For wisdom or valour, for pleasure or power,
For speech to the Demos, or maid in her bower,
For bridling the wild horse, or quaffing the bowl,
93
For dear to the sage was a beautiful youth,
And the wholeness of manhood was precious as truth.
And I too am young; and my blood too is hot
With the lust of all broad roads where pleasure is got.
They think me a bookworm, a winner of prizes,
Full of priggish decorums, and learned surmises;
Precise as a Puritan; feeding on Scholia,
And Elzevir classics, and black Melancholia:
Yet the craving of passion is gnawing within,
And the strong human hanker to dally with sin.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |