University of Virginia Library


122

IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Dead sage, dead priest, unheard ye call
Up from the valleys where ye sleep:
Love's clarion soundeth over all;
His fires glow from steep to steep.
Professor, I have little store
Of learning you may fitly seek,
I covet no Department's lore—
Egyptian, Syriac, or Greek.
But oft I tread these halls alone,
And mark where, treasured with the rest,
There lies a stone, no common stone.
‘A fragment’—of a ‘woman's breast.’
Profess, Professor, all you know!
I ask, among the spoils you heap,
Has Time a greater thing to show?
Have we a holier thing to keep?
 

Reprinted from The Speaker.