UNCLASSIC.
Unversed in classic lore, and all unread
In the great masters of old Greece and Rome,
Much of the modern is to me half dead,
And wholly dead is some.
Unknown the instances on which they build;
The names they use, and references, unknown,—
Though in good English given, to me they yield,
Instead of bread, a stone.
Excluded thus, what chance have I to make,
From gleanings in my own unletter'd waste,
Aught of commanding interest to take
The literary taste!
For what would all its learning serve, were it,
With any recognition, to receive
As critically “literatesque” and fit,
The unschool'd things I weave?
I must not hope to win such classic praise,
But trust to lower audience; and for themes,
Find them at home, along the trodden ways,
In work-begotten dreams.
Or if among the humbler things I find
A dim, deep thought that wants the light of words,
It will be such as for the unclassic mind
God every day affords.
And that I'll give as plainly as I may,
In Saxon tongue, for Saxon eye and ear—
So plainly that the classic taste will say
“Pooh, pooh, there's nothing here!”
