FullReads

X.

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap
His function in a magisterial gown,
That shows more countries in it than a map,–
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown,
Besides some blots, standing for country-town;
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide;
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown,
He turns the garment of the other side,
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied!

XI.

And soe he sits, amidst the little pack,
That look for shady or for sunny noon,
Within his visage, like an almanack,–
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon:
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon,
With horrid chill each little heart unwarms,
Knowing that infant show’rs will follow soon,
And with forebodings of near wrath and storms
They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms.

XII.

Ah! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat
“Corduroy Colloquy,”–or “Ki, Kae, Kod,”–
Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat
More sodden, tho’ already made of sod,
For Dan shall whip him with the word of God,–
Severe by rule, and not by nature mild,
He never spoils the child and spares the rod,
But spoils the rod and never spares the child,
And soe with holy rule deems he is reconcil’d.

XIII.

But, surely, the just sky will never wink
At men who take delight in childish throe,
And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink
Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe;
Such bloody Pedagogues, when they shall know,
By useless birches, that forlorn recess,
Which is no holiday, in Pit below,
Will hell not seem design’d for their distress,–
A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse?

XIV.

Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use
Of needful discipline, in due degree.
Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce,
Whene’er the twig untrained grows up a tree.
This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be,
Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands,
And Learning’s help be used for infamie,
By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands,
In murder’d English write Rock’s murderous commands.

XV.

But ah! what shrilly cry doth now alarm
The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam,
All sudden fluttering from the brandish’d arm,
And cackling chorus with the human scream;
Meanwhile, the scourge plies that unkindly seam
In Phelim’s brogues, which bares his naked skin,
Like traitor gap in warlike fort, I deem,
That falsely lets the fierce besieger in,
Nor seeks the Pedagogue by other course to win.

XVI.

No parent dear he hath to heed his cries;–
Alas! his parent dear is far aloof,
And deep in Seven-Dial cellar lies,
Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof,
Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof,
Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin’s Isle,
Or, whilst he labors, weaves a fancy-woof,
Dreaming he sees his home,–his Phelim smile;–
Ah me! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while!

XVII.

Ah! who can paint that hard and heavy time,
When first the scholar lists in Learning’s train,
And mounts her rugged steep, enforc’d to climb,
Like sooty imp, by sharp posterior pain,
From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane,
Wherein, alas! no sugar’d juices dwell,
For this, the while one stripling’s sluices drain,
Another weepeth over chilblains fell,
Always upon the heel, yet never to be well!

XVIII.

Anon a third, for his delicious root,
Late ravish’d from his tooth by elder chit,
So soon is human violence afoot,
So hardly is the harmless biter bit!
Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit
And mouthing face, derides the small one’s moan,
Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit,
Alack,–mischance comes seldomtimes alone,
But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one.