Classic Poem

A True Story

Returned from college R — — gets a wife
To be the joy and comfort of his life:
But ere the honeymoon was in the wane
He sighs for college, and his books again
To his thought on all occasions flock:
Like Madam Shandy, thinking of the clock.
But, sad mishap! when Phoebus gilds the skies,
If to his favorite authors he applies,
Bright Venus throws her cestus o'er the book;
In vain he tries upon the page to look;
As Cupid blind, the classic page no more
Delights his raptured sight as heretofore.
Like that sagacious beast, who placed between
Two cocks of hay — one dry, the other green,
Can neither taste; our scholar every night
Thinks of his books; and of his bride by light.
Untasted joys breed always discontents;
Thus to his sire, his rage the scholar vents.
" Would that in Italy I had been born,
And, early, of each vile encumbrance shorn,
Which now seduces all my thoughts away
From Classic studies or by night, or day.
Uninterrupted then I might have read
Or in my elbow chair, or in my bed;
Till drowsy grown, and nodding o'er the book
Upon the enchanting page I craved to look
And then in rapturous dreams renewed the joy
Till taking, I resumed the blest employ.
But now in vain I quit the genial bed,
My wife — a plague! — keeps running in my head
In ev'ry page I read my raging fires
Portray her yielding to my fierce desires. "
" G — d — your books! " the testy father said,
" I'd not give — — for all you've read. "