Classic Poem

" WHAT is Earth? " the poet saith.
It is a place of birth and death:
A school wherein the schoolmen teach,
And never practise as they preach;
Where Greek and Latin stamp the scholar;
Where Fame is reckoned by the dollar;
Where Scandal and false Innuendo
Taint all that women and e'en men do;
Where Lie the first is peerless reckoned,
Until thrust out by Lie the second:
Where Candour, Worth, and Thought are sleeping;
Where Cant is upwards, upwards creeping;
Where Age is drivelling; Youth pedantic;
Religion frozen, or else frantic;
Where great Palaver despot reigneth;
Where Wisdom to the moon complaineth;
Where folks who winds and waters measure,
And chattering Savans take their pleasure,
And meet each year from hall and college,
Stunning the soul with seraps of knowledge;
Where Strength is right; where Truth is wrong;
Where Genius shrinks into a song;
Where struggling Girlhood toils and dies;
Where Childhood pines; where Hunger cries,
And none respondeth to its call;
And yet — blue Heaven is over all!