The Graduate's Choice

IN this omphalos of knowledge which is known as Princeford college,
The fatuous ‘Post Graduate’ pursues his golden dream
Down the broad highway of learning, till an unexpected turning
Brings him up before two mighty gates of loveliness supreme.
The one is gilt, rococo — with Cupids, frills, barocco;
The other cold white marble in the strictest Doric style:
On the pediment gigantic of the first is writ ‘Romantic’;
The second blazons ‘Classic’ from its Parian peristyle.
While the youth, perplexed, is gazing at these barriers amazing,
Soft, seductive strains of Wagner float pulsating down the wind,
And from out the gate Romantic, with gestures Corybantic,
Dance professors clad in rosy gauze like Bayaderes of Hind.
Their heads are crown’d with blossoms of rare Odontoglossums —
Their limbs swing free in rhythm isadoraduncanesque,
And, mellifluously tooting on their tibias soft-fluting,
They address the startled student in symphonic arabesque: —

‘Come, sweet stranger, to these bowers furnish’d forth with fairest flowers,
Where the slumbrous breath of poppies hovers heavy on the air:
We will feed you on narcotics, we’ll instruct you in erotics
And the art of snuffing perfumes from a dream-girl’s purple hair.
You shall live in ivory towers, where the pageant of the hours
From Nirvana to Nirvana trails its jasmine-scented length;
And we’ll prove by intuition and the Bergson proposition
That in reason lies all weakness, in the senses lies all strength.
We’ll converse in purest Swinburne with a warmth to make your skin burn
(For our morals are quite Futurist, if not to say relaxed);
And to Schoenberg’s orchestration we’ll extol Imagination,
Wearing gowns designed by Poiret, in a mise-en-scène by Bakst.
If you care for problems burning, you can cultivate a yearning
In the best Tolstoïan manner for th’ entire human race:
Enter, friend! You need not fear us! Come and sample our chimeras —
Come and tango with the Muses to the end of time and space!’

‘Lead me to them!’ cries the student, whom excitement makes imprudent,
And he rushes gayly forward to this poikile paradise —
But from out the Classic gateway there assails his hearing straightway
A stern chorus contrapuntal such as Bach might improvise,
And forth issues a procession, an orderly progression
Of professors garbed in togas that are well ‘within the law’;
They address him in a fashion quite devoid of any passion,
And the chiselled niceness of their speech rings forth without a flaw: —

‘Stop and listen, hapless stranger! You are facing mortal danger!
Don’t allow those jaded hedonists to take you off your guard!
They are rabid nympholeptics — they are hopeless epileptics,
And their paradise is nothing but a psychopathic ward!
Their happiness is rotten with ideals misbegotten —
The décadent creation of a sophist’s monstrous dream;
Their words are an eruption of unspeakable corruption,
Hiding depths of black depravity beneath a specious gleam.
Spurn that trull Imagination! Come and worship Moderation —
Come and practice Imitation till the Classic Spirit dawns!
Here we offer you diversion all unspotted by perversion
When we dance our decent minuets on closely shaven lawns.
As the secret of true pleasure in decorum lies and measure,
You may conjure up chaste visions of a geometric bliss:
If your passions need expressing, you may let off steam by pressing
On the feet of the Stagirite one short, cold, Platonic kiss!'

Our poor student, torn asunder ’twixt these offers, stood in wonder
Till the hostile bands, descending, tried to carry him away;
They pulled him and they hauled him, they jerked him and they mauled him,
And the dust of battle rose in clouds around the frightful fray.

When at last the fight abated and the forces separated,
The student who had caused the strife was nowhere to be found.
Had they torn him all to tatters? — Not that it really matters —
For each side claimed the victory with certainty profound !