To a Company of Scholars in English Literature
WE are the brazen-bottomed ones
In patient sedentary pants;
We cut our cake with filing cards
And count the commas of romance.
In patient sedentary pants;
We cut our cake with filing cards
And count the commas of romance.
Our voices ever soft and low
With unction like a hierophant’s,
We lave each word with amorous tongue
Anointing all the consonants.
With unction like a hierophant’s,
We lave each word with amorous tongue
Anointing all the consonants.
With grasshopper garrulity
We sometimes gossip of the wrecks
The living make, of war and death,
As pent-up schoolboys talk of sex.
We sometimes gossip of the wrecks
The living make, of war and death,
As pent-up schoolboys talk of sex.
We have no cheerful human lust,
Too timid for the genial bed,
But fumble in the startled dust
Of the unimpassioned dead,
Too timid for the genial bed,
But fumble in the startled dust
Of the unimpassioned dead,
And gender from this stale embrace
By concentrating all our skills
A half-pint can for measuring
The yellow mist on Malvern Hills.
By concentrating all our skills
A half-pint can for measuring
The yellow mist on Malvern Hills.