17
More fer the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty.
Ah! replied Philip again, But as for the rest of the story,
Truly I see a good deal in the daisy-carnation fable;
Though I should like to be clear what standing in the earth means.
But, as you said to me when this long discussion started,
There's truth in what you say, though I don't quite understand you.
So the discussion ended; and Arthur rose up smiling,
Now, quoth he, that Philip daren't bully you more, it is my turn.
How will my argument please you? To-morrow we start on our travel.
And took up Hope the chorus.
To-morrow we start on our travel.
Lo the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising;
Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter;
Three weeks hence will return and revisit our dismal classics,
Three weeks hence re-adjust our visions of classes and classics.
Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of,
History, Science, and Poets! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard,
Thookydid, Oloros' son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried!
Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of Old Athens,
Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard!
Sleep, weary Ghosts, be at peace, and abide in your lexicon-limbo!
Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred,
Sleep, and for ought that I care, 'the sleep that knows no waking,'
Æschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato.
Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics.
And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician.
Three weeks hence we return to the shop and the wash-hand-stand-bason,[1]
Three weeks hence unbury Thicksides and hairy Aldrich.
But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nicknamed Adam,
Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning?
And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued,
Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes, and Hewson,
Lindsay and Arthur and Hope to verify Black are a quorum.
Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker.
Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, peradventure;
Terry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero,
Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie 'abide in his breaches;'
Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an it like them!
Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us;
- ↑ Cottage and matotine.
B
