Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SCHOLAR AT HIS WIT'S END; A TALE, by WILLIAM COWPER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: In days when the learned, as old stories tell Last Line: Poems, vol. I, p. 110.] | ||||||||
IN days when the learned, as old stories tell, Were famous for raising his Highness of Hell, A Scholar, with pot-hooks and hangers all bloody, Succeeded, and conjur'd him into his study. Now, though to excite him cost labour and pain, It costs twice as much to lay him again, And ne'er can be done, unless you can give His De'ilship a task that he cannot atchieve. So the Scholar enjoin'd him whatever he thought Would puzzle him most, but he puzzled him not. There was nothing so difficult, nothing so nice But he did it, and show'd it him done in a trice. At length said the Scholar (and look'd less aghast For he surely believed he had hit it at last) Gofetch me a thing hard enough to defie All force of impression, whatever we try. Then he brought him a flint, but that would not do Then a bridling old maiden, but she yielded too Then he stood at a plunge, and feared he must go Back again to his dreary apartment below, But suddenly starting, as one just awake From a nap that he had not intended to take "Oh how"he exclaim'd"could I be such a dunce! "I have itI'll furnish you with it at once." So he went, and return'd twice as soon as before With the heart of a plump Overseer of the Poor. "Alas! " quoth the Student, with sorrowful face, "I give up the point, 'tis a desperate case "I never shall lay thee, and woe to the art "That taught me to raise thee, say I, from my heart, "'Tis the thing in the world that I wish'd thee to miss, "For thy own is not half so obdurate as This." [Bodleian MS. From a copy in Cowper's handwriting in his Entry Book of his Poems, vol. I, p. 110.] | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A COMPARISON [ADDRESSED] TO A YOUNG LADY by WILLIAM COWPER BOADICEA; AN ODE by WILLIAM COWPER EPITAPH ON A HARE by WILLIAM COWPER OLNEY HYMNS: 1. WALKING WITH GOD by WILLIAM COWPER OLNEY HYMNS: 18. LOVEST THOU ME? by WILLIAM COWPER OLNEY HYMNS: 35. LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS by WILLIAM COWPER OLNEY HYMNS: 49. JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING by WILLIAM COWPER OLNEY HYMNS: 9. THE CONTRITE HEART by WILLIAM COWPER ON THE DEATH OF MRS. (NOW LADY) THROCKMORTON'S BULLFINCH by WILLIAM COWPER ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE by WILLIAM COWPER ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE [OUT OF NORFOLK] by WILLIAM COWPER |
|