YE Somervillian students, Ye ladies of St. Hugh's, Whose rashness and imprudence Provokes my warning Muse, Receive not with impatience, But calmly, as you should, These simple observations -- I make them for your good. Why seek for mere diplomas, And commonplace degrees, When now -- unfettered roamers -- You study what you please, While man in like conditions Is forced to stick like gum Unto the requisitions Of a @3curriculum?@1 As far o'er field and fallow In flood-time spreads the Cher, So wide (yet not so shallow) Your ample studies are; As Cherwell's wave returning Flows from a scantier source, So Man's restricted learning Is narrowed to a Course. As when the sphere is fleeting Across th' extended net, And Somerville's competing With Lady Margaret, As players at lawn-tennis Return alternate balls, E'en such the lot of men is Who read for Greats and Smalls! We bid them try -- poor suitors -- Yet still to fail condemn: Examiners and tutors Make shuttlecocks of them: Would you, as some of them are, Be constantly betwixt The horns of a dilemma Uncomfortably fixt? When Proctors fine and gate you, If walking through the town @3In pupillari statu@1 Without a cap and gown; When gauds that now delight you Away you have to throw, And sadly go @3vestitu In academico;@1 When your untried impatience Is tested every day By rules and regulations: When academic sway Your study's space belittles, You'll find that life, I fear, Is not completely skittles, Nor altogether beer. What boots that countless letters Unto your name you add, And strive to gild the fetters That cramp the undergrad? Doomed to a Course that's narrow Your recklessness you'll rue: The toad beneath a harrow Will happier be than you! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON MUSIC by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR FOUND' (FOR A PICTURE) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE by ROBERT SOUTHEY SUMMER NIGHT, RIVERSIDE by SARA TEASDALE REMEMBRANCE by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES A DREAM AND A SONG by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE THE SHEPHERD'S PIPE: FIFTH ECLOGUE; TO HIS FRIEND CHRISTOPHER BROOKE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) GETTING UP THE WINTER WOOD IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |