I know a professor of Greek and of Latin; His nouns and his verbs he is not at all pat in, But he knows how to wield the plane, hammer, and saw, He knows how to paint, how to etch and to draw, How to decorate dishes and satin. He can play on the flute and the violoncello, He raises fine fruit, large and juicy and mellow, He will write you a sonnet, an ode, or a play, He will sing you a song in an elegant way; He's a very versatile fellow. But I know a shrewd student whose impudent guess is, (To account for the way the professor digresses From his Latin and Greek, art and farming unto), That these are the things the professor can do, While the classics he merely -- professes! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO FUSILIERS by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. MR. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, 1770 by PHILLIS WHEATLEY TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |