![]() |
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN ELECTIVE COURSE, by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: The bloom that lies on fanny's cheek Last Line: As teaches me to love it much. Subject(s): Beauty; Harvard University | |||
(LINES FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF A HARVARD UNDER GRADUATE) THE bloom that lies on Fanny's cheek Is all my Latin, all my Greek; The only sciences I know Are frowns that gloom and smiles that glow; Siberia and Italy Lie in her sweet geography; No scholarship have I but such As teaches me to love her much. Why should I strive to read the skies, Who know the midnight of her eyes? Why should I go so very far To learn what heavenly bodies are! Not Berenice's starry hair With Fanny's tresses can compare; Not Venus on a cloudless night, Enslaving Science with her light, Ever reveals so much as when She stares and droops her lids again. If Nature's secrets are forbidden To mortals, she may keep them hidden. Aeons and aeons we progressed And did not let that break our rest; Little we cared if Mars overhead Were or were not inhabited; Without the aid of Saturn's rings Fair girls were wived in those far springs; Warm lips met ours and conquered us Or ere thou wert, Copernicus! Graybeards, who seek to bridge the chasm 'Twixt man to-day and protoplasm, Who theorize and probe and gape, And finally evolve an ape -- Yours is a harmless sort of cult, If you are pleased with the result. Some folks admit, with cynic grace, That you have rather proved your case. These dogmatists are so severe! Enough for me that Fanny's here, Enough that, having long survived Pre-Eveic forms, she has arrived -- An illustration the completest Of the survival of the sweetest. Linnaeus, avaunt! I only care To know what flower she wants to wear. I leave it to the addle-pated To guess how pinks originated, As if it mattered! The chief thing Is that we have them in the Spring, And Fanny likes them. When they come, I straightway send and purchase some. The Origin of Plants -- go to! Their proper end I have in view. O loveliest book that ever man Looked into since the world began Is Woman! As I turn those pages, As fresh as in the primal ages, As day by day I scan, perplext, The ever subtly changing text, I feel that I am slowly growing To think no other work worth knowing. And in my copy -- there is none So perfect as the one I own -- I find no thing set down but such As teaches me to love it much. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAIR HARVARD by GEORGE SANTAYANA APOLOGIES TO HARVARD; THE PHI BETA KAPPA POEM, 1973 by JOHN UPDIKE HUMANITIES COURSE by JOHN UPDIKE WIDENER LIBRARY, READING ROOM by JOHN UPDIKE TWO STUDIES IN IDEALISM: 2. HARVARD '61: BATTLE FATIGUE by ROBERT PENN WARREN W. E. B. DUBOIS AT HARVARD by JAY WRIGHT COMMEMORATION ODE READ AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL V.B. NIMBLE, V.B. QUICK by JOHN UPDIKE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN NEW-ENGLAND by PHILLIS WHEATLEY AFTER THE RAIN by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH AN ALPINE PICTURE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |
|