Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SCHOOLROOM OF POETS, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SCHOOLROOM OF POETS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: An autumn dusk darkened my window-panes
Last Line: Boy-dreamers by the fireside, arm on arm!
Subject(s): Literature; Pens & Pencils; Poetry & Poets; Writing & Writers


An Autumn dusk darkened my window-panes ...
I saw a jewelled lamp with silver chains
Glow 'gainst my wall—the lamp of Poetry,
Wreathing me 'round with mists of memory
Breathing rich names. And then—a voice it was—
"Where left you Chrononhotonthologos,
Aldeborontiphoscophornio?"
The battering syllables came tense and low,
Stirring to laughter with their quaint bombast.

And then I saw that I had somehow passed
Into an ancient schoolroom, raftered low
And dusk and dim, save for a firelight glow
Making the walls with grotesque shadows dance.
There, near the fire, some huddled boys by chance
Were tracing pothooks, whispering, sharpening pens;
And the strange words I heard had come from thence.
The bluecoat boy who spoke them turned his head.
"Digne Mastre Canynge," was the next he said.
"Your arcublastries and your asenglaves
Be wychencref to brayde emmertleynge staves!
The fetive baubles of the song I reap
Toss like emblazoned banners in a keep.
Besprent with comets is my brigandine;
Damoiselle Poesie my daised queen.
Brystowans, kneel! In fiery meteors dight
With ye, dull Saracens, I join the fight
Like to King Richard, lyoncelle of war! ...
Above St. Mary's hangs a blazing star.
This parchment—this—!"

And in the firelit gloom,
As in the Church's ancient charter-room,
The child large-headed knelt beside a chest,
Oblivious to the converse of the rest,
Scanning the documents whence he would draw
That work that Walpole set without the law,—
That fifteenth-century hoax that echoes still
Even to the crest of steep Parnassus hill.

Quaint, elfish knight of Bristol and of London,—
Swordsman of satire, Holborn soon saw undone
When Want as an armed man stood by your side,—
Midget of genius and imperious pride,
You and your Rowley shine at last enskied!

And then another voice withdrew my gaze
From the child-fashioner of archaic lays,—
Another poet? His vivacious eyes
Glittered with dreams. A Latin exercise
Fluttered from off his knee. And then he bent
His tossed brown curls upon his book intent.
Tooke's "Pantheon" or Marmontel's "Peru,"
Which held him breathlessly I never knew,—
Whether the old Athenians passed him there
Wearing the golden tettix in their hair,

In the broad agora mingling their himations
For arguments, rejoicings, protestations
O'er laws,—or the alacritous hyaline
Parted to show the god Apollo shine
Bending his ivory bow,—or if, again,
Keats climbed the Andes with Pizarro's men,
Their steel cuirasses glittering 'neath the snows
Where Cuzco's fate would soon be Mexico's
And Atahuallpa's dungeon shine in state
With golden goblets and with golden plate
Piled for his ransom—and his mortal loss
To cruel cavaliers, who bore the Cross.

The room seemed vibrant with great song that calls
The ages slave, as once on Carian walls
Apollo laid his lyre, and all the stones
Resounded in harmonic undertones.
Round that brown head that housed no thoughts of fame
Flickered the bright, authentic, Tullian flame!

I roused at last.
A homely, pock-marked face,
With kindly eyes, met mine, as from his place
Young, wise, erratic Goldsmith smiled,—the boy
Whom the old quartermaster near Lissoy
First taught of ghosts, banshees, and leprechauns,
(To rival young John's satyrs, nymphs, and fauns),
And stirred with tales of the Allies in Spain,
Of Port Mahon, and Barcelona ta'en,
Of Stanhope at Brihuega lost to hope,
Of freakish Mordaunt, friend of Swift and Pope,—
Battles and heroes, camp and counterscarp,
And, through it all, the sad, sweet Irish harp
Keening Cuchullain.

Of the Fortunate Isles
You knew, who knew "the daggers in men's smiles";
Fluting the fops to rustic heydeguys.
Sweet missel-thrush that sang 'neath lowering skies!
You lifted golden landfalls on Despair's
Dark sea! O Lydian touchstone of sweet airs!
Nor you forgot your Axe-yard beggary
When Newberry's counting-house paid forth your fee,—
In purple smallclothes, scarlet roquelaure,
And fine lace neckcloth, standing by the door
To dispense bounty,—and thence merrily
To the "Turk's Head," or to the Thrales for tea,
Where Burke and Reynolds with—not at—you laughed,
And Boswell raged at many a quiet shaft.
"Inopem copia fecit!" ghosts must say
Who mocked your small-talk in their Georgian day.

Here you sat dreaming with a whimsied mirth,
Toasting your toes before the fires of Earth!

Then I perceived that in that schoolroom warm
"Brown Silks" sat by "Mad Shelley" on one form,
Their arms entwined, while Shelley, fair and slight,
With gleaming hair and round blue eyes alight,
Told of the dragon in Saint Leonard's wood,
Or of the alchemist none understood
Who lived in Field Place attic.

And the child
Of splendid churchly visions bobbed and smiled,
Shy with his words, but near as elf to elf,
Quoting some bit of Shakspere to himself
Or Latin tag, with luminous eyes of awe,
As in the dormitories of Ushaw.

So faded that old schoolroom, as its fire
Died, and the shadows gulfed the seats entire;
And, as I woke, sharp on my window-pane
Came the quick rattle of the falling rain.

Far more than in their verse, than in their prime,
I love my poets in their seeding time.
What words could match that close and vivid charm,
Boy-dreamers by the fireside, arm on arm!





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