Classic and Contemporary Poetry
VIRGINIBUS, by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY Poet's Biography First Line: Ye somervillian students, ye ladies of st. Hugh's Last Line: The toad beneath a harrow will happier be than you! Alternate Author Name(s): Godley, A. D. Subject(s): Oxford University | ||||||||
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 curriculum? 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 In pupillari statu Without a cap and gown; When gauds that now delight you Away you have to throw, And sadly go vestitu In academico; 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...CHRIST CHURCH MEADOWS, OXFORD by DONALD HALL OXFORD, THIRTY YEARS AFTER by JOHN UPDIKE THE SCHOLAR GIPSY by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE SPIRES OF OXFORD by WINIFRED MARY LETTS THE TALENTED MAN by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED SONNET: ON HAVING DINED AT TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD by JOHN CODRINGTON BAMPFYLDE THE BALLAD OF MY FRIEND by J. D. BEAZLEY LETTER TO B.W. PROCTOR, ESQ., FROM OXFORD; MAY, 1825 by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY A HANDBOOK TO HOMER by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY A NEW DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD; ODYSSEUS AND ARISTOTLE by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY |
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