Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT, by JOHN GODFREY SAXE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tis twenty years, and something more
Last Line: A member of the common council!
Subject(s): Education


'T IS twenty years, and something more,
Since, all athirst for useful knowledge,
I took some draughts of classic lore,
Drawn very mild, at ----rd College;
Yet I remember all that one
Could wish to hold in recollection;
The boys, the joys, the noise, the fun;
But not a single Conic Section.

I recollect those harsh affairs,
The morning bells that gave us panics;
I recollect the formal prayers,
That seemed like lessons in Mechanics;
I recollect the drowsy way
In which the students listened to them,
As clearly, in my wig, to-day,
As when, a boy, I slumbered through them.

I recollect the tutors all
As freshly now, if I may say so,
As any chapter I recall
In Homer or Ovidius Naso.
I recollect, extremely well,
"Old Hugh," the mildest of fanatics;
I well remember Matthew Bell,
But very faintly, Mathematics.

I recollect the prizes paid
For lessons fathomed to the bottom;
(Alas that pencil-marks should fade!)
I recollect the chaps who got 'em, --
The light equestrians who soared
O'er every passage reckoned stony;
And took the chalks, -- but never scored
A single honor to the pony!

Ah me! what changes Time has wrought,
And how predictions have miscarried!
A few have reached the goal they sought,
And some are dead, and some are married!
And some in city journals war;
And some as politicians bicker;
And some are pleading at the bar --
For jury-verdicts, or for liquor!

And some on Trade and Commerce wait;
And some in schools with dunces battle;
And some the Gospel propagate;
And some the choicest breeds of cattle;
And some are living at their ease;
And some were wrecked in "the revulsion";
Some served the State for handsome fees,
And one, I hear, upon compulsion!
LAMONT, who, in his college days,
Thought e'en a cross a moral scandal,
Has left his Puritanic ways,
And worships now with bell and candle;
And MANN, who mourned the negro's fate,
And held the slave as most unlucky,
Now holds him, at the market rate,
On a plantation in Kentucky!

TOM KNOX -- who swore in such a tone
It fairly might be doubted whether
It really was himself alone,
Or Knox and Erebus together --
Has grown a very altered man,
And, changing oaths for mild entreaty,
Now recommends the Christian plan
To savages in Otaheite!

Alas for young ambition's vow!
How envious Fate may overthrow it! --
Poor HARVEY is in Congress now,
Who struggled long to be a poet;
SMITH carves (quite well) memorial stones,
Who tried in vain to make the law go;
HALL deals in hides; and "Pious Jones"
Is dealing faro in Chicago!

And, sadder still, the brilliant HAYS,
Once honest, manly, and ambitious,
Has taken latterly to ways
Extremely profligate and vicious;
By slow degrees -- I can't tell how --
He's reached at last the very groundsel,
And in New York he figures now,
A member of the Common Council!





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