Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO C.S.C., by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO C.S.C., by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, when the grey courts of christ's college glowed
Last Line: Nor have my doubts about a decent sale.
Alternate Author Name(s): Stephen, J. K.
Subject(s): Calverley, Charles Stuart (1831-1884)


OH, when the grey courts of Christ's College glowed
With all the rapture of thy frequent lay,
When printers' deveils chuckled as they strode,
And blithe compositors grew loudly gay:
Did Granta realize that here abode,
Here in the home of Milton, Wordsworth, Gray,
A poet not unfit to cope with any
That ever wore the bays or turned a penny?

The wit of smooth delicious Matthew Prior.
The rhythmic grace which Hookham Frere displayed,
The summer lightning wreathing Byron's lyre,
The neat inevitable turns of Praed,
Rhymen to which Hudibras could scarce aspire,
Such metric pranks as Gilbert oft has played,
All these good gifts and others far sublimer
Are found in thee, beloved Cambridge rhymer.

And scholarship as sound as his whose name
Matched thine (he lives to mourn, alas, thy death,
And now enjoys the plenitude of fame,
And oft to crowded audience lectureth,
Or writes to prove religion is the same
As science, unbelief a form of faith):--
Ripe scholar! Virgil's self would not be chary
Of praises for thy Carmen Seculare.

Whene'er I take my 'pint of beer' a day,
I 'gaze into my glass and think of thee:
When smoking, after 'lunch is cleared away',
Thy face amid the cloud I seem to see;
When 'that sweet mite with whom I used to play'.
Or 'Araminta', or 'the fair Miss P.'
Recur to me, I think upon thy verses,
Which still my beating heart and quench my curses.

Ah, Calverley! if in these lays of mine
Some sparkle of thy radiant genius burned,
Or were in any poem--stanza--line
Some faint reflection of thy muse discerned:
If any critic would remark in fine
'Of C. S. C. this gentle art he learned'
I should not then expect my book to fail,
Nor have my doubts about a decent sale.





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