Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap
His function in a magisterial gown,
That shows more countries in it than a
map,—
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet
brown,
Besides some blots, standing for country-town;
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers
wide;
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks
adown,
He turns the garment of the other side,
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied!
XI.
And soe he sits, amidst the little pack,
That look for shady or for sunny noon,
Within his visage, like an almanack,—
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon:
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy
moon,
With horrid chill each little heart unwarms,
Knowing that infant show’rs will
follow soon,
And with forebodings of near wrath and
storms
They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their
forms.
XII.
Ah! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat
“Corduroy Colloquy,”—or
“Ki, Kae, Kod,”—
Full soon his tears shall make his turfy
seat
More sodden, tho’ already made of
sod,
For Dan shall whip him with the word of
God,—
Severe by rule, and not by nature mild,
He never spoils the child and spares the
rod,
But spoils the rod and never spares the
child,
And soe with holy rule deems he is reconcil’d.
XIII.
But, surely, the just sky will never wink
At men who take delight in childish throe,
And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink
Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe;
Such bloody Pedagogues, when they shall
know,
By useless birches, that forlorn recess,
Which is no holiday, in Pit below,
Will hell not seem design’d for
their distress,—
A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse?
XIV.
Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome
use
Of needful discipline, in due degree.
Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time
produce,
Whene’er the twig untrained grows
up a tree.
This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be,
Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands,
And Learning’s help be used for
infamie,
By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody
hands,
In murder’d English write Rock’s murderous
commands.
XV.
But ah! what shrilly cry doth now alarm
The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam,
All sudden fluttering from the brandish’d
arm,
And cackling chorus with the human scream;
Meanwhile, the scourge plies that unkindly
seam
In Phelim’s brogues, which bares
his naked skin,
Like traitor gap in warlike fort, I deem,
That falsely lets the fierce besieger
in,
Nor seeks the Pedagogue by other course to win.