Classic Poem

Fair Friends, in opening lectures like to these,
With hope to please
Yet teach the heart to swell, the brain to climb
At the same time;
I feel I must when first I meet your eyes apologize.

For this is not a field where thought can soar
As heretofore
And things sublime or things ridiculous
Each one discuss
While all the little listening girls and boys
" Huer the great noise! "

I offer you today in place of this
Discursive bliss
A field of solemn facts, with some pretense
Of Inference!
In place of thought and fancy soaring free —
Biography!

Alas! Biography is solid work one cannot shirk!
Facts about lives that are with history blent
I can't invent,
Must serve in place of warmest disputation
Chill facts — a cold collation .