Classic Poem

On Psychical Phenomena she spoke out with decision
About the Ancient Mystics and the modern ones as well;
She discussed the Stellar Theory and the Tripartite Division,
And the character of Shelley, and the Theosophic Smell.

Anon she touched on Politics, on Egypt's vanished splendours,
On Aryans, Euripides, and Rousseau's moral tone;
She quoted scraps of German, using freedom in her genders,
And she mentioned Renan's latest with an accent all her own.

I listened and I marvelled, for I've scholars known in plenty
Who've struggled all a long life through to master one domain,
And here I found a maiden fond of dancing, pretty, twenty,
Whose province was all learning, and who found it smooth and plain.

I loved her, and to love her was a liberal education;
I shyly dared to ask her how I might grow wise as she.
I was but a humble Wrangler, so I spoke with trepidation:
She marked it, and she sweetly smiled and thus encouraged me:

" Oh, the matter's very simple! You have but to do as I did:
Go and hear extension lecturers, peruse the monthly Stead;
Join a Furnivall Society or two, by them be guided,
Of proper names and tendencies repeat all you hear said.

" Two lectures on the Cosmic Soul and three on Man's Relations,
One on Dramatic Genius in England, Greece and Rome,
A Tudor Exhibition and a Story of the Nations,
With a visit paid to Stratford or the Robert Elsmere home.

" Will make you almost perfect in the ways of the New Learning,
That teaches us to talk of things we scarcely know by name;
But you mustn't waste your time on books, like persons undiscerning,
Except about the washing bills and sins of men of fame.

" " Browning? Read him?" I've not read him, but I've heard a well-known critic
Give his views about " Sordello" to the Ladies' Culture Classes;
And a magic-lantern picture at last Tuesday's Analytic,
Showed the meeting 'twixt the lover and the wife in " Pippa Passes."

" Now try this plan, and quickly 'mid the wisdom of the ages,
You'll learn the true enjoyment that the love of culture brings,
Find our Being's real inwardness before you in the pages
Of the Shilling Oxford Primer on the Origin of Things. "