Classic Poem

He rose, smoothed flat his notes, tweaked the desk-light,
Thrust a curt nod at us:
And his assault on Vergil that wild night,
Good friends, was — ominous.

" Anchises' son — poltroon and rake, in short.
Pius? — a sad misnomer!
The author too a flatterer of the court,
And a crude thief (from Homer).

" The pith in Dido's passion (strangely human),
The stress on jewels and flowers,
But proved the poet some voluptuous woman
(Still clever after hours)! ... "

Well, well. . . . And yet we dropped our jibes with years:
He'd been but pert and green.
He prospered with us (grades, committees, shears,
Syntax, and such routine) ...

Of late he probed a man who'd lost his wife,
To put his grief to school:
A fool at letters is a fool at life —
But life most feels him fool.