Fight through ignorance, want, and care — <br />Through the griefs that crush the spirit; <br />Push your way to a fortune fair, <br />And the smiles of the world you’ll merit. <br />Long, as a boy, for the chance to learn — <br />For the chance that Fate denies you; <br />Win degrees where the Life-lights burn, <br />And scores will teach and advise you. <br />My cultured friends! you have come too late <br />With your bypath nicely graded; <br />I’ve fought thus far on my track of Fate, <br />And I’ll follow the rest unaided. <br />Must I be stopped by a college gate <br />On the track of Life encroaching? <br />Be dumb to Love, and be dumb to Hate, <br />For the lack of a college coaching? <br /> <br />You grope for Truth in a language dead — <br />In the dust ’neath tower and steeple! <br />What know you of the tracks we tread? <br />And what know you of our people? <br />‘I must read this, and that, and the rest,’ <br />And write as the cult expects me? — <br />I’ll read the book that may please me best, <br />And write as my heart directs me! <br /> <br />You were quick to pick on a faulty line <br />That I strove to put my soul in: <br />Your eyes were keen for a ‘dash’ of mine <br />In the place of a semi-colon — <br />And blind to the rest. And is it for such <br />As you I must brook restriction? <br />‘I was taught too little?’ I learnt too much <br />To care for a pedant’s diction! <br /> <br />Must I turn aside from my destined way <br />For a task your Joss would find me? <br />I come with strength of the living day, <br />And with half the world behind me; <br />I leave you alone in your cultured halls <br />To drivel and croak and cavil: <br />Till your voice goes further than college walls, <br />Keep out of the tracks we travel!<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-uncultured-rhymer-to-his-cultured-critics/
