I WAS not drowsy though the scholars droned. <br />Hearing the music that they made of Greek, <br />Whenever Helen's unforgotten face <br />Sent other young men whisking off to war; <br />Hearing much mention of the hecatombs, <br />And Pericles, and fishes that were purple, <br />Temples in white, and trees that they named olive; <br />And thinking always of proud Athens shining <br />Upon her hill, that slanted to her sea: <br /> <br /> <br />Equipped with Grecian thoughts, how could I live <br />Among my father's folk? My father's house <br />Was narrow and his fields were nauseous. <br />I kicked his clods for being common dirt, <br />Worthy a world which never could be Greek; <br />Cursed the paternity that planted me <br />One green leaf in a wilderness of autumn; <br />And wept, as fitting such a fruitful spirit <br />Sealed in a yellow tomb. <br /> <br /> <br />The Lord preserves his saints for Christian uses. <br />He sent a pair of providential eyes. <br />They would have sat in any witless head, <br />Although I deemed them deep as classic seas, <br />As strange as any woman written smiling, <br />And much more near; the merest modern eyes, <br />The first my Athens faced; and yet her lamp, <br />It flickered rather low. <br /> <br /> <br />Then he commanded me to scrutiny <br />As to a fingered thing of no great matter, <br />A circumstantial sorry little coin. <br />A friendly thing, I owned, to lie so warm <br />Against the side of any friendless man; <br />And in the hand--O if the happy hand <br />Accommodate the cunning rounded scepter, <br />Then is dominion seated in that palm, <br />And coveting is seated in men's eyes. <br />Make haste, my hands, about your own inclosures! <br />And what were dead Greek empires to me then? <br />Dishonored, by Apollo, and forgot.<br /><br />John Crowe Ransom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-school-3/
