The poet pursues his beautiful theme; <br />The preacher his golden beatitude; <br />And I run after a vanishing dream— <br />The glittering, will-o’-the-wispish gleam <br />Of the properly scholarly attitude— <br />The highly desirable, the very advisable, <br />The hardly acquirable, properly scholarly attitude. <br /> <br />I envy the savage without any clothes, <br />Who lives in a tropical latitude; <br />It’s little of general culture he knows. <br />But then he escapes the worrisome woes <br />Of the properly scholarly attitude— <br />The unceasingly sighed over, wept over, cried over, <br />The futilely died over, properly scholarly attitude. <br /> <br />I work and I work till I nearly am dead, <br />And could say what the watchman said—that I could! <br />But still, with a sigh and a shake of the head, <br />“You don’t understand,” it is ruthlessly said, <br />“The properly scholarly attitude— <br />The aye to be sought for, wrought for and fought for, <br />The ne’er to be caught for, properly scholarly attitude—” <br /> <br />I really am sometimes tempted to say <br />That it’s merely a glittering platitude; <br />That people have just fallen into the way, <br />When lacking a subject, to tell of the sway <br />Of the properly scholarly attitude— <br />The easily preachable, spread-eagle speechable, <br />In practice unreachable, properly scholarly attitude.<br /><br />Adelaide Crapsey<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-properly-scholarly-attitude/
