from the unpublished remains of Edgar Allan Poe <br /> <br />In the oldest of our alleys, <br />By good bejants tenanted, <br />Once a man whose name was Wallace— <br />William Wallace—reared his head. <br />Rowdy Bejant in the college <br />He was styled: <br />Never had these halls of knowledge <br />Welcomed waster half so wild! <br /> <br />Tassel blue and long and silken <br />From his cap did float and flow <br />(This was cast into the Swilcan <br />Two months ago); <br />And every gentle air that sported <br />With his red gown, <br />Displayed a suit of clothes, reported <br />The most alarming in the town. <br /> <br />Wanderers in that ancient alley <br />Through his luminous window saw <br />Spirits come continually <br />From a case well packed with straw, <br />Just behind the chair where, sitting <br />With air serene, <br />And in a blazer loosely fitting, <br />The owner of the bunk was seen. <br /> <br />And all with cards and counters straying <br />Was the place littered o'er, <br />With which sat playing, playing, playing, <br />And wrangling evermore, <br />A group of fellows, whose chief function <br />Was to proclaim, <br />In voices of surpassing unction, <br />Their luck and losses in the game. <br /> <br />But stately things, in robes of learning, <br />Discussed one day the bejant's fate: <br />Ah, let us mourn him unreturning, <br />For they resolved to rusticate! <br />And now the glory he inherits, <br />Thus dished and doomed, <br />Is largely founded on the merits <br />Of the Old Tom consumed. <br /> <br />And wanderers, now, within that alley <br />Through the half-open shutters see, <br />Old crones, that talk continually <br />In a discordant minor key: <br />While, with a kind of nervous shiver, <br />Past the front door, <br />His former set go by for ever, <br />But knock—or ring—no more.<br /><br />Robert Fuller Murray<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-banished-bejant/
