Black Beetles in Amber

A Poet's Father

Welcker, I'm told, can boast a father great

And honored in the service of the State.

Public Instruction all his mind employs--

He guides its methods and its wage enjoys.

Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand,

He waves his ferule o'er a studious land

Where humming youth, intent upon the page,

Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage,

Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask

To slake their fervor at his private flask.

Arrested by the terror of his frown,

The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down;

The fly impaled on the tormenting pin

Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din;

Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum

Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb;

Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies

To perch upon the brows of the unwise;

The supple switch forsakes the parent wood

To settle where 'twill do the greatest good,

Puissant still, as when of old it strove

With Solomon for spitting on the stove

Learned Professor, variously great,

Guide, guardian, instructor of the State--

Quick to discern and zealous to correct

The faults which mar the public intellect

From where of Siskiyou the northern bound

Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground

To where in San Diego's torrid clime

The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime--

Beneath your stupid nose can you not see

The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee?

O mighty master of a thousand schools,

Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools.