Page 8 - 1923 Hartridge

I
To the Class of 1923
(With apologies to all Latin Grammars)
Contrary to Fact
If only I could be with you in all your idle hours,
Could read with you the books you love, or take you to the play.
Could drive with you o’er hill and dale to gardens rich with flowers. Could lead you for dramatics to Manhattan’s Great White Way;
If only we could sail abroad o’er vast and sunny seas.
To study in far ancient lands the churches built of yore;
Could worship dear Madonnas of the Meadows or the Leas, And scatter alms in foreign lands to all the blessed poor;
I’m sure that you would think of me and I should think of you As teacher and as students of a strange and happy kind,
For we should then be doing many things you’d love to do. And doing them together in a joyous frame of mind.
Facts
But, as it is, geometry (originals! you know).
And algebra (those problems!), and iLneas (such a cad!)
All taking up our minutes and our hours, fast or slow.
Give a very wrong impression, and it’s somewhat to the bad.
And then there’s Bible class, of course, and church on Sundays, too, And money for the starving— in their bodies or their brains;
And laundry to be counted when one’s name tapes are too few. And arctics and umbrellas to be hunted when it rains.
Rhetorical Ouestion
Such tiresome and such homely tasks I seem to have to plan.
Such tiresome and such homely tasks you seem to have to do.
Why aren’t we off to Italy, its glories for to scan?
Or in wildernesses, reading underneath a bough or two?
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