Poem by Norman Rowland Gale

The Tutor's Lament

  I refuse to find attractions
    In the ancient Roman native;
  I am sick to death of fractions,
    And of verbs that take the dative:
  It is mine to be recorder
    Of a boy's congested brain, Sir,
  With the pitch in perfect order
    And the weather like champagne, Sir!

  I--the sport of conjugations--
    I am cooped up as a lodger
  Where I serve out mental rations
    To a proudly backward dodger.
  While the two of us are dreaming
    Of the canvas and the creases,
  Close we sit together, scheming
    How to pull an ode to pieces.

  Even now in London's gabble
    Memory's magic tricks the senses!
  Plain I hear the streamlet babble,
    Smell the tar on country fences:

  Down the road Miss Grey from Marlett
    Skirts the fox-frequented thicket,
  In her belt a rose of scarlet,
    In her eyes the love of cricket.

  There's my mother with her ponies
    Underneath Sir Toby's beeches,
  Pulling up to share with cronies
    News of grapes and plums and peaches:
  Many a gaffer stops to fumble
    At his forelock as she passes,
  While the children cease to tumble
    Frocks and blouses in the grasses.

  Though my body stays with duty
    Here to work a sum or rider,
  Mother's magnet and her beauty
    Draw my soul to sit beside her!
  Ah, what luck if I were able
    There to play once more in flannels,
  Free from all this littered table,
    Virgil's farmyard, Ovid's annals!

  There's a loop of leather handle
    Peeping underneath the sofa!
  Is tuition worth the candle
    When the conscience turns a loafer?
  'Tis the rich and backward Boarder
    Proves indeed the Tutor's bane, Sir,
  When the turf's in ripping order
    And the weather like champagne, Sir!

1. Buttered
2. Dark Blue
3. Out
4. Star-Gazing
5. Cricket and Cupid

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