What Socrates said to Xantippe
When the lash of her tongue made him grieve;
What makes the banana peel slippy;
And what the snake whispered to Eve;
The music that Nero had played him,
When Rome was touched off with a match;
Why the king let the lady upbraid him
For burning her buns in a batch;
Why Hebrew is written left-handed;
And what Venus did with her arms;
What the Conqueror said when he landed;
The acres in Horace's farms;
The use of hirundo and passer:
All this you will probe to the pith
As a freshman at Wellesley or Vassar
Or Bryn Mawr--though I prefer Smith.
You will solve every riddle in Browning;
And learn how to paddle and swim;
And save other people from drowning;
And play basket ball in the gym.
But you'll scorn to know why there's a tax on
All reading that isn't a bore,
When Mallarmé's filtered through Saxon
And the Symbolists come to the fore.
All winter you'll read mathematics
(Oh, you'll be a terrible "prod"),
And in June, at the Senior Dramatics,
You will play like a star. But it's odd,
Since you'll quote every cadence in Kipling
And Arnold (of course I mean Matt),
If you don't make a bard of some stripling
Before he knows where he is at.
I am sure you'll be lovely as Trilby,
The loveliest bud of the year;
But remember, Karlene, I shall still be
Your doting old godfather, dear.
When you hear Archimedes' conundrum,
Like enough you'll be wanting to try
Whether one little girl contra mundum
Can't lift the old thing with a pry!