Never to reach my mad ambition’s Goal,
But to live ever ’midst scholastic babel.
Thy glances brighten all my lonely lot.
Prometheus-like a vulture gnaws my heart,
In biting blasts and under sunshine hot.
My dreams are shattered by a barbed dart,
And, waking wild, I scream that I may not
Whisper the oaths I yearn to Thee impart.”
I told Bradwell I didn’t quite understand it, and he sat on me.
“You wouldn’t,” he said, “a kid like you. But I do. It’s a sonnit, and an extramly fine one. I hate the chap, but it’s no good pretending he’s not a poet, because this jolly well proves he is. Look at the rimes and the smoothness!”