With broken jesses in my hand
I muse on their delight.
And oh! if one with sullied plume
Should droop in mid career,
My love makes signals,—“There is room,
O bleeding wanderer, here.”
This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass into the ranks of the army and navy. The line about bowing, smirking and glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into which so many of the scholars must eventually pass. “Smirking” suggests insincere smiles, “glozing” implies tolerating or lightly passing over faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly. Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but especially so in England. The old Eton master thinks, however, that he knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug.
As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory, who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book that suggest to us an unhappy love episode. These are extremely pretty and touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition which he suggestively entitled “A Fable”—that is to say, a fable in the Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth.
An eager girl, whose father buys