For My part I, tho' vers'd in booking,
Still sav'd my carcase from such cooking;
And always slyly shunn'd a trade,
Too trifling as I thought and said;
But at a certain crazy season,
When men have neither sense or reason;
By some confounded misadventure,
I found myself just in it's centre.
Odd's fish and blood, and noun and neuter,
And tenses present, past and future:
I utter'd with a wicked sigh,
Where are my brains, or where am I?
The dullest creature of the wood,
Knows how to shun the distant flood;
Whales, dolphins, and a hundred more,
Are not the fools to run ashore.
Well, now contented I must be,
Forc'd by the dame Necessity,
Who like the tribunal of Spain,
Let's you speak once, but not again;
And swift to execute the blow,
Ne'er tells you why or whence it's so.
Now I am ask'd a thousand questions,
Of Alexanders and Ephestions;
With sly designs to know if I
Am vers'd in Grecian history;
And then again my time destroy,
With aukward grace to tell of Troy:
From that huge giant Polyphemus,
Quite down to Romulus and Remus.
Then I'm oblig'd to give them lectures,
On quadrants, circles, squares and sectors;
Or in my wretched mem'ry bear,
What weighs a cubic inch of air.
"Sir, here's my son, I beg you'd mind,
The graces have been very kind,
And on him all their blessings shed,
[Except a genius and a head]
Teach him the doctrine of the sphere,
The sliding circle and the square,
And starry worlds, I know not where:
And let him quickly learn to say,
Those learned words Penna, Pennae;
Which late I heard our parson call
As learning, knowledge all in all."
And then a city dame approaches,
Known by her horsemen, chairs and coaches:
"Sir, here's my son, teach him to speak
The Hebrew, Latin, and the Greek:
And this I half forgot, pray teach
My tender boy—the parts of speech—
But never let this son of me,
Learn that vile thing astronomy:
Upon my word it's all a sham,"—
O I'm your humble servant ma'am.
There certainly is something in it—
"Boy, drive the coach off in a minute."
And thus I'm left in street or road,
A laughing stock to half the crowd,
To argue with myself the case,
And prove its being to my face.
A plague I say on such employment,
Where's neither pleasure nor enjoyment:
Whoe'er to such a life is ty'd,
Was born the day he should have dy'd;
Born in an hour when angry spheres
Were tearing caps, or pulling ears:
And Saturn slow 'gainst swift Mercurius,
Was meditating battles furious;
Or comets with their blazing train,
Decreed their life, a life of pain.
[213] This poem was undoubtedly written while Freneau was conducting his school at Flatbush early in 1772. See Vol. I, page xxi.