The Don with the Luminous Prose
When dreadful dullness and tedium spills
Out from the dark academic mills,
Through the long, long essay hours;—
When the weary reader snores
As tomes slip down to dusty floors;—
When vast tracts breed in the Ivory Towers
From the brains of the Oxbridge Bores:—
Then, from amongst the baffling books,
There comes a man of average looks,
A weathered soul with a silvery mane
Clutching his trusty friend,
A biro chewed at the end,
And there on a page in language plain
A single sentence penned.
Slowly he paces,—pauses,—beams,
Clever eyes sparkling—an idea gleams;
And ever as onward he pacing goes
Fresh light on the Bard this idea throws.
And students who work through the midnight hour
In Halls and libraries and Ivory Towers,
Cry, as his brilliance spurs them on,—
"The Don!—the Don!
The eloquent Don with the pen that flows!
The Don!—The Don!
The Don with the luminous Prose!"
Four years ago
His work was dreary and grey,
Till he fell in love with a Visiting Prof
Who sat at High Table one day,
For the Visiting Prof was stunning and wise
With memorable words and intelligent eyes,
As she sipped at a fine Bordeaux
And she smiled at the Master's toupee,
And all the noise and the chatter died
As the Don took her hand in his and cried,—
"High and low, high and low,
Have I searched for a woman like you;
With eyes like fire and skin like snow
And theories so forceful and new."
Happily, happily passed that meal
With the Visiting Prof in his gaze;
All night she talked and argued on,
To the quiet delight of the love-struck Don,
Through poetry, sonnets and plays.
From first to last course he sat right there
By the side of the Visiting Prof so fair
With her fiery eyes, and her neat bobbed hair.
Till the fateful hour when the coffees were brought,
When she took her leave across Old Court
And the Don was left in the draughty hall,
Dazed—dazed and in her thrall,—
Ever keeping his tipsy eyes glued
To her port glass with lipstick accrued,—
Muttering under his garlic breath
As he sat in the hall with a face like death,—
"High and low, high and low,
Have I searched for a woman like you;
With eyes like fire and skin like snow
And theories so forceful and new."
But when the dishes were cleared away
The Don arose and said;—
—"I'll woo her with concepts and witty wordplay
And the cleverest thoughts in my head!"—
And since that night he dreams and writes
Of poems and plays and literary delights,
Sighing—"O someday, in journal or book
May my Visiting Prof take a scholarly look
And be struck by my expert and lucid style
And run to my arms with her wise lipstick'd smile!"
With his trusty biro with bright blue ink,
He paced round the library to help him think,
And because his style was waffling and dry,
He cut the long clauses and swapped "one" for "I",
Changing tedium for writing that flows.
And he wrote him some wondrous prose,—
Some Prose as fine as Prose could be!
With simple syntax and elegant lines,
Whole paragraphs where his lucidity shines,
—With logic and humorous touches
Bold new theories right there in his clutches,
All argued out
With reasoning stout
And quotations to signal his scholarly clout;—
A genius of style, so refreshingly light,
Like a beacon of brilliance against the dull night.
And now each night, and on and on,
Through the library stacks still roams the Don;
And there at a table and there again
You may hear the scratch of his trusty pen
While ever he writes, but writes in vain
To engage with his Visiting Prof again;
Lonely and wild—all night he goes,—
The Don with the luminous Prose!
And all who work through the midnight hour,
In Halls and libraries and Ivory Towers,
Cry, as they read his theories bright,
Carrying them through the dreary night,—
"This is the man whose writing flows,
The Don with the luminous Prose!
On Shakespeare or Barthes—it flows;
It flows!
It flows;
The Don with the luminous Prose!"
