Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/527

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509

The Doctor and His Apples.

What is a schoolmaster? Why, can't you tell?
A quizzical old man
Armed with a ratan;
Wears a huge wig,
And struts about;
Strives to look big,
With spectacles on snout,
And most important pout,
Who teaches little boys to read and spell.

Such my description is of a man,
If not a clergyman, a layman:—
So much by way of definition,
And, to prevent dull disquisition,
Will shortly take a new position.

A schoolmaster (it mostly follows)
Who keeps a school, must have some scholars,
Unless, indeed (which said at once is)
Instead of scholars, they are all dunces:
Or if this fancy more should tickle,
Suppose them mixed—like Indian pickle.

One Dr. Larrup, as depicted here,
Who little boys had flogged for many a year—
Not that they wouldn't learn their A B C,
Their hic, hæc, hoc—Syntax, or Prosody,
But that, despite
Of all his might,
And oft enforcèd rules of right,
They would contrive, by day or night,
To steal—oh! flinty-hearted sparks,
Worse than to little fish are sharks,—
(Alas! to tell it my muse winces,)
To steal—his apples, pears, and quinces.
Put them where'er he would, alike their dooms,
His efforts proved as fruitless as his rooms.
As a pert dunghill cock, inflamed with ire,
Erects his feathers and his comb of fire,
When of some grains, his own by right,
He's robbed by foes that take to flight—
So stood the doctor:
With face as red
As coral bed,