To a Zealous Teacher

The books can wait; spare him this interval. Spring states her current problems which combine Fragments and phrases of the big design— The umbrella-mender’s plaintive minor call Like Pan in Moorish exile, the first small Metallic song of frogs where waters shine Between the rushes, and the pungent wine That April pours when white syringas fall.

Who will interpret these for him? Will you Define what greatness is, and catalogue The final furious hour of Waterloo, Young Newton’s apple, or Galvani’s frog? Let him lie staring at nothing under a tree, Or fly his kite . . . oh, leave all dreamers be!