ADVICE TO A FAVOURITE STUDENT ON LEAVING COLLEGE
by: John Stuart Blackie
(1809-1895)
- ear Youth, grey books no blossoms bear;
- Thou hast enough of learning;
- For life's green fields thy march prepare,
- And take my friendly warning.
- I would not have thee longer stay,
- To read of other's striving;
- Wield thine own arm!--the only way
- To know life is by living.
- The brain's a small part of a man;
- Though thought has wide dominions,
- Thou canst not lift the smallest stone
- By Speculation's pinions.
- Who learns an art by lifeless rule,
- Through mists will still be blinking;
- The subtlest thinker is a fool,
- Who spins mere webs of thinking.
- The times are feverish; mark me well!
- Have faith and patience by thee;
- Unless thou curl into thy shell,
- Thou'lt find enough to try thee.
- But that's a weak device. I know
- Thou'lt face it free and fearless;
- But O! beware the greater foe,
- A spirit proud and prayerless!
- I love a bold and venturous boy,
- Who, full of fresh emotion,
- Launches with large and liberal joy
- On life's wide-rolling ocean.
- But there are rocks; and blind to steer
- Were thoughtless folly's merit:
- Curb thou thy force with holy fear,
- And keep a watchful spirit.
- Where eager crowds contend for pelf,
- The seller and the buyer,
- Each one free range seeks for himself,
- And cares for nothing higher.
- Make honey in an ordained hive,
- Nor join the lawless scramble
- Of men, with whom in life to thrive
- Is with good luck to gamble.
- We live in days when all would climb
- With hot, high-strung employment;
- Some rage in prose, wome writhe in rhyme,
- All hate a calm enjoyment.
- Freedom's the watchword of the hour;
- But O! tis melancholy
- When every bubbling brain has power
- To drown calm thought with folly!
- The age is full of talkers. Thou
- Be silent for a season,
- Till slowly-ripening facts shall grow
- Into a stable reason.
- Pert witlings fling crude fancies round,
- As wanton whim conceits them,
- Pleased when from fools the echoed sound
- Of their own folly greets them.
- Nurse thou, where eager babble spreads,
- A quiet brooding nature,
- Nor strive, by lopping taller heads,
- To raise thy lesser stature.
- Eschew the cavilling critic's art,
- The lust of loud reproving;
- The brain by knowledge grows, the heart
- Is larger made by loving.
- All things we cannot know. At sea
- As when a good ship saileth,
- Our steps within the planks are free,
- Beyond all cunning faileth.
- So man as by a living bond
- Of circling powers is bounded;
- Within the line is ours, beyond
- The sharpest wit's confounded.
- What thing thou knowest, nicely know
- With curious fine dissection;
- The smallest mite can something show
- That chains thy rapt inspection.
- Allwhere with holy caution move,
- In God thy life is moving;
- All things with reverent patience prove,
- 'Tis Gods will thou art proving.
- What thing thou doest, bravely do;
- When Heaven's clear call hath found thee,
- Follow!--with fervid wheels pursue,
- Though thousands bray around thee!
- Yet keep thy zeal in rein; depise
- No gentle preparation;
- Flash not God's truth on blinking eyes,
- With reckless inspiration!
- Farewell, my brave, my bright-eyed boy!
- And from the halls of learning,
- Thy face, my long familiar joy,
- Take, with this friendly warning.
- And when with weighty truth thou'rt fraught
- From life, the earnest preacher,
- Think sometimes with a kindly thought
- On me, thy faithful teacher.
"Advice to a Favourite Student on Leaving College" is reprinted from The Selected Poems of John Stuart Blackie. Ed. Archibald Stodart Walker. London: John Macqueen, 1896. |
MORE POEMS BY JOHN STUART BLACKIE |
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