My Education

My Education

Original Text
J. K. Stephen, Quo Musa Tendis? (Cambridge: Macmillan and Bowes, 1891), p. 43. PR 5473 S4Q8 1891 Robarts Library.
1At school I sometimes read a book,
2    And learned a lot of lessons;
3Some small amount of pains I took,
4    And showed much acquiescence
5In what my masters said, good men!
6    Yet after all I quite
7Forgot the most of it: but then
8                      I learned to write.
10    Abstract a title, study
11Great paper-piles, beyond belief
12    Inelegant and muddy:
13The whole of these as time went by
14    I soon forgot: indeed
15I tried to: yes: but by and by
16                      I learned to read.
17By help of Latin, Greek and Law
18    I now can write and read too:
19Then perish each forgotten saw,
20    Each fact I do not need too:
21But still whichever way I turn
22    At one sad task I stick:
23I fear that I shall never learn
24                            Arithmetic

Notes

9] Lincoln's Inn: famous London West-end legal inn. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1891
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme