The Professors
Triflers beware! The professors are here:
Punctilious, mindful, on the move,
They’ll flush you out, invest your reveries,
Or close your brown studies. It’s you they’ve watched
Woolgathering, or nonchalant, improvident- tant pis!
Micawbers, slackers, skimmers, here’s your match,
The professors have arrived: the robed Savonarolas!
Leap in the dark, grope or guess, send up a trial balloon,
Rummage, ransack, winnow or appraise–
Inquisitors will grill you: mooncalf, booby, lout, buffoon.
It’s time for gumption, prudence, brains and mother wit:
A bluestocking’s wrangle, a sine qua non;
Alas, poor duffers, bookless, smattering, you invent
A limerick, an Irish muddle, clearly heretic.
O the professors are here: praise Mentor!
They swoop through the long schoolroom,
Vertiginous, oracular, confirmatory, O rodomontade!
Planet of the Blind 