Adolescence

I am in years almost the century’s child,
At grips with still the same uncertainty
That was attendant to me at the school.
The classics set before us, twenty voices
Took up enunciation, I was dumb -
Then goaded by the teacher’s stony finger
Trembling arose to read a meagre essay.
Next History went by, its wars and glories,
And politics that fill young minds with dust
Of Corn-Laws and Reform - severe decades
When England topped the century with Victoria.
But we might never know Queen Catherine
Who ruled imperiously adventurous Russia,
Nor hear the Borgias’ crimes, the Papal swindles;
For us no pages on the Medicis,
No panorama of past things in Rome,
But thorny sums, and German verbs rapped out.
For Art we had the photographic torsos
Of Jove and all his Venuses, with words
That lay less easy on the lecturer’s tongue:
We never doubted that her themes were Whitman,
Browning and Wordsworth - here we had examples,
Morals and principles.. “Now these two terms
Must be explained to show you’ve understood.”
The winter spent at this came Tennyson.
By half-past twelve all done the rest would go
With confident memories but I forgetful
Scattered the lesson’s fragments in the street,
And hated life, with adolescent sense
Of wrong that dallies with tearful introspection.
I knew I could not learn, despite the prize
Between my hands the day that I was free.

That summer went in solitude, with thoughts
Humming in concourse as the thronging stars
Appear before the eyes of travellers
Descending to new lands on hurrying feet.
If at some time each man says “World is mine”,
Then doubtless rang that clamour in my heart,
And many a fire was lit and worshipped there
Ascetically, with pride, and so with longing.
I held the very world’s perplexities,
Throbbing of questions, stirring of heart’s blood,
Urging I know not what, till dawn had come.

A year of riot grew, with carnivals,
Music and wine beneath the million lamps
That flanked the thresholds of advancing war.
There were no ruins yet; each hour was gold
That reddened in the fire of its adventure -
Then had I thought of aftermaths and stood
Uncertainly between the opened gates
Scanning the crossroads of a violent world.

(1915)