Only for infancy, fond mother, rend not those first affections; Only for the sensitive and timorous, consign not thy darling unto misery. A man looketh on his little one, as a being of better hope; In himself ambition is dead, but it hath a resurrection in his son: That vein is yet untried,--and who can tell if it be not golden? While his, well nigh worked out, never yielded aught but lead: And thus is he hurt more sorely, if his wishes are defeated there, He has staked his all upon a throw, and lo! the dice have foiled him. All ways, and at all times, men follow on in flocks, And the rife epidemic of the day shall tincture the stream of education. Fashion is a foolish watcher posted at the tree of knowledge, Who plucketh its unripe fruit to pelt away the birds; But, for its golden apples,--they dry upon the boughs, And few have the courage or the wisdom to eat in spite of fashion. One while, the fever is to learn, what none will be wiser for knowing, Exploded errors in extinct tongues, and occasions for their use are small; And the bright morning of life, for years of misspent time, Wasted in following sounds, hath tracked up little sense, Till at noon a man is thrown upon the world, with a mind expert in trifles, Having yet everything to learn that can make him good or useful: The curious spirit of youth is crammed with unwholesome garbage, While starving for the mother's milk the breasts of nature yield; And high-coloured fables of depravity lure with their classic varnish, While truth is holding out in vain her mirror much despised. Of olden time, the fashion was for arms, to make an accomplished slayer, And set gregarious man a-tilting with his fellows; Thereafter, occult sciences, and mystic arts, and symbols, How to exorcise a wizard, and how to lay a ghost; Anon, all for gallantry and presence, the minuet, the palfrey, and the foil, And the grand aim of education was to produce a coxcomb; Soon came scholastical dispute with hydra-headed argument, And the true philosophy of mind confounded in a labyrinth of words; Then the Pantheon, and its orgies, initiating docile childhood, While diligent youth strove hard to render his all unto Cæsar; And now is seen the passion for utility, when all things are accounted by their price, And the wisdom of the wise is busied in hatching golden eggs: Perchance, not many moons to come, and all will again be for abstrusity, Unravelling the figured veil that hideth Egypt's gods; Or in those strange Avatars seeking benignant Vishnu, Kali, and Kamala the fair, and much invoked Ganesa.