Tennessee

LINES Written on receiving from the Librarian of a College which educates “the mountain youth of Tennessee” a request for “a book” to assist in the re-formation of the Library, which was recently destroyed by fire. Mine ears have heard your distant moan, O mountain youth of Tennessee; Even the bowels of a stone Would melt to your librarian’s plea. Although we’re parted by the ocean, I’m most distressed about your fire: Only I haven’t any notion What sort of volume you require. I have a Greene, a Browne, a Gray, A Gilbert White, a William Black, Trollope and Lovelace, Swift and Gay, And Hunt and Synge: nor do I lack More sober folk for whom out there There may be rather better scope, Three worthy men of reverend air, A Donne, a Prior, and a Pope. Peacock or Lamb, discreetly taken, Might fill the hungry mountain belly, Or Hogg or Suckling, Crabbe or Bacon (Bacon’s not Shakespeare, Crabbe is Shelley) And if—for this is on the cards— You do not like this mental food, I might remit less inward bards: My well-worn Spenser or my Hood. Longfellows may be in your line (Littles we know are second-raters), Or one might speed across the brine A Mayflower full of Pilgrim Paters. Or, then again, you may devote Yourselves to less æsthetic lore, Yet if I send you out a Grote⁠[3]⁠ For all I know you’ll ask for More. O thus proceeds my vacillation: For now the obvious thought returns That after such a conflagration A fitting sequel might be Burns. And now again I change my mind And, almost confidently, feel That since to Beg you are inclined You might like Borrow, say, or Steele.... Envoi Yes, Prince, this song shall have an end. A sudden thought has come to me— The thing is settled: I shall send A Tennyson to Tennessee!