PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS
Reading edition
II
What the Professor said to the Editor of “Wheels”
OLD Professor Goosecap Watched the planet’s flower-show. “Pedagogues well-drilled, mayhap, Marshalled in a row, Can perceive in China asters Half a hemisphere’s disasters, With rays to pierce the fourth dimension: Come, limit it to our declension! Pedagogues, through schoolroom bars, Must thrust their faces like a map Crownèd with a dunce’s cap, To hiss like geese at the stars, And crush with wooden toe— All growing, And blowing, These Canterbury bells as they blow, These silvery bells in a row!”