With a First Reader by Rupert Hughes
This is in honor of the darling Killian, of course!
With a First Reader
By Rupert Hughes
Dear little child, this little book
Is less a primer than a key
To sunder gates where wonder waits
Your “Open Sesame!”
These tiny syllables look large;
They’ll fret your wide, bewildered eyes:
But “Is the cat upon the mat?”
Is passport to the skies.
For, yet awhile, and you shall turn
From Mother Goose to Avon’s swan;
From Mary’s lamb to grim Khayyám
And Mancha’s mad-wise Don.
You’ll writhe at Jean Valjean’s disgrace;
And D’Artagnan and Ivanhoe
Shall steal your sleep; and you shall weep
At Sidney Carton’s woe.
You’ll find old Chaucer young once more,
Beaumont and Fletcher fierce with fire;
At your demand, John Milton’s hand
Shall wake his ivory lyre.
And learning other tongues, you’ll learn
All times are one; all men, one race;
Hear Homer speak, as Greek to Greek;
See Dante, face to face.
Arma virumque shall resound;
And Horace wreathe his rhymes afresh;
You’ll rediscover Laura’s lover,
Meet Gretchen in the flesh.
Oh, could I find for the first time
The Churchyard Elegy again!
Re-taste the sweets of new-found Keats;
Read Byron now as then!
Make haste to wander these old roads
O envied little parvenue;
For all things trite shall leap alight
And bloom again for you!
