not know how to retrench. 

 You will fall out of love with digamma To fall in again with Delsarte; You will make a new Syriac grammar, And know all the popes off by heart. 

 What Socrates said to Xantippe When the lash of her tongue made him grieve; What makes the banana peel slippy; And what the snake whispered to Eve; 

 The music that Nero had played him, When Rome was touched off with a match; Why the king let the lady upbraid him For burning her buns in a batch; 

 Why Hebrew is written left-handed; And what Venus did with her arms; What the Conqueror said when he landed; The acres in Horace's farms; 

 The use of hirundo and passer: All this you will probe to the pith As a freshman at Wellesley or Vassar Or Bryn Mawr--though I prefer Smith. 

  You will solve every riddle in Browning; And learn how to paddle and swim; And save other people from drowning; And play basket ball in the gym. 

 But you'll scorn to know why there's a tax on All reading that isn't a bore, When Mallarmé's filtered through Saxon And the Symbolists come to the fore. 

 All winter you'll read mathematics (Oh, you'll be a terrible "prod"), And in June, at the Senior Dramatics, You will play like a star. But it's odd, 

 Since you'll quote every cadence in Kipling And Arnold (of course I mean Matt), If you don't make a bard of some stripling Before he knows where he is at. 

 I am sure you'll be lovely as Trilby, The loveliest bud of the year; But remember, Karlene, I shall still be Your doting old godfather, dear. 

 When you hear Archimedes' conundrum, Like enough you'll be wanting to try Whether one little girl contra mundum Can't lift the old thing with a pry! 

 You will turn up your nose at poor "Thy will," With a haughty agnostical sniff, Till you find the imperative "I will" Has a future conditional "if." 

 And then you will come to your senses, And find out why women were made; And men too; and why there are fences All round the whole lot where you strayed, 

 While you wore yourself down to a shadow Yet failed to discover your sphere; For you'll see Adam down in the meadow And think what a goosey you were! 

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