Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOW THE COMMENCEMENT GROWS NEW, by JOHN CLEVELAND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOW THE COMMENCEMENT GROWS NEW, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It is no coranto-news I undertake
Last Line: And so the commencement grows new.
Subject(s): Cambridge University


IT is no coranto-news I undertake;
New teacher of the town I mean not to make;
No New England voyage my Muse does intend;
No new fleet, no bold fleet, nor bonny fleet send.
But, if you'll be pleased to hear out this ditty,
I'll tell you some news as true and as witty,
And how the Commencement grows new.

See how the simony doctors abound,
All crowding to throw away forty pound.
They'll now in their wives' stammel petticoats vapour
Without any need of an argument draper.
Beholding to none, he neither beseeches
This friend for venison nor t'other for speeches,
And so the Commencement grows new.

Every twice a day teaching gaffer
Brings up his Easter-book to chaffer;
Nay, some take degrees who never had steeple, --
Whose means, like degrees, comes from placets of people.
They come to the fair and, at the first pluck,
The toll-man Barnaby strikes 'um good luck,
And so the Commencement grows new.

The country parsons come not up
On Tuesday night in their old College to sup;
Their bellies and table-books equally full,
The next lecture-dinner their notes forth to pull;
How bravely the Margaret Professor disputed,
The homilies urged, and the school-men confuted;
And so the Commencement grows new.

The inceptor brings not his father the clown
To look with his mouth at his grogoram gown;
With like admiration to eat roasted beef,
Which invention posed his beyond-Trent belief;
Who should be but hear our organs once sound,
Could scarce keep his hoof from Sellenger's round,
And so the Commencement grows new.

The gentleman comes not to show us his satin,
To look with some judgment at him that speaks Latin,
To be angry with him that marks not his clothes,
To answer 'O Lord, Sir' and talk play-book oaths,
And at the next bear-baiting (full of his sack)
To tell his comrades our discipline's slack;
And so the Commencement grows new.

We have no prevaricator's wit.
Ay, marry sir, when have you had any yet?
Besides no serious Oxford man comes
To cry down the use of jesting and hums.
Our ballad (believe 't) is no stranger than true;
Mum Salter is sober, and Jack Martin too,
And so the Commencement grows new.





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