Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse
_Not Known
English
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CAP AND GOWN
A Treasury of College Verse
Selected by
Frederic Lawrence Knowles
_Editor of "The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics," etc.
_1897_
TO THE
REVERED MEMORY
OF A
GREAT SCHOLAR AND GREAT TEACHER
WHOM I WAS ONCE PROUD
TO CALL MY FRIEND,
Frances James Child,
THIS LITTLE BOOK
IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
_In "Cap and Gown" you look in vain
For epic or heroic strain.
Not ours to scale the heights sublime,
Which hardly masters dare to climb;
We only sing of youth and joy,
And love,--the credo of the boy!_
PREFATORY NOTE
The gay verses which celebrate undergraduate life must not be taken too
seriously. They seldom pretend to the dignity of poetry. College verse,
if I understand it, is verse suited to the period and point of view of
undergraduate days. Light, graceful, humorous, sparkling,--this it
should be for the most part; serious sometimes, it is true,--for young
men and women about to take upon themselves the responsibilities of
mature life are at heart by no means frivolous, but touching the note of
grief, if at all, almost as though by accident. Life is often sad enough
in the after-years, and for the period of sorrow, sad verse may be in
place. Happy they who have not yet traded cap and bells (never far
hidden under cap and gown) for the
"Sable stole of cypress lawn."
Happier still if they never need make such a sorry exchange.
Yes, like all sound art, college verse must, above all else, be honest.
Let us not say, however, that the thoughtful moods of young men and
women may not sincerely be set to the music of verse. One department in
this collection bears the name "In Serious Mood," and its sentiment
rings as true as that of any other.
In looking over very many undergraduate papers, I have been struck with
several facts. I will give them for what they are worth, leaving their
explanation to others. First, there seems to be a general fondness for
the sonnet, and a very general lack of success in writing it. Second,
the French forms of light verse are exceedingly popular--particularly
the rondeau, ballade, and triolet. These, more easily lending themselves
to gay moods than does the sonnet, are written with much greater
success. Triolets are perhaps least often, rondeaus most often,
successful. Third, purely sentimental verse is little written in women's
colleges, its place being taken by poetry of nature or of reflection.
Oddly enough, when it _is_ attempted, the writer usually fancies herself
the lover, and describes feminine, not masculine, beauty. College girls
show possibly more maturity of reflective power than do their brothers,
but they are notably weaker in the sense of humor. Fourth, amongst so
much merely graceful verse, there are not wanting touches here and there
of genuine poetry. I shall be disappointed if the reader does not
discover many such in this little book.
While I have confined myself, for the most part, to verse printed in the
college publications of the past five years, I have overstepped this
limit in a few instances. None of the poems in the present book,
however, were included in the first series published in 1892.
Thanks are due Messrs. Andrus & Church, of Ithaca, N.Y., for their
generous loan of bound files of the _Cornell Era_, to the assistant
librarian of Harvard University for numerous courtesies, and to the
editors of many college papers, without whose kind cooperation the
second series of "Cap and Gown" would have been impossible.
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