At A Reading

The spare Professor, grave and bald,     Began his paper. It was called,     I think, "A Brief Historic Glance     At Russia, Germany, and France."     A glance, but to my best belief     'Twas almost anything but brief--     A wide survey, in which the earth     Was seen before mankind had birth;     Strange monsters basked them in the sun,     Behemoth, armored glyptodon,     And in the dawn's unpractised ray     The transient dodo winged its way;     Then, by degrees, through silt and slough,     We reached Berlin--I don't know how.     The good Professor's monotone     Had turned me into senseless stone     Instanter, but that near me sat     Hypatia in her new spring hat,     Blue-eyed, intent, with lips whose bloom     Lighted the heavy-curtained room.     Hypatia--ah, what lovely things     Are fashioned out of eighteen springs!     At first, in sums of this amount,     The eighteen winters do not count.     Just as my eyes were growing dim     With heaviness, I saw that slim,     Erect, elastic figure there,     Like a pond-lily taking air.     She looked so fresh, so wise, so neat,     So altogether crisp and sweet,     I quite forgot what Bismarck said,     And why the Emperor shook his head,     And how it was Von Moltke's frown     Cost France another frontier town.     The only facts I took away     From the Professor's theme that day     Were these: a forehead broad and low,     Such as the antique sculptures show;     A chin to Greek perfection true;     Eyes of Astarte's tender blue;     A high complexion without fleck     Or flaw, and curls about her neck.