The Student

A minx of seventeen, with rather fine
Brown eyes and freckles and a cheerful grin,
She saunters up the ward, and stricken sin
Nods and looks pleasant (why should one repine?).
She takes "her cases," looks for every "sign,"
Hammers and sounds the portly and the thin,
Plies them with questions till their cheap heads spin
And keeps them busy saying "ninety-nine."

It's my turn now! Oh, let me bare my chest
And spread a level sheet across my crib,
And be as wax for our meticulous Miss;
While she, poor dear, doing her anxious best,
Feels for the apex under the wrong rib
And wonders fiercely where my liver is.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, born on July 21, 1865, was an English author, poet, journalist, and friend of major literary figures such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Crosland's writing encompassed a wide range of subjects, and he was known for his satirical works. His legacy includes a robust body of prose and poetry, which has been recognized for its wit and social critique. He died on December 23, 1924.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

To A Bookseller

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To Mr. Dan Leno

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

Titanic

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To A Publisher

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

In Hospital - XI - Clinical

Hist? . . .
Through the corridor's echoes,
Louder and nearer
Comes a great shuffling of feet.
Quick, every one of you,
Strighten your quilts, and be decent!
Here's the Professor.

In he comes first
With the bright look we know,
From the broad, white brows the kind eyes
Soothing yet nerving you.    Here at his elbow,
White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,
Towel on arm and her inkstand
Fretful with quills.
Here in the ruck, anyhow,
Surging along,
Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs -
Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles -
Hustles the Class!    And they ring themselves
Round the first bed, where the Chief
(His dressers and clerks at attention),
Bends in inspection already.

So shows the ring
S...

William Ernest Henley

The Baby In The Ward

We were all sore and broken and keen on sleep,
Tumours and hearts and dropsies, there we lay,
Weary of night and wearier of day,
With no more health in us than rotten sheep.
Then, tossed to us on some intangible deep,
Alicia came, and each man learnt to pray
That Providence would please find out a way
To still or abate the voice with which she would weep.

God's infinite mercy, how that child did cry,
In spite of bottle, bauble, peppermint, nurse!
The Tumour said he'd "tell the manager,"
The Dropsy mumbled forth his bitterest curse;
But still she wailed and wailed. And when we die
We shall be sainted for forgiving her.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Charing Cross

At five o'clock they ring a tinkly bell;
The April dawn glimmers along the beds,
There is a lifting up of weary heads
From weary pillows. Our old citadel
Hath still held out, and while the miracle
Of morning is unbared again, and spreads
All the young East with greens and blues and reds
Each of us wakes to his particular hell.

But even on this bitter shore of Styx
Where Life to dogged Death puts the last schism,
We kindle for the ending of the dark:
The Asthma feebly jokes the Aneurism,
The little bandaged boy in Number Six
Sings "Ye shall die" with a voice like a lark.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Alma Mater

    Know you her secret none can utter?
        Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
    Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
        Still by the gateway flits the gown;
    Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
        Faces of stone look down.

    Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
        Some from library windows wan
    Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
        Peer and turn to their books anon.
    Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
        Gather the tent, begone!

Nay, should she by the pavement linger
        Under the rooms where once she played,
    Who from the feast would rise to fling her
        One poor sou for her serenade?
    One short laugh for the antic finger
        Thrumming a lute-strin...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Hic Vir, Hic Est.

Often, when o'er tree and turret,
Eve a dying radiance flings,
By that ancient pile I linger
Known familiarly as "King's."
And the ghosts of days departed
Rise, and in my burning breast
All the undergraduate wakens,
And my spirit is at rest.

What, but a revolting fiction,
Seems the actual result
Of the Census's enquiries
Made upon the 15th ult.?
Still my soul is in its boyhood;
Nor of year or changes recks.
Though my scalp is almost hairless,
And my figure grows convex.

Backward moves the kindly dial;
And I'm numbered once again
With those noblest of their species
Called emphatically 'Men':
Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,
Through the streets, with tranquil mind,
And a long-backed fancy-mongrel
Trailing casually ...

Charles Stuart Calverley

Willaloo.

By E. A. P.


In the sad and sodden street,
    To and fro,
Flit the fever-stricken feet
Of the freshers as they meet,
    Come and go,
Ever buying, buying, buying
Where the shopmen stand supplying,
    Vying, vying
    All they know,
While the Autumn lies a-dying
    Sad and low
As the price of summer suitings when the winter breezes blow,
Of the summer, summer suitings that are standing in a row
    On the way to Jericho.

See the freshers as they row
    To and fro,
Up and down the Lower River for an afternoon or so--
    (For the deft manipulation
    Of the never-resting oar,
    Though it lead to approbation,
    Will induce excoriation)--
    They are infinitely sore,
    Keeping time, time, time
  ...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch