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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1928

A Shattered Aim

page 34

A Shattered Aim

O Fate, whose powers but seldom do create
The genius, with modest, masterful brain,
Why should your eyes be cast on me in hate?
At this year's stirring dawn did I aspire
To drink of History's Cup. Alas—in vain—
Closed, it seems, are the portals of my desire.
The drear nocturnal hours through which I pored
Oer' many a tome. Ah, fruitless have they been;
For youth's ambition all too high has soared,
But now sinks back to Earth with broken wing.
Would that my folly had f then foreseen,
I would not now be tortured with pride's sting.
With eager and expectant heart I sought
The return of my History lb test.
O! Experience, how dearly are you bought?
For through a maze of red did I discern
My treasured work, with comment and request
Endorsed thereon. E'en still my flushed cheek burns.
And not alone I stood in such a plight,
For many an erring brother sought mine ear
With grievance that he thought he stated right.
But woman's word and brain inspires awe,
And I acclaimed that Portia in my fear,
And retired to study all the more.
But not to study History—for I find
That first must faultless be my flowing prose.
'They would also be enlightening to my mind
To scan once more the rules of punctuation;
Heed my choice of words, and only those
Use, that to the point have adaptation.
Few words I crave to utter in respect
Of that comment labelled offering of mine:
And those, I trust, no insolence reflect.
My critic in her scathing words derides
My blatant prose, yet mars her famous line
With error. Enough. Perchance the critic hides
A human soul beneath her wisdom's cloak.
"To err is human"; nay; it is divine;
Since she has erred, and who can that revoke?

—T.G.B.