The Graduate
What vacant thoughts becloud your mind this day, oh sage?
What false dreams blink beneath that rented mortarboard?
And what crass lusts engulf your virgin scholar loins?
Your eye has seen, your ear has heard the learned phrase.
And still a wickless candle are you, neophyte:
Shapeless tallow from which no flame will ever dance;
A formless lump of wax that thaws, retreats, contracts
From the blaze of knowledge, melts in the fire of facts.
You wallow in the pomp, ignore the circumstance
Of emitting so much heat and so little light.
Your curiosity’s dimmed in the carnal maze.
Your ideals are snuffed in the hot pursuit of coins.
Your spirit is doused by immediate reward.
You graduate! Most useless product of your age!