TO THE GRADUATE

	May 26, 2000
	A poem to the graduate. Here is poet laureate and NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: This is the time of year for college graduations and commencement ceremonies, the awarding of degrees. Many words will be spoken about study and its rewards. Few speakers will have a view of academic life as realistic-- or as idealistic-- as that of J.V. Cunningham in this poem entitled To a Friend, on Her Examination for the Doctorate in English After these years of lectures heard, Of papers read, of hopes deferred, Of days spent in the dark stacks In learning the impervious facts So well you can dispense with them, Now that the final day has come When you shall answer name and date Where fool and scholar judge your fate What have you gained? A learnèd grace And lines of knowledge on the face, A spirit weary but composed By true perceptions well-disposed, A soft voice and historic phrase Sounding the speech of Tudor days, What ignorance cannot assail Or daily novelty amaze, Knowledge enforced by firm detail. What revels will these trials entail, What gentle wine confuse your head While gossip lingers on the dead Till all the questions wash away, For you have learned, not what to say, But how the saying must be said.