Ian Anderson Follow

Mortarboard, gown, hood and lace come
guide me in learning, in ascension
where minds may meet and twitters
tweet in modern Latin, in declension.
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.

In saintly word and perfect grammar,
to Academia's lofty space.
The trivium, quadrivium, all baser
thoughts now to efface.
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.

Cruel Bunter-bashing, cane-a-thrashing,
lines, detention, soon forgot.
O dark ploy! This grammar school boy
has paid the price and bought the lot.
In the quiet hours of life's twilight,
old school ties and photographs,
I call to mind the sore behind, the
tears, the last and longest laughs.

Empty desks and inkwells, darkened
chapels, cobweb corridors silent now.
Ghostly purple robes and dusty trencher,
what could be holier than thou?
O Domine, O Magister - we aspiring angels sing
with one tongue, forever young,
let us follow better things.
Meliora sequamur: may we follow better things.