I went into college intending to major in English Lit., thinking that I was going to study the great thoughts of the great thinkers by wise and kindly (if a bit crotchety and sharp) old men in tweed jackets with elbow-patches. Instead, I found that English departments had become the epicenter of feminist post-whatever, anti-everythingism, and that anything written by a "dead white male" was to be scorned and spurned. In one of my first classes, this poem was used as an example of...you know, patriarchy, blah, blah, and held up for ridicule and hate. I changed my major.

Just a lovely reading of it here by Lloyd, aka Lindybeige, another slightly crotchety, hopelessly out-of-date old white man, like me. Thanks, Lloyd.