200 Years
Photograph By Jaquan Alston
is not so much
to the glass sponge or
the bowhead whale or
the deep-sea tubeworm or
the yew tree or
the Great Basin bristlecone pine or
the Greenland shark, the latter possibly
enduring as long
as three centuries, yet reaching
maturity—at last!—only after
100 to 150 years.
But then, for comparison, consider
the mayfly—
one day is its span.
As for us: When is time ever enough?
In the portrait we have of Francis A. March,
what a wonderful wreck his office is:
papers and books piled high and leaning,
everything about to avalanche.
Look at him leaning too,
this brilliant lexicographer and polymath.
Given his example, no one should ever be embarrassed
by what a mess their office is.
A dictionary is not a patient thing—it’s always widening,
then furiously turning back,
tracking roots and branches.
But how relaxed Francis A. March
looks in his portrait,
legs crossed, handkerchief blooming
from his pocket, books stacked
near to collapse but ready to hand.
He knows full well what time must
give and take.
For once, he lets the words wait.
—Lee Upton
In 1857, Francis A. March, the founder of English studies at Lafayette, became the first Professor of English Language and Literature anywhere in the United States or Europe. His portrait (pictured, above) by Albert Murray hangs in an alcove on the third floor of Pardee Hall.
Lee Upton is Lafayette’s Emerita Francis A. March Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence. Her poetry has been published in The New Republic, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The New Yorker, and in three editions of Best American Poetry. She is the author of 17 books.
