Commie Sutra
Purim 5759

Ode on a Grecian Stern

(With apologies to John Keats)

Thou future religious bride of a YU grad
Thou poster of Brookdale and Schottenstein
History major, clad in a black dress
A flowery face covered in Maybeline:
What Yeshiva College legend describes thy shape
Of beauty or chesed, or of both,
In Rubin or the halls of Morgenstern?
What leg long skirts are these? What designers cloth?
You cause mad pursuit? What dreams of escape?
On every YU students mind? Ha! You're a mild ecstasy.

Heard melodies are sweet, but Kol
Isha spares me from it. ye soft pipes? dream on!
You think you have sensual hair?, well, parasol
Will lend it brighter color and fuller tone:
Fair youth, beneath the breeze, one canst not leave

Thy path, and not smell perfume in the air;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Shomeret Negiah impede thy goal--yet, do not grieve;
Just shidduch date, and if though are not remiss,
In under a year you will be covering your hair!

Ah, oddly shapen nose! You cannot shed
Your genes, nor ever bid your face adieu;
But sappy YU bachurim, otherwise unwanted,
Endeavor, who knows why? to be your Jew;
Your happy love! more sappy, crappy love!
He's in his dorm his roommates be annoy'd,
Forever talking, forever on the phone;
All trying to sleep below and above,
Your conversation; long-drawn and rest destroy'd,
Take your phone to the hall and leave us alone.
Who are these coming to the Morg party?
Black costume; long skirt and sleeves together pieced,
Lead'st thou a kallah into the Morg lobby,
The band is still set up. This is the tenth party this week.
What sweet song. "Asher Bara," "Meheira," and more,
All dance, with a mechitzah in between;
Room empties. Band stays. Two more parties before morn.
And, Washington Heights, thy streets for evermore
Will dancing be; until no more Stern girls are seen,
They'll all be wed, or all will be forlorn.

O wedding day! You, every Stern girls hope and need!
Oh marble chupah and bridesmaids overwrought
With simcha, for at last you realize your dream;
Thy friends all say, "I ne'er have thought
In all eternity: that someone would fall
For her. Yet old age shall other's beauty waste,

Thou shalt remain, unaffected by the woe
Since all agree, your middos grand, about you all say'st,
"Yichus is truth, true yichus,"--that is all
Ye need on earth, to land a YU beau."