In School-Days

John Greenleaf Whittier

1807 to 1892

Poem Image
Track 1

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And blackberry vines are running.
For near her stood the little boy
Of one who still her steps delayed
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
Where pride and shame were mingled.
Still sits the school-house by the road,
Its door's worn sill, betraying
It touched the tangled golden curls,
I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
Her childish favor singled:
Like her,—because they love him.
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Have forty years been growing!
The blue-checked apron fingered.
As restlessly her tiny hands
Around it still the sumachs grow,
Lament their triumph and his loss,
To right and left, he lingered;—
How few who pass above him
The soft hand's light caressing,
A ragged beggar sunning;
Long years ago a winter sun
His cap pulled low upon a face
And brown eyes full of grieving,
I hate to go above you,
Because,"—the brown eyes lower fell,—
Still memory to a gray-haired man
Dear girl: the grasses on her grave
Because, you see, I love you!
Went storming out to playing!
The jack-knife's carved initial;
Pushing with restless feet the snow
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
As if a fault confessing.
Lit up its western window-panes,
Deep scarred by raps official;
Within, the master's desk is seen,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
And heard the tremble of her voice,
The warping floor, the battered seats,
When all the school were leaving.
Shone over it at setting;
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
That sweet child-face is showing.

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