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 | Poems by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman |  |
227
[XXIX. How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's sway]
How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's swayHave I run forth to Nature as to a friend,—
With some pretext of o'erwrought sight, to spend
My school-time in green meadows far away!
Careless of summoning bell or clocks that strike
I marked with flowers the minutes of my day!
For still the eye that shrank from hated hours
Dazzled with decimal and dividend,
Knew each bleached alder root that plashed across
The bubbling brook, and every mass of moss
Could tell the month, too, by the vervain spike,
How far the ring of purple tiny flowers
Had climbed—just starting, may be, with the May,
Half-high, or tapering off at Summer's end.
| Poems by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman | |