How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's sway Have I run forth to Nature as to a friend, With some pretext of o'erwrought sight, to spend My schooltime 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, maybe, with the May, Half-high, or tapering off at summer's end. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SECOND BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 18 by THOMAS CAMPION OVERLOOKING THE RIVER STOUR by THOMAS HARDY BLACK GIRL by ASCLEPIADES OF SAMOS PSALM 1 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 37 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE WOUNDED VULTURE by ANNE CHARLOTTE LYNCH BOTTA |