Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE, by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Set on a rounding hill-top
Last Line: Till the grand hills fall asleep.
Alternate Author Name(s): Van Deth, Gerrit, Mrs.
Subject(s): Children; Mothers; Schools; Teaching & Teachers; Childhood; Students


SET on a rounding hill-top
And weather-stained and gray,
The little mountain school-house
Looks down on the lonesome way.
No other dwelling is near it,
'Tis perched up there by itself,
Like an old forgotten chapel
High on a rocky shelf.

In at the cobwebbed windows
I peered, and seemed to see
The face of a sweet girl teacher
Smiling back at me.
There was her desk in the middle,
With benches grouped anear,
Which fancy peopled with children—
Grown up this many a year.

Rosy and sturdy children
Trudging there, rain or shine,
Eager to be in their places
On the very stroke of nine.
Their dinners packed in baskets—
Turnover, pie, and cake,
The homely toothsome dainties
Old-fashioned mothers could make.

Where did the little ones come from?
Fields green with aftermath
Sleep in the autumn sunshine,
And a narrow tangled path,
Creeping through brier and brushwood,
Leads down the familiar way;
But where did the children come from
To this school of yesterday?

Oh, brown and freckled laddie
And lass of the apple cheek,
The homes that sent you hither
Are few and far to seek.
But you climbed these steeps like squirrels
That leap from bough to bough,
Nor cared for cloud or tempest,
Nor minded the deep soft snow.

Blithe of heart and of footstep
You merrily took the road,
Life yet had brought no shadows,
Care yet had heaped no load.
And safe beneath lowly roof-trees
You said your prayers at night,
And glad as the birds in the orchard
Rose up with the morning light.

Gone is the fair young teacher;
The scholars come no more
With shout and song to greet her,
As once, at the swinging door.
There are gray-haired men and women
Who belonged to that childish band,
With troops of their own around them
In this sunny mountain land.

The old school stands deserted
Alone on the hill by itself,
Much like an outworn chapel
That clings to a rocky shelf.
And the sentinel pines around it
In solemn beauty keep
Their watch, from the flush of the dawning
Till the grand hills fall asleep.





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