I miss the woodpile of my youth, Where once I split the fragrant pine And learned a plain and simple truth, The need of hewing to the line. Each day, when I came out of school, Beside the chopping block I stood (It was my childhood's changeless rule) And split next day's supply of wood. And sometimes it was maple, beech, As Winter days brought fields of white, To mountain heights it used to reach, The wood I had to split each night. One simple kitchen stove became The least of three to smoke and roar, Each with an appetite of flame That ate my pile, and yelled for more. Or good white oak perhaps it was, Or even gnarled elm perhaps, Tough products of the cross-cut saws, And full of woe for little chaps. In later life some problems vast And various have been my lot But nothing yet has quite surpassed The problem of a white oak knot. The kitchen cookstove yelled for pine, The heater in the dining room Devoured that daily pile of mine, The parlor mountains would consume. A wash-day was a weekly woe, An ironing-day a sin to me, A baking day was doubly so -- A party a calamity. 'Twas not the blizzards that we had Nor any thundering of Jove's That made the wintertime so sad -- It was those three confounded stoves. When other boys could play, forsooth, My daily ax I had to clutch; I miss the woodpile of my youth -- But I don't miss it very much. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FLAT-HUNTER'S WAY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS TO THE RETURNED GIRLS by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS INVITATION TO A PAINTER: 3 by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM BOTHWELL: PART 4 by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN ODE TO SPRING by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD TOMORROW by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SAPPHIC SUICIDE NOTE by JAMES GALVIN |