LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES.
V.—School. "A Distant View."
"Distance lends enchantment"—kindly Distance!
Wiping out all troubles and disgraces,
How we seem to cast, with your assistance,
All our boyish lines in pleasant places!
Greek and Latin, struggles mathematic,
These were worries leaving slender traces;
Now we tell the boys (we wax emphatic)
How our lines fell all in pleasant places.
How we used to draw (immortal Wackford!)
Euclid's figures, more resembling faces,
Surreptitiously upon the black-board,
Crude yet telling lines in pleasant places.
Pleasant places! That was no misnomer.
Impositions?—little heed scape-graces;
Writing out a book or so of Homer,
Even those were lines in pleasant places!
How we scampered o'er the country, leading
Apoplectic farmers pretty chases,
Over crops, through fences all unheeding,
Stiff cross-country lines in pleasant places.
Yes, and how—too soon youth's early day flies—
In the purling brook which seaward races
How we used to poach with luscious May-flies,
Casting furtive lines in pleasant places.
Then the lickings! How we took them, scorning
Girlish outcry, though we made grimaces;
Only smiled to find ourselves next morning
Somewhat marked with lines in pleasant places!
Alma Mater, whether young or olden,
Thanks to you for hosts of friendly faces,
Treasured memories, days of boyhood golden,
Lines that fell in none but pleasant places!