MY SCHOOLMATE.
he snows have settled on my head
But not upon my heart,
And incidents of years long fled
From out my memory start.
My hand is cunning to contrive
The shapes my brain invents,
And keep in marble forms alive
That which my soul contents;
And I have wife, and children tall,
Grandchildren cluster near,
And sweet the applause of men doth fall
On my undeafened ear.
But still my mind will backward turn
For half a century,
And without reasoning will yearn
For sight or news of thee,
Thou playmate of my boyhood days,
When life was all aglow,
When the sweetest thing was thy girlish praise,
As I drew thee o’er the snow
To the old red school-house by the road,
Where we learned to spell and read,
When thou wert all my fairy load
And I was thy prancing steed.
Oh! thou wert simple then and fair.
Artless and unconstrained,
With quaintly knotted auburn hair
From which the wind refrained,
And from thine earnest steady eyes
Shone out a nature pure,
Formed by kind Heaven, a man’s best prize,
To love and to endure.
Oh! art thou still in life and time,
Or hast thou gone before?
And hath thy lot been like to mine,
Or pinched and bare and sore?
And didst thou marry, or art thou
Still of the spinster tribe?
Perchance thou art a widow now,
Steeled against second bribe?
Do grandsons round thy hearthstone play,
Or dost thou end thy race?
And could that auburn hair grow gray,
And wrinkles line thy face?
I cannot make thee old and plain—
I would not if I could—
And I recall thee without stain,
Simply and sweetly good;
And I have carved thy pretty head
And hung it on my wall,
And to all men let it be said,
I like it best of all;
For on a far-off snowy road,
Before I had learned to read,
Thou wert all my fairy load
And I was thy prancing steed!
have reserved my queerest library companion till the last. It is not a book, although it is good for nothing but to read. It is not an autograph, although it is simply the name of an individual
It is my office sign which I have cherished, as a memento of busier days. Some singular reflections are roused when I gaze at
MY SHINGLE.
