With such heavy eyes and dim,
As you mark the pallid cheek and rounded shoulder,
From this stern pedantic whim.
They are suffering from a sempiternal dead ache
In the tortured brows that know so little rest,
And they fly to ease the constant “School-Board head-ache,”
On a mother’s or a sister’s kindly breast.
For all day they toil on in their classes,
With an earnestness too sad;
It is well that we should educate the masses,