The boy that did the mischief,
But that boy was seldom found,
And so, he had to bear his grief
And nurse the unseen wound;
But time and rhyme can never tell
The half our funny pranks,
And that we ever learned to spell,
We ought to render thanks.
Poor Dance! I always pitied him
For he was just from college,
And never having learned to swim,
Was drowned with all his knowledge.
Of Cochran, I but little knew,
He was a stranger here,
’Twas always said he would get blue,
And acted very queer.
Montgomery I knew right well,
He was rather kind than cross,
He taught the willing how to spell,
And always would be boss.
He wrote a very pretty hand
And could command a school:
His appetite got the command,
And that he could not rule.
One day he took a heavy slug
Of something rather hot;
He took that something from a jug,
And shortly he was not.
Who “took” him, though, I never can
Nor need I ever say;
But when the Lord doth take a man,
’Tis seldom done that way.
Poor Humphreys was a sort of crank
(Folks said his learning made him mad,)
But this I know, he always drank,
And that will make the best man, bad.
Excuse this rather long digression,
My pen has carried me astray;
These schoolboy days make an impression
From which ’tis hard to get away.