II.
Around were the walls, gray and dingy, which every old school-sanctum hath,
With many a break on their surface, where grinned a wood-grating of lath;
A patch of thick plaster, just over the school-master's rickety chair,
Seemed threat'ningly o'er him suspended, like Damocles' sword, by a hair;
There were tracks on the desks where the knife-blades had wandered in search of their prey;
Their tops were as duskily spattered as if they drank ink every day;
