A Memory of School Days

Southland Times, Issue 14814, 15 December 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Memory of School Days

Sometimes a felleia mind goes on an escapade that's wild, And frisks back o'er the years when he was nothin' morn a child; the daya when with his spellin' book McGnffy drove one sick, An' Whi'e gave bitter doses in his third-part 'rithmetic. When dusk and dew 'a a fallin' and the work that filled the day T.'tn reetin' from, my memory jes' travels back that way, Ad' licgers longest with a vision time can ne'er destroy — The freckle-faced divinity I worshipped when a boy. (3er face was pure, each featnre stamped with innocence, foraootb, An' yet t } call her pretty woald be etretohin" of the troth; Though I dreamed all night fall often of her cheek*, sun-tanned and brown, iSer slarched-stiff pink sunbonnet and her ruffled gingham gown. The little girls of these days never have such pansy eyes, An' lips have lost the way V frame such soft an' sweet replies As those I heard when rambling wich, in happy-hearted joy, The freckle-faced divinity I worshipped when a bey. X plncked the first wild roses of (be spring for her to wear, i \n' helpad to braid the blossoms of the orchard in her hair; k etooi her knight and servitor through boyhood days the span An' held her in my heart until I'd grown to bs a man ! iJufc here's a truce to memory, since late the hour grows, Upstairs to bed I softly steal, to dreuns and sweet repose, An' kiss my wife good-night, she who has been lif&'s dearest joy, The freckle-faced divinity I worshipped as a boy. ■