A Quaint Picture

Horowhenua Chronicle, 11 August 1915, Page 3

A Quaint Picture

THE VILLAGE SLiIUOLDAME,

In the prose prefaces to some of thy best-known of Lowell's verses are hidden some of the kindlier touches ti-at illumine the works of the gre«f. American satirist. The essays tJiaprecede the liiglow veises are in eac.i instance excellent as well as entertaining, but usually they are "taken as written" and the reader hastens t> the metrical parts. And yet in the introductions are enshrined some ol the most charming of Lowell's verses. An instance that suggests itself is the genial picture of the school of ins infancy. It runs:—

THE VILLAGE SCHOOL DAME. Propt on the marsh, a dwelling now 1 see, The humble schoolhouse of my A,1(5,0, Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, Waited in ranks the wished command to firo; Then all together, when the signal came, Discharged their a-b abs against the dame.

Daughter of Danaus, who could daily pour lu treacherous pipkins her Piorian store; £>he, mid the volleyed learning firm and calm Patted the furloughed ferulo on her palm, And to our wonder could divine at once Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. There young Devotion learned to climb with ease The gnarly limbs of Scripture lamily trees, And he was most commended and admired Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired; Each name was called as many different iways A 1? pleased the reader's ears on Jili'erent days, Su that the weather, or the ferule's stings, folds in the head, or fifty other things. Transformed the helpless Hebrew — thrice a week— To guttural Pequot or rebounding Greek, The vibrant accent skipping liere and there, Just as it pleased invention or despair; A'o controversial Hebraist was tiie dame; With or without the point pleased tier the same;

If any tyro found a name too tough, And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough; She nerved her larynx ior the desperate thing, And cleared the live-barred syllable at a spring. Ah, dear old times! there once it was my hap, JL'erched on a stool, to .wear the ungeared cap; From books degraded, there 1 sat at ease, A drone, the envy of compulsory bees; Rewards ot merit, too, full many a time, Each with its woodcut, and its moral rime, And pierced half-dollars, hung oil ribbons guy About my neck — to be restored nest day, I carried home, rewards as shilling then As those that deck the lifelong pains of men, More solid than the redemauded praise With which tho world beribbons !ater days. . "• .