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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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AN OLD MAN'S THOUGHT OF SCHOOL.
For the Inauguration of a Public School, Camden, New Jersey, 1874.
AN old man's thought of school, |
An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth
itself cannot.
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O fair auroral skies—O morning dew upon the grass! |
And these I see, these sparkling eyes, |
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives, |
Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships, |
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas, |
Only a lot of boys and girls? |
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes? |
Ah more, infinitely more; |
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick
and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the
church?
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Why this is not the church at all—the church is living, ever living
souls.")
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Cast you the real reckoning for your present? |
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil? |
To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school. |
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