The New School

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1. The Old Bark School It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool; And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks – There was little need for windows in the school. Then we rode to school and back by the rugged gully-track, […]...
2. An Old Man's Thought of School AN old man’s thought of School; An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot. Now only do I know you! 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! […]...
3. The Flower-School When storm-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down. The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its Bagpipes among the bamboos. Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows Where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee. Mother, I really think the flowers go […]...
4. September, The First Day Of School I My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish tears remind me how I cried before that door a life ago. I may have had a hard time letting go. […]...
5. The Holidays “Ah! don’t you remember, ’tis almost December, And soon will the holidays come; Oh, ’twill be so funny, I’ve plenty of money, I’ll buy me a sword and a drum. ” Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry, Impatient from school to depart; But we shall discover, this holiday lover Knew little what was in […]...
6. What Fifty Said When I was young my teachers were the old. I gave up fire for form till I was cold. I suffered like a metal being cast. I went to school to age to learn the past. Now when I am old my teachers are the young. What can’t be molded must be cracked and sprung. […]...
7. The School of Night What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess What spirits it raised nor where their questions led. Those others, familiar tenants of […]...
8. Advice to a young sylv-i-an dragon on going to school when you step out of the wood and go first time to school You have to be so specially careful if you’re really a dragon To put the most innocent expression on your face you can find And not flip your flappers (unless the others don’t mind) You must be very strict with yourself – […]...
9. A Letter From the Trenches to a School Friend I have not brought my Odyssey With me here across the sea; But you’ll remember, when I say How, when they went down Sparta way, To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn Horses were harnessed, rations drawn, Equipment polished sparkling bright, And breakfasts swallowed (as the white Of eastern heavens turned to gold) – The dogs […]...
10. To Jane Addams at the Hague I. SPEAK NOW FOR PEACE Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen, Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart), Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen. Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone, Though your voice may seem as a dove’s in this howling flood, It is […]...
11. Lessons THERE are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety; But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love, That they readily meet invasions, when they come....
12. Among School Children I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way – the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling […]...
13. Kitchener's School 1898 Being a translation of the song that was made by a Mohammedanschoolmaster of Bengal Infantry (some time on service at Suakim)when he heard that Kitchener was taking money from the English tobuild a Madrissa for Hubshees or a college for the Sudanese. Oh Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head […]...
14. Exeunt Piecemeal the summer dies; At the field’s edge a daisy lives alone; A last shawl of burning lies On a gray field-stone. All cries are thin and terse; The field has droned the summer’s final mass; A cricket like a dwindled hearse Crawls from the dry grass....
15. Possibilities Ay, lay him ‘neath the Simla pine A fortnight fully to be missed, Behold, we lose our fourth at whist, A chair is vacant where we dine. His place forgets him; other men Have bought his ponies, guns, and traps. His fortune is the Great Perhaps And that cool rest-house down the glen, Whence he […]...
16. To My Brother Give me your hand, my brother, search my face; Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame; For we have made an end of all things base. We are returning by the road we came. Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead, And I am in the field where men must […]...
17. The School Boy I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the sky-lark sings with me. O! what sweet company. But to go to school in a summer morn, O! it drives all joy away; Under a cruel eye outworn. The little ones spend […]...
18. WYTHER PARK SCHOOL LEEDS FIVE I stood there in front of forty-five faces The first day of term, not especially fancying “Exercises in Mechanical Arithmetic” and so instead I read a poem from Kirkup in Japan, about Nijinsky, Hand-written on a fan of rice-paper. Thirty years later, taking a Sri Lankan girl In search of her first job around London […]...
19. M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School Detroit, 1942 He made a line on the blackboard, One bold stroke from right to left Diagonally downward and stood back To ask, looking as always at no one In particular, “What have I done?” From the back of the room Freddie Shouted, “You’ve broken a piece Of chalk.” M. Degas did not smile. “What have I […]...
20. Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
21. The White Ships and the Red (For Alden March) With drooping sail and pennant That never a wind may reach, They float in sunless waters Beside a sunless beach. Their mighty masts and funnels Are white as driven snow, And with a pallid radiance Their ghostly bulwarks glow. Here is a Spanish galleon That once with gold was gay, Here is […]...
22. THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
23. For You THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great hinges. The peace of great churches be for you, Where the players of loft pipe organs Practice old lovely fragments, alone. The peace of great books be for you, Stains of pressed clover leaves on […]...
24. Salute Past is past, and if one Remembers what one meant To do and never did, is Not to have thought to do Enough? Like that gather- Ing of one each I Planned, to gather one Of each kind of clover, Daisy, paintbrush that Grew in that field The cabin stood in and Study them one […]...
25. The Best Cigarette There are many that I miss Having sent my last one out a car window Sparking along the road one night, years ago. The heralded one, of course: After sex, the two glowing tips Now the lights of a single ship; At the end of a long dinner With more wine to come And a […]...
26. 'Twas later when the summer went ‘Twas later when the summer went Than when the Cricket came And yet we knew that gentle Clock Meant nought but Going Home ‘Twas sooner when the Cricket went Than when the Winter came Yet that pathetic Pendulum Keeps esoteric Time....
27. Concerning The Synthetic Unity Of Apperception “Trash, trash!” the king my uncle said, “The spirit’s smoke and weak as smoke ascends. “Sit in the sun and not among the dead, “Eat oranges! Pish tosh! the car attends. “All ghosts came back. they do not like it there, “No silky water and no big brown bear, “No beer and no siestas up […]...
28. Alarm Clocks When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm Across green fields and yellow hills of hay The little twittering birds laugh in his way And poise triumphant on his shining arm. He bears a sword of flame but not to harm The wakened life that feels his quickening sway And barnyard voices shrilling “It […]...
29. THE INSTRUCTORS WHEN Diogenes quietly sunn’d himself in his barrel, When Calanus with joy leapt in the flame-breathing grave, Oh, what noble lessons were those for the rash son of Philip, Were not the lord of the world e’en for instruction too great! 1789.*...
30. Parable For A Certain Virgin Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine; Refresh your recollection, And sit a moment, to define His means of self-protection. How truly fortified is he! Where is the beast his double In forethought of emergency And readiness for trouble? Recall his figure, and his shade- How deftly planned and clearly For slithering through the dappled glade Unseen, […]...
31. Aspens All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the […]...
32. Southern Mansion Poplars are standing there still as death And ghosts of dead men Meet their ladies walking Two by two beneath the shade And standing on the marble steps. There is a sound of music echoing Through the open door And in the field there is Another sound tinkling in the cotton: Chains of bondmen dragging […]...
33. Was It You? “Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gay And your pen behind your ear; Will you mark my cheque in the usual way? For I’m overdrawn, I fear.” Then you look at me in a manner bland, As you turn your ledger’s leaves, And you hand it back with a soft white hand, And the […]...
34. The Last Post The bugler sent a call of high romance – “Lights out! Lights out!” to the deserted square. On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer, “God, if it’s this for me next time in France… O spare the phantom bugle as I lie Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns, Dead […]...
35. After Reading "Antony And Cleopatra&quot AS when the hunt by holt and field Drives on with horn and strife, Hunger of hopeless things pursues Our spirits throughout life. The sea’s roar fills us aching full Of objectless desire – The sea’s roar, and the white moon-shine, And the reddening of the fire. Who talks to me of reason now? It […]...
36. A School Song “Let us now praise famous men” Men of little showing For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continues, Greater then their knowing! Western wind and open surge Took us from our mothers Flung us on a naked shore (Twelve bleak houses by the shore. Seven summers by the shore! ) ‘Mid […]...
37. The Latest School See the flying French depart Like the bees of Bonaparte, Swarming up with a most venomous vitality. Over Baden and Bavaria, And Brighton and Bulgaria, Thus violating Belgian neutrality. And the injured Prussian may Not unreasonably say “Why, it cannot be so small a nationality Since Brixton and Batavia, Bolivia and Belgravia, Are bursting with […]...
38. The School Of Metaphysics Executioner happy to explain How his wristwatch works As he shadows me on the street. I call him that because he is grim and officious And wears black. The clock on the church tower Had stopped at five to eleven. The morning newspapers had no date. The gray building on the corner Could’ve been a […]...
39. SCHOOL SMELL Composed of chalk dust, Pencil shavings and The sharp odour Of stale urine; It meets me now and then Creeping down a creosoted corridor Or waiting to be banged With the dust from piles of books On top of a cupboard. The double desks heeled with iron Having long been replaced; The steel-nibbed pens and […]...
40. Going Back to School The boat ploughed on. Now Alcatraz was past And all the grey waves flamed to red again At the dead sun’s last glimmer. Far and vast The Sausalito lights burned suddenly In little dots and clumps, as if a pen Had scrawled vague lines of gold across the hills; The sky was like a cup […]...