| AN old man’s thought of School; | |
| An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot. | |
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| Now only do I know you! | |
| O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass! | |
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| And these I see—these sparkling eyes, | 5 |
| 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, | |
| On the Soul’s voyage. | |
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| Only a lot of boys and girls? | 10 |
| Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes? | |
| Only a Public School? | |
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| 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? | |
| Why this is not the church at all—the Church is living, ever living Souls.”) | 15 |
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| And you, America, | |
| 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. | |