Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Home: IV. YouthThe School Girl
William Henry Venable (18361920)F
Brings to the city,
Five days a week, in sun or rain,
Returning like a song’s refrain,
A school girl pretty.
Is dainty miss’s;
Yet in her shy, expressive face
The touch of urban arts I trace,
And artifices.
Of what she ’s thinking:
It may be either books or beaux,
Fine scholarship or stylish clothes,
Per cents or prinking.
This morn who kissed her;
Not every one can make so free;
Who sees her, inly wishes she
Were his own sister.
The slate she uses,
The hat she lightly dolls and dons,
The orient sunshade that she owns,
The desk she chooses!
Of Julius Cæsar?
Do crucibles and Leyden jars,
And Browning, and the moons of Mars,
And Euclid, please her?
O day of knowledge!
And other mysteries divine,
Of imitation or design,
Taught in the college.
A sense of beauty;
Care smiles to see her free of care;
The hard heart loves her unaware;
Age pays her duty.
Her weakness, power;
The earth her guardian, and the sky;
God’s every star is her ally,
And every flower.