See that crevice in the floorSlender line from desk to door,

Figures piled in a mighty sum;
He wets a finger, and down they come !

Aproned urchin, aged five,
Youngest in the humming hive,
Standing by the Master's knee,
Calls the roll of A, B, C.
Frightened hair all blown about,
Buttered lips in half a pout,
Knuckle boring out an eye,
Saying "P" and thinking "pie,"
Feeling for a speckled bean,
'Twixt each breath a dumb ravine,
Like clock unwound, but going yet,
He slowly ticks the alphabet :
"A-ah-B-ah-C-ah-D,"
Finds the bean and calls for "G."

First meridian of the school-
Which all the scholars toe by rule.
Ranged along in rigid row,
Inky, golden, brown and tow,
Are heads of spellers high and low,
Like notes in music sweet as June,
Dotting off a dancing tune..

Boy of Bashan takes the lead,-
Roughly thatched his bullet head;-
At the foot an eight-year-old,
Stands with head of trembling gold;
Watch her when the word is missed!
Her eyes are like an amethyst,
Her fingers dove-tailed, lips apart;
She knows that very word by heart!
And swings like any pendulum,
Trembling lest it fail to come.
Runs the word along the line,
Like the running of a vine,
Blossoms out from lip to lip-

Ah, the hearts that throbbed with their youthful blood

Were as free from care as the sculptured wood!

Oh, Covenant Ark of the snow,
Freighted for church at the door!
Two, side by side, on the sheep-skin seat,
Are bound for Canaan's shore;

The square foot-stove is under their feet, A buffalo robe before.

In the two flag chairs that are side by side, Are the the gray old man and his silver bride. Still she carries one for the added ten,

May follow the rule and carry again!
Then the boys and girls in their Sunday clothes,
And the rank slopes down as it farther goes,
To three in a row, for the last are least,
Like the sparks of stars in the early East!
Ah, the old red sleigh, be it ever blest!
It has borne the dead to their silent rest,-
The bearers, by twos, as they rode abreast,-
Has carried the brides, their bedding and "things,"
When the girls were queens and the bridegrooms
kings,

To the splay-foot jog of the olden time, And the clang, clang, clang, of the sleigh-bells' chime.