Читать книгу Boys and Girls. The Verses of James W. Foley онлайн

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He never saw another lad

Like I am—well, at last he spares

Me from a whipping and he lays

His rawhide down: “I can’t whip you

For that, although I should,” he says,

“’Cause that’s the way I used to do.”

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HAIL, that long-awaited day

When, the school books laid away,

All the thoughts of merry youngsters turn from pages back to play!

Done with lesson and with rule,

Done with teacher and with school,

Stray the vagrant hearts of childhood to the tempting wood and pool!

Who will tell in rune and rhyme

Of the glory and the grime

In the dusty lanes and byways of a boy’s vacation time?

Hark, the whistle and the cry

That is piping shrill and high

From the chorus of glad youngsters trooping riotously by!

Say, did sun e’er brightly shine

As when, with his rod and line

Tramps the barefoot lad a-fishing, and the water clear and fine?

Sweet the murmur of the trees,

And what glory now he sees

In the chatter of the wild birds and the buzz of bumble-bees!