Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1874-05-14
GOING TO SPELLING SCHOOL.

BY BENZ. F. TAYLOR.
The broad of a sivery noon!
And The world lies under the moon,
Under the moon and the snow;
The moon comes out from under a cloud
And shines on the world below
The snow cold, white as a linen shroud,
Put on but an hour ago,
T. a peary web with silver thread
Robe for bridal and not for the dead.
THE river is silent as light,
the road is ribbon of white,
Ribbon of silk from Japan
T.. borders rich with satin and shine
Betray where the sleigh-shoes ran,
That iron the snow to a fabric fine
Edged like a lady's fan.
An the night is fair as a marble girl,
Dusty with stars and the mother Of pearl.
The school .house is red and aloof
And rolls from its messy old roof
Columns of glorfed gloom,
A. If there grew from the chimney rude
4 smokc-tree clad in its bloom
,phmniX fair of the burning wood,
Just sprung from the summer room,
with that only trace of an earthly faint,
Picture as white as tie soul OF a SAINT!
atwanging and trilliug of wires,
Are angels attnning their Tyres,
Tuning with negligent HANDY
Hqrk, chimes of bells from over the hills
Dance merrily through the land
The tinkling troll of a hundred rills,
tVmbalS OF briSS from Il Dundi
IT'S the ringing strings of the bells, II bronze
Sprinkling the night with their showery tones.
A spell is abroad and a song
The spoilers and singers along
wizards and witches by pairs.
In cutters snug are the Adams and Ewes,
Eden's own children and heirs
Bells in the wool, in llcu of the leaves,
And bells that the echo wears
It's riBg. rRg ring. to the swinging gait,
Then the teams break trot for the hour is late,
At tiug-a-ling, ting a-ling, galloping rate
Now over the ridges they ride,
And down through the valley they glide,
And bring up AT the school house door,
With bundled girls IN the quilted hood,
And its edging of down, as Of yore.
Their hearts a. sweet as the cedar wood,
Their GOWNS without gussct or gore,
And Vandykes with peak before,
Aud their hair is CLOSED down like blackbrd's
And their shoes are laced up, and with leather
stringsl
They laugh and they leap to the ground,
In WOODEN, all mittcned and gowned,
Lit up with ribbon blue,
With breath of cloves or of sassafras,
Faces like Ruh's and a. true
A ever smiled in Il lookng-glass.
And cheeks with the roses through
All look like flowers that are newly blown,
N the zoneless grace of their " London brown
Cestus of Venus would girdle the waist.
a chorusing crew comes last
In the Family Ark of the past,
Packing il full, and in pairs
The rude old sleigh, roomy and red.
All strewn with straw, like Povertys bed,
Millennial lambs in their LARS
Like an emigrant ship is the laundering craft,
Crowded and laden both forward and art,
With a wooden heart surmountiDg the stern
Where the teams;ers of old gave the reins a turn.
All, the hearts that throbbed with their youthful
blood
Were as free from care as the sculptured wood
Oh. Covenant Ark of the snow
Freghted for church al the door!
Two, side by side, on the sheep-skin seat,
Are bound for Canaan'- shore;
The square footstove is under their feet,
a buffalo robe before
In The two flag chairs that are side by side
Are the gray old man and his silver bride.
Then the boys and girlsin their Sunday clothes.
And the rank slopes down "a 1t farther goes,
To three in row, for the last are least,
Like the sparks Of stars in the early East
All, the old red sleigh, be it ever best
II 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 cang, clang, clang Of the slcghbels
chime.
Al, necklace of melody old,
With apples and walnuts Of gold
That danced 10 the horses feet!
The mother bell in the middle hung,
As big As " Golden Sweet
Then small each way till the string was strung,
And two flbert bells did meet
And two rhyming hearts did beat.
All, the string is dumb, and as green with rust
From "7ne District School," IN Seminars for
Man.