St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-10-01
Forget the sad and all be glad.

Which shall it be today?
All the battles we fought in the o1den times
The snow balls and bloody noses,
Are as worthy to be rehearsed in rhymes,
AS the 'Britisher's Wars of the Roses.
How the weird, white, whizzing missile flew
Like shot from Calling gum
AS the battle fierce and fercer grew
Want it fun
At mornings, baskets with ample supply,
OF goodies, plentiful store;
Dough-nuts and sausages and pie-"pump
kin pie..'
And when empty all wanted more.
Then hurrah , for the sport and the glee;
The wrestIe-ring, tripping with heel and
toe;
Now doubling, now twisting, now pinioned
free
Now all on heap in the snow
Rough and tumble we go
And do you remember the spelling school bees;
And AIarshaHs old speller, pride;
When phthisic and heifer and victuaIs and
fieze,
Were the Summers few could abide:
And so we went down each side.
And the Dragging and betting and Boosting.
Over sleds in those old by-gone days,
Would stir up clamor and craze.
Down hillsides dashing,
Thro snow-spray flashing.
Into deep ho1lows crashing,
Midst the rnealy snow-banks splashing,-
Gracious, how we spedi
dozen on sled
The 1usty shouting of the boys;
The half-scared daring of the girls;
The grand tumultuous, healthful joys;
The flash and f1utter of wanton curls -
o, twas fun; wan'tit, boys, wan'tit, girls
When plump into snow-drifts like lightning
flew,
With a thud and a whirl;
And for two glorious minutes none of us
Which was boy, which was girl
Want it fun
How dull the looks how sharp the glance,
How stupid the lessons grew,
AS the CLINT of eye like the flash OF a lance
Pierced our young hearts thro and thro'
Aye and conscience reproves us today,
Cor the guilt of the Oft broken rule
The whisper, the laugh. the spit-ban, the play:
In the stern solemn hours of the school,
And the penal infliction bore,
For the crimes struggled to hide;
And awfully solemn and sore
Was the ferrule in judgment applied =
Or the switch to the hide.
But refined dem oniaHy pure,
Was the one, SO hard to endure;
And so certain our follies TO cure; -
Was to seize u.s. poor wights, with a whirl.
And seat us plump down by girl!
A vengeance so direfully sent,
Twas indeed capital punishment
Quite like to this tangled ruse:
Where lightning displaces the moose
But the girls are to grandn others grown,
And we boys are grandfathers too;
We bow to marvel, and own
The incredibiHty truel
But there's something that never grows old
In the man who has acted his part;
In the woman who lives to unfold
The blossom God plants in her heart.
But where is the master-the man of the
rule
do not mean ''of Three
The Kaiser, in all the realm of the school,
With the switch from the birchen tree?
o, where, where is he :?
And where the ancient the patient school
Who took such pleasure and palms,
To care for our spelling and manners and
And could tutor toe on our brains,
They were faithful and true. did the best
that they knew,
To make us the wise men we are
And the natrons maidenly fair
Well copy their virtues their foibles
eschew;
For the most part, they wrought in despair.
he u-r11ee % in n
OF such cordage and iron and oak,
THE old ship of state" tho it lurch,
No storm of the broke
Roll the waves mountain high to the shore,
| And the nations be awed by the roar.
The school house has vanished, the teachers
are dead!
The school is dismissed for all time;
The playground is silent,-the scholars have
fed,
And here 1 might end this long rhyme.
| Full fifty years, and can it be
| Five rounded decades told;
Plowed by the deeds of history,
And sown with seed An hundred fold
OF glorious harvests yet to reap,
In coming decades, when
From graves where great martyrs sleep
Shall grow race of men,
Whose lives shall make the state
And nation great,
From Plymouth Rock to Golden Gate;-
Purging the land
| From greed of mammon and the curse of
drink;
| And right by might and freedom stand
Welding our diverse peoples, link to link
Build here, on Gods own plan,
| The broad, enduring brotherhood of man"
But list more, to the sweet-voced Rice ,
| as
sweet will
Under the lift of ''Thurston's Hill -
The song of the years it sings to us still
But minor strain falls the ear,
In the notes of its murmuring flow;
For the many alas who have met with us
here,