VILLAGE children shouted shrill, "What ch'er, Baker!" "Way up, Will!" As I passed he stopped his van To tell me, "Your luck's in, old man. "I was nothing but a fool When I left your father's school; He said many and many a time If I wanted, I could climb. "He said, he'd not had one more quick At history and arithmetic, He framed my drawings for the wall, An oak leaf and a cricket ball. "But my dad, you know, was stiff, And laughed and huffed -- There's always @3If@1: There's none of us been scholars yet, There's honest work for us to get. "So here I am; and there are you, Always starting something new; They tell me, if you shine this way, It's college for you some fine day. "Good boy!" He sighed; and called his horse, And drove upon his daily course, And when he called at Golden Green Was still in a brown study seen. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PASSIONS: AN ODE FOR MUSIC by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) MACFLECKNOE; OR, A SATIRE UPON THE TRUE-BLUE-PROTESTANT POET by JOHN DRYDEN TO THE BELOVED by ALICE MEYNELL TO A DOG by JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY MERCURY; ON LOSING MY POCKET MILTON AT LUSS NEAR BEN LOMOND by ROBERT ANDREWS THE CLOAK by ANNA LOUISE BARNEY |