Smudge on the tip of his nose;
Mischievous glance of a Puck;
Heart just as big as the rents in his clothes;
Lungs like a locust and cheeks like a rose;—
Total it!—there you have Tuck!
And bad luck
To the man who would question his pluck!
School is all over at last—
School with its pothooks and strokes:
Homeward they toddle, but who could go fast?—
So many wonderful things to be passed—
Froggie, for instance, who croaks
’Neath the oaks
By the creek where the watercress soaks.
Sandpipers dance on the bars;
Swallows, white-throated and fleet,
Dip thirsty beaks in the stream as they pass;
Smooth water-beetles that twinkle like stars
Watch the gay dragon-flies greet.
Hark how sweet
Is the pipe of the tiny pee-weet!
Near, too, the earth is all torn:
Strong, willing workers have thrown
Great heaps of tailings, smooth-polished and worn,
Round the mysterious caverns that yawn—
Stacks of the snowy quartz stone,
Grass-grown
Piles of the Earth's dry bone.
