Poems (Larcom)/The Old School-House

by Lucy Larcom

THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE.

I PASSED it yesterday again,
 The school-house by the river,
Where you and I were children, Jane,
 And used to glow and shiver
In heats of June, December's frost;
 And where, in rainy weather,
The swollen roadside brook we crossed
 So many times together.

I felt the trickle of the rain
 From your wet ringlets dripping;
I caught your blue eye's twinkle, Jane,
 When we were nearly slipping;
And thought, while you in fear and glee
 Were clinging to my shoulder,
"O, will she trust herself to me,
 When we are ten years older?"

For I was full of visions vain,—
 The boy's romantic hunger.
You were the whole school's darling, Jane,
 And many summers younger.
Your head a cherub's used to look,
 With sunbeams on it lying,
Bent downward to your spelling-book,
 For long and hard words prying.

The mountains through the window-pane
 Showered over you their glory.
The awkward farm-boy loved you, Jane:
 You know the old, old story.
I never watch the sunset now
 Upon those misty ranges,
But your bright lips, and cheek, and brow,
 Gleam out of all its changes.

I wonder if you see that chain
 On memory's dim horizon;
There 's not a lovelier picture, Jane,
 To rest even your sweet eyes on.
The Haystacks each an airy tent,
 The Notch a gate of splendor;
And river, sky, and mountains blent
 In twilight radiance tender.

I wonder,—with a flitting pain,—
 If thoughts of me returning,
Are mingled with the mountains, Jane:
 I stifle down that yearning.—
A rich man's wife, on you no claim
 Have I, lost dreams to rally;
Yet Pemigewasset sings your name
 Along its winding valley:

And once I hoped that for us twain
 Might fall one calm life-closing;
That Campton hills might guard us, Jane,
 In one green grave reposing.
They say the old man's heart is rock:
 You never thought so, never!
And, loving you alone, I lock
 The school-house door forever!