A Vacation Song

Katherine Lee Bates

Sunshine

I have shut my books and hidden my slate
And tossed my satchel across the gate.
My school is out for a season of rest,
And now for the schoolroom I love the best!

My schoolroom lies on the meadow wide,
Where under the clover the sunbeams hide,
Where the long vines cling to the mossy bars,
And the daisies twinkle like fallen stars;

Where clusters of buttercups gild the scene
Like showers of gold-dust thrown over the green,
And the wind's flying footsteps are traced, as they pass,
By the dance of the sorrel and dip of the grass.

My lessons are written in clouds and trees,
And no one whispers, except the breeze
That sometimes blows, from a secret place,
A stray, sweet blossom against my face.

My school-bell rings in the rippling stream,
That hides itself, like a schoolboy's dream,
Under the shadow and out of sight,
But laughing still for its own delight.

My schoolmates there are the birds and bees,
And the saucy squirrel, more dull than these,
And the saucy squirrel, more dull than these,
For he only learns, in all the weeks,
How many chestnuts will fill his cheeks.

My teacher is patient, and never yet
A lesson of hers did I once forget,
For wonderful lore do her lips impart,
And all her lessons are learned by heart.

Oh, come! oh, come! or we shall be late,
And autumn will fasten the golden gate.
Of all the schoolrooms in east or west,
The school of Nature I love the best.

Katherine Lee Bates,
In Sunshine.

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