Page:Love Poems and Others.djvu/75

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 Up dimly from their striving; it heartens my strife: And when my heart is chill with loneliness, Then comforts it the creeping tenderness Of all the strays of life that climb my life.
III
Afternoon in School
The Last Lesson
When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apartMy pack of unruly hounds: I cannot startThem again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,I can haul them and urge them no more.No more can I endure to bear the bruntOf the books that lie out on the desks: a full three scoreOf several insults of blotted pages and scrawlOf slovenly work that they have offered me.I am sick, and tired more than any thrallUpon the woodstacks working weariedly.
             And shall I takeThe last dear fuel and heap it on my soulTill I rouse my will like a fire to consumeTheir dross of indifference, and burn the scrollOf their insults in punishment?—I will not!I will not waste myself to embers for them,

xliii.

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