MARION’S SONG IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

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BY FRANCIS S. OSGOOD.

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Away with you, ye musty tomes!

I’ll read no more this morning!

The wildwood rose unlessoned grows—

I’m off—your sermons scorning!

I found a problem, yester eve,

In wondering where the brook led,

More pleasant far for me to solve

Than any one in Euclid.

I heard a bird sing, sweet and low,

A truer lay than Tasso—

A lay of love—ah! let me go,

And fly from Learning’s lasso!

I saw a golden missal, too,

’Twas writ in ancient ages,

And stars—immortal words of light—

Illumined all its pages!

The hand of God unclasped the book,

And oped its leaves of glory;

I read, with awed and reverent look,

Creation’s wondrous story.

I will not waste these summer hours,

The gift that He has given;

I’ll find philosophy in flowers,

Astronomy in heaven!

Yon morning-glory shuts its leaves,

A worm creeps out from under;

Ye volumes, take the hint she gives,

And let the book-worm wander!

I’ll scan no more old Virgil’s verse,

I’d rather scan the heavens;

I’ll leave the puzzling Rule-of-Three

At sixes and at sevens;

The only sum I’ll cipher out

Shall be the “summum bonum;”

My only lines—shall fish for trout,

Till Virgil wouldn’t own ’em!

A costly cover has my book,

Rich blue, where light is winding;

How poor, beside its beauty, look

Your calf and cotton binding.

Away! the balmy air—the birds—

Can teach me music better

Than all your hard, high-sounding words,

That still my fancy fetter.

The waves will tell me how to play

That waltz of Weber’s rightly;

And I shall learn, from every spray,

To dance, with grace and lightly.

Hush! hark! I heard a far-off bird,

I’ll read no more this morning;

The jasmine glows—the woodbine blows!

I’m off—your sermons scorning!