VACATION.

O, MASTER, no more of your lessons! For a season we bid them good by, And turn to the manifold teachings Of ocean, and forest, and sky. We must plunge into billow and breaker; The fields we must ransack anew; And again must the sombre woods echo The glee of our merry-voiced crew. From teacher’s and preacher’s dictation— From all the dreaded lore of the books— Escaped from the thraldom of study, We turn to the babble of brooks; We hark to the field-minstrels’ music, The lowing of herds on the lea, The surge of the winds in the forest, The roar of the storm-angered sea. To the tree-tops we’ll climb with the squirrels; We will race with the brooks in the glens; The rabbits we’ll chase to their burrows; The foxes we’ll hunt to their dens; The woodchucks, askulk in their caverns, We’ll visit again and again; And we’ll peep into every bird’s nest The copses and meadows contain. For us are the blackberries ripening By many a moss-covered wall; There are bluehats enough in the thickets To furnish a treat for us all; In the swamps there are ground-nuts in plenty; The sea-sands their titbits afford; And, O, most delectable banquet, We will feast at the honey-bee’s board! O, comrades, the graybeards assure us That life is a burden of cares; That the highways and byways of manhood Are fretted with pitfalls and snares. Well, school-days have their tribulations; Their troubles, as well as their joys. Then give us vacation forever, If we must forever be boys! Beverly Moore.