So, at the age of green fourteen, I felt as proud as any queen. A new leaf I resolved to turn, And study hard and laurels earn; I stood quite high for one so young, And could I only held my tongue I might have been almost a star, But mischief would my merits mar; For what I gained by work and tact, I’d loose by some rebellious act: I sacrificed myself to fun-- My ablest efforts were undone By some wild freak or fractured rule, That put me down a dot in school.
I soon began, as heretofore, To find the teachers quite a bore, In interfering all the time-- Indeed it seems a chronic crime, To be officious and prevent The pleasures that were my intent. They so delight in being dry And dull and stiff. I wonder why? They looked with frowning doubt and dread On every thing I did and said. At times they’d give a sickly smile At my peculiar wayward style; But in a moment they would be A-pointing morals all at me.
As we were taught full forty things, With names as long as corset strings, And teachers stern and dignified, I future punishment denied. I felt we had our troubles here, And naught to come was aught to fear.
Away into the quiet night I’d pore and ponder by the light That poets call the “midnight oil,” Some crooked problem to uncoil, Or draw a map, or parse a verse, Or write an essay, which was worse, Or worry with celestial globes-- The very thought my bosom probes With recollections full of woe. What good is it for us to know That Mars has belts or Saturn rings-- A thousand other different things? That don’t concern this world at all, Nor never have since Adam’s fall.
Then scanning Milton through and through Is what I did despise to do; Nor did I care a single dime If all his blank verse had been rhyme, Or was awry or wrong in rhythm, Or had it been with him--in Heaven. That Paradise was lost I knew-- I never doubted it was true; Then why extend the dreary tale, To worry pupils--maid and male? Mythology and classic lore Is such an everlasting bore.
The other poets we’d dissect, And try their metre to correct-- And murder many of their lays So sadly that it would amaze The sainted soul, could it but know The scandalous scanning done below!
Then algebra, with _x_ and _z_, Would always vex and puzzle me, And make me wish that each equation Was in the sea, with mensuration. I’d sigh and cipher for an hour, And long for calculating power To get the cube root or the square, Or puzzle out the proper share That A and B would have to get In value either gross or net.