Now on the mountain morning laughed with light-- With light and all the future in her face, For there she looked on many a far-off place And wild adventurous sight, For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with might And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race, Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool-- “To school!--To school!” Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail, Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots; Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots; Under his swallowtail Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail; Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes; Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs, To eye his tracks. Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in. There stood the bench where he had often been Admonished flagrantly To drone his numbers: now to this he said good-bye For mightier lure of more romantic scene: Good-bye to childish rule and homely chore Forevermore! All day he hastened like the flying cloud Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb. With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce gum, And muttered half aloud Huge oracles. At last, where thro’ the pine-tops bowed The sun, it rose!--His heart beat like a drum. There, there it rose--his tower of prophecy: The Academy! III They learn to live who learn to contemplate, For contemplation is the unconfined God who creates us. To the growing mind Freedom to think is fate, And all that age and after-knowledge augurate Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined: That dream to nourish with the skilful rule Of love--is school. Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, Stood bursting--like a ripe seed--into soul. All his life long he had watched the great hills roll Their shadows, tints and sheens By sun- and moonrise; yet the bane of hoeing beans, And round of joyless chores, his father’s toll, Blotted their beauty; nature was as naught: He had never _thought_. But now he climbed his boyhood’s castle tower And knocked. Ah, well then for his after-fate That one of nature’s masters opened the gate, Where like an April shower Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to power. Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate, And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink, He bowed to think. There also bowed their heads with him to quaff-- The snorting herd! And many a wholesome grip He had of rivalry and fellowship. Often the game was rough, But Eben tossed his horns and never balked the cuff; For still through play and task his Dream would slip-- A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny To his degree. IV