Afternoon in School <br />The Last Lesson <br /> <br />When will the bell ring, and end this weariness? <br />How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart <br />My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start <br />Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt, <br />I can haul them and urge them no more. <br />No more can I endure to bear the brunt <br />Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score <br />Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl <br />Of slovenly work that they have offered me. <br />I am sick, and tired more than any thrall <br />Upon the woodstacks working weariedly. <br /> <br /> <br />And shall I take <br />The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul <br />Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume <br />Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll <br />Of their insults in punishment? - I will not! <br />I will not waste myself to embers for them, <br />Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot, <br />For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep <br />Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep <br />Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell <br />It all for them, I should hate them - <br />- I will sit and wait for the bell.<br /><br />Steven Percy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/afternoon-in-school-the-last-lesson/
