The Country Schoolmaster

Where yonder humble spire salutes the eye,
Its vane slow-turning in the liquid sky,
Where, in light gambols, healthy striplings sport,
Ambitious learning builds her outer court;
A. grave preceptor, there, her usher stands,
And rules without a rod her little bands.
Some half-grown sprigs of learning graced his brow:
Little he knew, though much he wish'd to know;
Enchanted hung o'er Virgil's honey'd lay,
And smiled to see desipient Horace play;
Glean'd scraps of Greek; and, curious, traced afar,
Through Pope's clear glass the bright Masonian star.
Yet oft his students at his wisdom stared,
For many a student to his side repair'd;
Surprised, they heard him Dil worth's knots untie,
And tell what lands beyond the Atlantic lie.
Many his faults; his virtues small and few;
Some little good he did, or strove to do;
Laborious still, he taught the early mind,
And- urged to manners meek and thoughts refined;
Truth he impress'd, and every virtue praised;
While infant eyes in wondering silence gazed;
The worth of lime would day by day unfold,
And tell them every hour was made of gold.