| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 651. The School Girl |
| | | By William Henry Venable |
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| FROM some sweet home, the morning train | |
| Brings to the city, | |
| Five days a week, in sun or rain, | |
| Returning like a song’s refrain, | |
| A school girl pretty. | 5 |
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| A wild flower’s unaffected grace | |
| Is dainty miss’s; | |
| Yet in her shy, expressive face | |
| The touch of urban arts I trace,— | |
| And artifices. | 10 |
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| No one but she and Heaven knows | |
| Of what she ’s thinking: | |
| It may be either books or beaux, | |
| Fine scholarship or stylish clothes, | |
| Per cents or prinking. | 15 |
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| How happy must the household be, | |
| This morn that kissed her; | |
| Not every one can make so free; | |
| Who sees her, inly wishes she | |
| Were his own sister. | 20 |
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| How favored is the book she cons, | |
| The slate she uses, | |
| The hat she lightly doffs and dons, | |
| The orient sunshade that she owns, | |
| The desk she chooses! | 25 |
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| Is she familiar with the wars | |
| Of Julius Cæsar? | |
| Do crucibles and Leyden jars, | |
| And French, and earth, and sun, and stars, | |
| And Euclid, please her? | 30 |
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| She studies music, I opine; | |
| O day of knowledge! | |
| And all the other arts divine, | |
| Of imitation and design, | |
| Taught in the college. | 35 |
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| A charm attends her everywhere,— | |
| A sense of beauty; | |
| Care smiles to see her free of care; | |
| The hard heart loves her unaware; | |
| Age pays her duty. | 40 |
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| She is protected by the sky; | |
| Good spirits tend her; | |
| Her innocence is panoply; | |
| God’s wrath must on the miscreant lie | |
| Who dares offend her! | 45 |
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