A Boy’S Vacation Time

Hail, that long-awaited day When, the school books laid away, All the thoughts of merry youngsters turn from pages back to play! Done with lesson and with rule, Done with teacher and with school, Stray the vagrant hearts of childhood to the tempting wood and pool!

Who will tell in rune and rhyme Of the glory and the grime In the dusty lanes and byways of a boy’s vacation time? Hark, the whistle and the cry That is piping shrill and high From the chorus of glad youngsters trooping riotously by!

Say, did sun e’er brightly shine As when, with his rod and line Tramps the barefoot lad a-fishing, and the water clear and fine? Sweet the murmur of the trees, And what glory now he sees In the chatter of the wild birds and the buzz of bumble-bees!

Hear the green woods cry and call, Through the Summer to the Fall, “We are waiting, waiting, waiting, with a welcome for you all!” Hear the lads take up the cry, With an echo, shrill and high: “We are coming, coming, coming, for vacation time is nigh!”

How the skies are blue and fair, How the clover scents the air With a witchery of fragrance that is delicate and rare! How the blossoms bud and blow, And the great waves flood and flow In the ocean of boy happiness, like billows, to and fro!

Ah, my heart goes back and sighs When the piping calls and cries From the hearts of merry youngsters like a song of triumph rise! And I would that rune and rhyme Might be splendid and sublime In my heart to tell the story of a boy’s vacation time!