AMERICA WAS SCHOOLMASTERS

R. P. Tristram Coffin

 

Solo 1:       America was forests,

                   America was grain,

All:             Wheat from dawn to sunset,

                   And rainbows trailing rain.

 

Solo 1:       America was beavers,

                   Buffalo in seas,

                   Cornsilk and johnnycake,

                   Song of scythes and bees.

 

                   America was brown men

                   With eyes full of the sun,

All:             But America was schoolmasters,

                   Tall one by lonely one.

 

Solo 1:       The hewed oak, carried water,

                   Their hands were knuckle-boned,

                   They piled on loads of syntax

                   Till the small boys groaned.

 

                   They taught the girls such manners

                   As stiffened them for life,

                   But made many a fine speller,

                   Good mother and good wife.

 

                   They took small wiry children,

                   Wild as panther-cats,

                   And turned them into reasoning

                   Sunny democrats.

 

All:             They caught a nation eager,

                   They caught a nation young,

                   They taught the nation fairness,

                   Thrift, and the golden tongue.

 

Solo 1:       They started at the bottom

                   And built up strong and sweet,

                   They shaped our minds and morals

All:             With switches on the seat.