LITTLE
R. P. Tristram Coffin
All: The little house where boys and girls
Sat with heavy hearts,
Solo 1: The red school house with the single room
Was where we got our start.
All: One dipper and one water pail
Ladled our life to all,
Solo 1: And
And
All: Between them were the dog-eared books
And slates with bright yarn bound,
Solo 1: The names of boys and girls cut deep
With hearts of love around.
How came the bullfrog in the pail?
What countries bound
All: The bit boys worshipped cornsilk
braids,
And small boys sprouted will.
Solo 1: A future judge sat with a smudge
On pre-judicial chin,
Great soldiers sat in trousers rent
And universal grin.
High on the stool in his peaked cap
Sat one of the wise
Who played the fool so he could see
Far trees against the skies.
A poet in knee-pants had found
The way not to be there,
Great swans and armies shone clean through
The cube roots and the square.
All: Very close to corn and truth,
To cows and all creation,
And learned to be a nation.