Explore "Afternoon in School" by D.H. Lawrence on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE LAST LESSON
When will the bell ring, and end this weariness? / How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart / My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start / Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt, / I can haul them and urge them no more. / No more can I endure to bear the brunt / Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score / Of several insults of blotted page and scrawl / Of slovenly work that they have offered me. / I am sick, and tired more than any thrall / Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.
And shall I take / The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul / Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume / Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll / Of their insults in punishment? -- I will not! / I will not waste myself to embers for them, / Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot, / For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep / Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep / Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell / It all for them, I should hate them -- / -- I will sit and wait for the bell.