“How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school’s sway”

from Sonnets, Second Series XXIX How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school’s sway Have I run forth to Nature as to a friend,— With some pretext of o’erwrought sight, to spend My school-time in green meadows far away! Careless of summoning bell, or clocks that strike, I marked with flowers the minutes of my day: For still the eye that shrank from hated hours, Dazzled with decimal and dividend, Knew each bleached alder-root that plashed across The bubbling brook, and every mass of moss; Could tell the month, too, by the vervain-spike,— How far the ring of purple tiny flowers Had climbed; just starting, may-be, with the May, Half-light, or tapering off at Summer’s end.