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Title: The Preceptor
Author: Victor Hugo [ More Titles by Hugo]
("Homme chauve et noir.") [XIX., May, 1839.] A gruesome man, bald, clad in black, Who kept us youthful drudges in the track, Thinking it good for them to leave home care, And for a while a harsher yoke to bear; Surrender all the careless ease of home, And be forbid from schoolyard bounds to roam; For this with blandest smiles he softly asks That they with him will prosecute their tasks; Receives them in his solemn chilly lair, The rigid lot of discipline to share. At dingy desks they toil by day; at night To gloomy chambers go uncheered by light, Where pillars rudely grayed by rusty nail Of heavy hours reveal the weary tale; Where spiteful ushers grin, all pleased to make Long scribbled lines the price of each mistake. By four unpitying walls environed there The homesick students pace the pavements bare.
Translator: E.E. FREWER
[The end] Victor Hugo's poem: Preceptor ________________________________________________
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