The Dreamers, Revisited

Students are citizens of school's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In these great hours of drudgery they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.

Students are sworn to the threadmill; they must score
Some flaming, fatal climax with their test.
Students are dreamers; when the class begins
They think of sunny fields, starry nights, and rest.

I see them in dusty classrooms, gnawed by fatigue,
And outside the headmasters' offices, lashed with the shame.
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
school-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And sleeping in during the rain.

-me

Based entirely off Siegfried Sassoon's "The Dreamers"