SLOWLY adown the village street With groping cane and faltering feet, He goes each day through cold or heat — Old Daddy Hight.
His hair is scant upon his head, His eyes are dim, his nose is red, And yet, his mien is stern and dread — Old Daddy Hight.
The village lads his form descry While yet afar, and boldly cry — ( For bears are scarce and rods are high ) “Old Daddy Hight!”
But when their fathers meet his glance, They nod and smile and look askance. He taught them once the Modoc dance — Old Daddy Hight.
How long we cling to servitude, How long we keep the schoolboy's mood! Still seems with awful power endued — Old Daddy Hight.
They feel a cringing of the knee, Those fathers, yet, whene'er they see Adown the walk pace solemnly — Old Daddy Hight.
Wide is his fame, of how he taught, And how he flogged, and reckoned naught The toils and pains that knowledge bought — Old Daddy Hight.
He had no lack of “ways and means” To track the loiterers on the greens; He scorned all counterfeits and screens — Old Daddy Hight.
Oh, dire the day that brewed mishap! That brought to luckless back his strap, To hanging head his Dunce's cap — Old Daddy Hight.
No blotted page dared meet his eye; The owner quaked and wished to die, When rod in hand, with wrath strode by — Old Daddy Hight.
He helped them up the thorny steep Of wisdom's path with pain to creep, With vigilance that might not sleep — Old Daddy Hight.
Now, down his life's long, slow decline, He walks alone at eighty-nine — The last of his illustrious line — Old Daddy Hight.
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