What's the use of books and schooling,
Sum and slate and such like fooling?
Master drones and drones away
Like a bee the livelong day.

It's to-day the boats are sailing
To the North Sea for the whaling:
To the high seas and the wide
They are going on the full tide.

O the wind - the wind a-blowing
On the seas where they are going;
Can I sit and mind my book,
Seeing every time I look

Through the little window yonder
All the wide world and the wonder,
And the wind in the tree,
And the sky, and the sea?