Briefly discuss the mood of the speaker in the poem, The School Boy.
he speaker is in a sad mood. The sadness is as a result of doing what he does not like and being denied what he loves doing. This denial brings him sorrow, The mood is captured in these lines:
“To go to School in a summer day,
O! it drives all joy away
Under a cruel eye outworn
The little ones spend the day
In signing and dismay.
The speaker is not happy that going to school has denied him the joy of listening to the songs of birds or hunter’s horns. He feels that a child that is deprived of youthful joy will end up in sorrow. “And if the tender plants are strip’d of their joy in the springing day, by sorrow and care’s dismay?” Indeed, the speaker is pessimistic about the future because of present realities and so long as ha cannot be allowed to do what he loves, he is sad.