A seated statue of himself he seems.
A bronze slowness becomes him. Patently
The page he contemplates he doesn’t see.
The lesson, the long lesson, has been summer.
His mind holds summer, as his skin holds sun.
For once the homework, all of it, was done.
What were the crops, where were the fiery fields
Where for so many days so many hours
The sun assaulted him with glittering showers.
Expect a certain absence in his presence.
Expect all winter long a summer scholar,
For scarcely all its snows can cool that color.
A farm boy works hard in the field. Having sun-burnt skin because of the scorching heat of summer sun, he looks like a statue of bronze. He is a summer scholar because he has all the experience of summer. He spends long hours toiling during harvest time. He expects the absence of scorching heat;he expects long winter though the snow of winter will not be able to bring back the normal color of his skin.
A pathos runs all over the poem. A tragic situation of a boy has beenn pictured in a sophisticated language.