I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree
The distant huntsman winds his horn
And the sky-lark sings with me
O! what sweet company
But to go to school in a summer morn
The child hears countryside activities that he can’t take part in; the sounds are therefore ‘distant’. The ‘huntsman’ is a threat to the bird, but it continues to sing, oblivious to its possible fate. This may be akin to the fate of the schoolboy who is identified with the bird.
The Schoolboy