School on the outskirts

by D. H. Lawrence

How different, in the middle of snows, the great
     school rises red!
  A red rock silent and shadowless, clung round
     with clusters of shouting lads,
Some few dark-cleaving the doorway, souls that
     cling as the souls of the dead
  In stupor persist at the gates of life, obstinate
     dark monads.
This new red rock in a waste of white rises against
     the day
  With shelter now, and with blandishment, since
     the winds have had their way
And laid the desert horrific of silence and snow on
     the world of mankind,
  School now is the rock in this weary land the winter
     burns and makes blind.