Help analyse poem called in school days by john greenleaf whittier! please!!?

Question

can someone help me analyse this poem! please! need as much info as possibel especially the major theme and how the poets uses language to express the theme (support!!)

STILL sits the school-house by the road,

A ragged beggar sunning;

Around it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry vines are running.

Within, the master’s desk is seen, 5

Deep scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

The jack-knife’s carved initial;

The charcoal frescos on its wall;

Its door’s worn sill, betraying 10

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun

Shone over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes, 15

And low eaves’ icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,

And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one who still her steps delayed

When all the school were leaving. 20

Answer 1

When you have to analyze literature it's always best to find out about the person who wrote it and what they went through in their life.  That will give you insight into what they are saying, how they are saying it and why.  Born in 1807, Whittier was a Quaker, never married, was kind of frail, lived a simple life on a farm in his youth and died in 1892.

In reading this poem it's written from the point of view of an old man reflecting back on his youth.  (Maybe he was traveling by the old school house and it triggered his thoughts).  The tone is melancholy about a fond memory of days long ago etched in his mind, recalling his first girlfriend.  

The words are key in conveying the imagery.  The building STILL sits and it is a RAGGED BEGGAR with vegetation all around.  DEEP SCARRED, WARPING floor, BATTERED seats.  WORN sill.  CREEPING, SLOW.  

Those words convey run-down, ragged, worn.  Just like the old man who is recalling this.  The verbs are past tense.  The sun is a winter setting sun which contributes to the melancholy tone.  But then he describes a little girl and a little boy and the little girl confesses she love the little boy.  "The grasses on her grave have been growing for 40 years", so it's obvious she has died some time ago.

"He lives to learn, in life's hard school,

How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her, because they love him."

These last 4 lines are him summing it all up - that his life has been tough (life's hard school) and that there have been too many like her that truly loved him.  Maybe that day long ago was the real bright spot in his entire life.