“They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges, // Like dogs to bark at my world.” The word lithe means the boys were agile. Spencer who had a lisp “I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys// Who copied my lisp behind me on the road” this stanza shows how much Spencer really feared the ridicule of the neighborhood children. “There jerking hands and knees tight on my arms” they physically bullied Spencer as well as pinning him down to beat him, and also verbally abusing him. This stanza expresses the fear Spencer had of these children how they bullied him “I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron” Spencer equating their muscles to irons shows how much stronger these boys were than him and it also gives an image of a weak and fragile Spencer. “And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams” the activities in this line are what Spencer may have considered being rough. “There thighs showed through rags they ran in the streets” this line also enforces the notion that these children might be poorer than Spencer. The children in the community seem to be poor and would often make fun of Spencer. The first line shows what has happened to Spencer, by saying his parents kept him from these children it could be that they were protecting him. Spencer seems to be a sheltered child, he also seems to be from a household that was more affluent. The poem begins with the narration by a child Spencer “My parents kept me from children who were rough,// Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes”. Spencer expresses his desire to make amends with these children but they never gave him an opportunity to do so.
The bullying he endured as a young child by these neighborhood kids was one of the reasons why they kept him away, they would constantly make fun of his lisp, threw dirt at him, etc. The recalls his parents keeping him sheltered from the children of the community he seems to be a weak child while the children in this community were wilder, he never got the chance to go out and play with them and even if he did he seems not to be accepted by them. This poem is a reflection on an experience in the childhood of Spencer.
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