Each dawn will find me up, awake.
Not rested, no, and yet I still
Arise despite whatever ache
Attempts to drag me down, to kill
The light and warmth that flow and fill
My ev'ry crack, that make me shine
To think of how I'm going to thrill
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Attentive? No. I'll not mistake
The darling foals of Ponyville
For scholars striving to remake
Equestria for good or ill.
But teaching them, I never will
Grow bored or lazy, won't resign
Myself to dullness: they're too shrill,
Those eager faces turned to mine.

They lie, they cheat, they often fake
Disease and injury until
At class's end, their symptoms slake;
Relieved of fever, cough, and chill,
They leap to ball or daffodil
Despite the homework I assign.
I'll quiz them all tomorrow, drill
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Within my house upon the hill,
The quiet's comforting and fine.
They're better far than any pill,
Those eager faces turned to mine.

Author's Notes:

When you've got something like a ballade where you're only allowed two rhymes for the whole thing and you can only repeat the one in the last line of each stanza, well, you need a special pony to pull it off. And that's our Miss Cheerilee!