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1 SHE sweeps in like the moon goddess, | |
| and she has never studied | |
| her lessons; | |
| and when I flunk her | |
| I feel that I am flunking Diana. | 5 |
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2 I have great faith in this boy— | |
| he makes me think of mountains. | |
| Every now and then | |
| he looms in the rear of the room | |
| like a peak in the Andes: | 10 |
| but how would you like to teach | |
| a peak in the Andes? | |
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3 There are some who turn my class-room | |
| into a morgue, | |
| and I find this hard; | 15 |
| but he turns my class-room | |
| into a rathskeller | |
| with his face and his talk and his ways. | |
| Therefore I prize him. | |
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4 She has a discontented face | 20 |
| until she smiles. | |
| Perhaps she would like to smile all the time, | |
| and thinks I will not permit it. | |
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5 He has a certain look in his eye— | |
| a look I have seen before. | 25 |
| All men of one idea | |
| have this look; | |
| they go to the stake, | |
| to the torture-chamber, | |
| with this in their eye. | 30 |
| I know what the boy’s idea is, | |
| and I live in fear | |
| that others may discover it, and for it | |
| somehow crucify him. | |
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6 Sometimes I have nervous moments— | 35 |
| there is a girl who looks at me strangely | |
| as much as to say, | |
| You are a young man, | |
| and I am a young woman, | |
| and what are you going to do about it? | 40 |
| And I look at her as much as to say, | |
| I am going to keep the teacher’s desk between us, my dear, | |
| as long as I can. | |
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7 There is a smell not of the city about him, | |
| as though his pockets were stuffed | 45 |
| with chestnuts, or apples, | |
| or as though he had been working | |
| in hay or straw; | |
| and he smells faintly of animals, too, | |
| of dogs and of horses; | 50 |
| and there is a vague smell of gunpowder about him, | |
| and a vague smell of tobacco; | |
| and behind all these smells | |
| is a miraculous distance | |
| of river and field and wood, | 55 |
| all in the smell of out-doors. | |
| |
8 She looks at me | |
| as though I were a stone wall | |
| between her and heaven— | |
| whereas I try to be | 60 |
| a window for her, | |
| and a door, a gate, a ladder, an elevator— | |
| yet she will not look through, | |
| or leap through, | |
| or fly through, | 65 |
| or do anything but stare. | |
| |
9 A little cherubino comes in | |
| when the class is all over, | |
| and says she is so sorry, | |
| that my class is such an inspiration, | 70 |
| and such a queer sensation, | |
| but ten-thirty is an early hour, | |
| and the street-car service poor. | |
| And I tell her softly, that in heaven | |
| the street-car service is always poor, | 75 |
| but the good little angels rise up early | |
| and get to school on time. | |
| And she says, “O, thank you,” | |
| so effusively. | |
| |
10 The first day I didn’t see her, | 80 |
| nor the second, nor the third, | |
| and when at last I saw her, | |
| I hardly noticed her. | |
| Yet this girl has gone through a tragedy | |
| fighting those who had to be fought, | 85 |
| and nursing those who needed nursing. | |
| And you would never guess it, | |
| except for a queer little line at her lips | |
| and her eyes, that are blue as steel, | |
| blue as a dagger, blue as a quiet lake. | 90 |
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11 To do one’s best and to fail | |
| is disaster enough; | |
| but it is worse to remember | |
| how one might have done more. | |
| It is too late—he has gone; | 95 |
| and nothing I can do | |
| will bring him back to me, | |
| will give me another chance with him, | |
| not that I think it would have mattered. | |
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12 She needs a more exotic air to blossom in— | 100 |
| clash of cymbals should precede her elephant | |
| down the street to school— | |
| she should be black from head to toes, | |
| wearing barbaric jewels— | |
| and now that I think of it, | 105 |
| why couldn’t she come through my class-room window | |
| on the elephant’s trunk? | |
| |
13 She regards me haughtily | |
| as perhaps Mrs. Siddons | |
| regarded the third George— | 110 |
| and after all, why should she not? | |
| But I live in terror of hearing her say, | |
| In that tragical voice of hers, some day, | |
| Bid me, out, out, damned spot. | |
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14 She says, If writing were like dancing, | 115 |
| then I could bring my dreams. | |
| And I ask her what has lighter feet | |
| than a dancing word? | |
| and what speeds faster, what lasts longer | |
| than a dance of phrases | 120 |
| down a page to far music? | |
| She does not answer. | |
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15 He is the only one who ever dared | |
| sit on my sacred desk | |
| and rumple my sacred hair. | 125 |
| Yet he is the only one | |
| who ever cared to carry my books | |
| and call me “Maestro” in public. | |
| And whenever I said a clever thing | |
| he would exclaim, “Priceless, priceless!” | 130 |
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16 All he sees is the dollar sign, | |
| and he suspects me | |
| of wasting his time. | |
| O for some clever accountant | |
| to compute my cash value— | 135 |
| for then I could write dollar signs | |
| across the blackboard behind me, | |
| and he would pay strict attention | |
| and make little entries | |
| in a little ledger. | 140 |
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17 She is hungry for dreams; | |
| without them she will perish. | |
| But I fear she turns away | |
| from the only dream that lasts | |
| and gives her precious youth | 145 |
| to the dreams that go in an hour. | |
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18 We have given him a mask, | |
| we parents and teachers, | |
| and to please us | |
| he writes moral axioms in a little book | 150 |
| and debates with himself continually | |
| whether he lives the nobler life. | |
| Nevertheless, great blood is his. | |
| He is of the kin of Rigoletto, | |
| Sancho Panza is his comrade, | 155 |
| Touchstone his uncle; | |
| and he goes sedately down the path of pierrot | |
| arm in arm with harlequin. | |
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19 When our eyes meet | |
| I go cold to my feet. | 160 |
| Some day I shall forget my necktie, | |
| and on that day, proud and reproachful, | |
| she will point her finger at me— | |
| and the walls of my world | |
| will tumble. | 165 |
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