| |
| THE GAUNT old man | |
| Who teaches Latin and Greek in High School | |
| Is not as old as he looks. | |
| He has a lean ill-fed soul | |
| And has missed the real nourishment of life | 5 |
| Because he has merely nibbled at it, | |
| Canned, | |
| Out of books. | |
| |
| But the Recording Angel | |
| Has inscribed one good deed to his credit. | 10 |
| When Jane Howe was all on edge to go as a missionary to India | |
| Although her orphaned brothers and sisters needed her at home | |
| He got Jane to read queer books— | |
| The Mahabarata and the Zend Avesta— | |
| And they discouraged her | 15 |
| And opened her eyes to the impertinence | |
| Of going to India as a missionary; | |
| They impelled her to stay at home, | |
| Where she helped to bring up the younger children. | |
| After a while she married a good provider, | 20 |
| And has a family of young and savage Americans | |
| Who need her prayers and labors | |
| Much more than the Hindoos. | |
| |
| They say that the teacher of Greek and Latin | |
| Was in love with Jane. | 25 |
| If he was he never breathed it. | |
| He always hid his desires | |
| And crushed them, | |
| And never had the courage | |
| Even to make to himself | 30 |
| The apology he thought they merited. | |
| |
| Sometimes the gaunt old man | |
| Who teaches Latin and Greek in High School | |
| Sits in Weinberg’s Café | |
| On rainy nights; | 35 |
| And in the hazy, half-lighted room, | |
| Through the wavering smoke from many cigars, | |
| He suddenly looms up large | |
| Like a Djinn out of a bottle. | |
| |
