Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DEAD TEACHER, by SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DEAD TEACHER, by                    
First Line: Ah! But yesterday we saw him there in the familiar / place
Last Line: Where thou restest from thy labors in the hearing of the pines!
Subject(s): Bowdoin College; Death; Funerals; Teaching & Teachers; Dead, The; Burials; Educators; Professors


AH! but yesterday we saw him there in the familiar place
Where he welcomed all as children with his oldtime courtly grace;
And we knew not it was heaven that was shining on his face.

Light was nearer than we thought it, for to-day we come and find
He has passed beyond the shadows which had made our eyes so blind;
And his more than four score summers are a golden trail behind.

Walking by the narrow margin that divides the sea and land
Of the Here and the Hereafter, he beheld, upon the strand,
Words of One, who, as aforetime, stooped and wrote upon the sand.

Two there were that walked together; they communed, as friend with friend,
On the mysteries, it may be, only angels comprehend;
One, the Christ, wrote with his finger; one, the Christian, read—"The End."


Silent do his books await him on their shelves in long array,
But his book of life is ended and is silent now as they,
And will henceforth stand among them to be seen and read alway!

What thou wert, O silent teacher, what thou wert and still thou art,
Men inherit and will cherish; we possess the better part,
We, thy pupils, in the fibers of the living brain and heart.

Thou art happy! Thou, discerning from the summit of thy years,
Long hast seen the promise over rolling mist of doubts and fears,—
Seen the vision of the future, and thou dost not need our tears.

Sleep! the peace of God upon thee—sleep! and let the heavenly signs
Hold their way in solemn silence till the world's great morning shines,
Where thou restest from thy labors in the hearing of the pines!





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