Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A TEACHER, by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A TEACHER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Go praise the hero, ye who may
Last Line: Ye childless mothers of the race!
Subject(s): Teaching & Teachers; Educators; Professors


Go praise the Hero, ye who may:
I sing the Teacher, -- one for whom
The morrow was but more to-day, --
Whose fainting labor showed the way
To pluck one's gladness from his doom.

The leisure others gave to joy
She gave to toil: to fill the day
With wine of wisdom her employ.
She, once as merry as a boy,
Had long forgotten how to play.

I see her when the scurrying band
Have left her, weary and alone,
Her pale cheek pillowed on her hand,
Watching the wistful evening land
Without repining, tear, or moan.

Mayhap her spirit, never sad,
(Ah, what a challenge memory stirs!)
Demanded why grim fate forbade
Her motherhood, who gave each lad
The love she might have given hers.

She dwelt within a lifelong dream
Of seeing lands of far romance, --
Of loitering by Arno's stream,
Of catching Athens' sunset gleam
That can alone its fame enhance.

Still, an uncloistered nun she went,
With naught more fretful than a sigh,
And in her happy task she spent
Her sweetness, like some rose's scent
In sacred treasury laid by.

Her pure devotion did not gauge
Her service by her daily need;
And not her scanty, grudging wage,
Nor spectre of forsaken Age,
Could take the beauty from her creed.

She faced her calling as it stood --
Incessant, onerous, obscure;
Content if she but sometime could
Be silent partner with the Good,
Whose victory was to her so sure.

She knew that all who reach the height
The path of sympathy have trod;
And pondered, many a wakeful night,
How she could aid with gentle might
The unseen miracles of God.

What though she might not wait the fruit?
What though she went before the flower?
She gave the timbre to the lute,
And in the voice that else were mute
Divined the rare, supernal power.

Of all she lent her strength, a few
Shall wear her name as amulet.
How many more who struggle through,
Remembering not to whom 't is due,
Shall still keep memory of the debt!
. . .
Oh, could we know of life the whole
Hid record, what an envied place
Were yours upon the honor scroll,
Ye faithful sentries of the soul,
Ye childless mothers of the race!





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