Classic Poem

A Mission sought her in the crowded town;
A call to service, like a draft to arms.
So, following Duty to the high brick walls,
Where children's voices hummed like hives of bees,
She gave her life to them, and so denied
A throng of pleasures tempting her away;
Still followed cheerily, although she knew
Necessity trod close on Duty's steps.
So, oft, Necessity will stretch one hand,
And hide, for shame, the other at her back!

A patient captain with her raw recruits, —
And some unkempt, not tidy to her taste, —
She taught the manual of mental arms,
The subtle difference betwixt " ayes " and " ahs, "
How to subdue the coltish verbs and nouns,
And learn the tricks of crooked 3's and 8's,
Those slippery clowns that sport upon the slate,
And tangle up the tender brain of youth.

So oft she told the story of the world,
Or outlined all its oceans, islands, streams;
Its divers towns from Schaghticoke to Rome;
It seemed, sometimes, the earth had really changed,
And all become a stupid, tiresome map
To weary her and little children's lives.
Oft, when the schoolroom babble reached its height,
And small, galvanic limbs beat restlessly
Upon the wooden desks or dusty floor,
And every face looked mischief, she would trace
The old Darwinian theory back, and see,
Instead of children with immortal souls,
A horde of chattering monkeys mocking her!

Yet every morn she girt her patience up,
And as she leaned her head above her desk
In hour of prayer, like a fresh flower she seemed,
And even the children gazed in wonderment.
Sometimes in sheer despair she overthrew
The bald, poor scheme of school curriculum,
And told the children stories of the stars —
Of the lost Pleiad, of Orion's chase,
The throng of sister planets, suns on suns,
That rush the light across the universe
Like torch-bearers, incredible of speed.
She made them seek at night the great north " Bear, "
And make the " Bear " point out the polar star,
And then she'd watch the wonder in their eyes
Reflected at the tale of other stars

They ne'er might see, the lovely " Southern Cross, "
The shrine of far, sub-equatorial skies,
Which flames upon that southern hemisphere.
So would she break the crust of hard routine
To get the better yield; sometimes a prize
Would offer for a bit of handiwork,
For one who made for her the smoothest rule
Or best embroidered on a bit of silk.
Sometimes the room would be transfigured. Then
The little faces glowed with tenderness,
And looking through the dross of little forms
She saw their souls, their possibilities,
And thinking of the battle and the stress
That soon would challenge all these little hearts,
She prayed anew for strength to lead them on —
On in the ways of health and noble use,
On in the ways of fearless truth and right,
On to a goal of joy and perfect peace.

Then, too, the chord of precious sympathy,
Reacting, sought the teacher from the child,
For even careless youth could not but note
The patient virtue of the one that taught.
In that soft beam when eye met tender eye
Was often forged a bond affectionate,
Of endless debt and unpaid sacrifice,
Peculiar tie, that ever must exist
Between the child and teacher. Hardly they,
The fledglings of the high, bleak city walls,
Could guess, however, that the lovely charm,
That sometimes lit her brow and changed her smile
Into a radiant light for all the room,
Was but some memory of her country home,
The peace of mountains, forest, field, and stream,
That shone reflected in her chastened face.
Each year a new brood sped, a new came in
Each year her feet and all those little ones
Wore deepening hollows in the threshold stone.
But still she kept her steadfast courage up
As if she knew her work was blessed of God,
And trusted Him in full to do His part.
She welcomed all the welcome Saturdays —
Brief respite — and the Sabbath's island calm.
Perchance, with friends, one evening in a week,
She stole a night for concert, lecture, play,
Aught to refresh, as if, her mind a slate,
She needs must sponge it, sometimes, clear of care.
And when the clover reddened in the fields
Up at her northern home, and school was done,
She hurried there to spend her well-earned rest.
Out in the fields she raked the fragrant hay,
Or trained the hollyhocks, or climbed the hills,
And in the shadow of some mighty rock,
Or where a stream sang underneath the trees,
Would read some restful book or poet's song
And dream of days when school would be no more.

A life monotonous! Yet memory
Had still a day to reckon from, to light
Her after skies with mingled cloud and sun.
It was one winter when the holidays
Were just o'erpast, a man came seeking her —
As men have ever gone a-seeking wives,
More apt to magnify their own desert
Than to appreciate the boon they ask.
He was a worthy man, a proper man —
They oft had met in church or Sunday school —
His manners not unkind, if sometimes rude.
Could she have loved an ordinary heart,
Just useful, not romantic in the least, —
Still manly, fair, and generous to provide, —
She might have stepped as from a toilsome path
Into a carriage, and have toiled no more;
But been the mistress of a good, snug house
And even the ruler of her husband's heart.
But as he wooed, in blunt, frank, tradesman way,
She seemed to hear her children calling her —
Her hundred children in the crowded school —
And so with trembling heart she put him off!

How strange it was that on that very day,
As she walked out at eve to cool her brow,
She heard a shout, and saw a crowded car,
Rounding the curve, bear down upon a boy,
A curly-headed child of Italy,
Who stood still, dazed, unknowing how to move.
Then she sprang like a deer and thrust him so
That, while he fell outside the farther rail,
Her own brave impulse carried her too far.
There was a grinding shock upon her foot —
And then the ambulance — the hospital.
When after many weeks she left the ward —
White cots, white faces, and white-aproned girls —
The doctor told her she " must have a cane. "
" 'Twill be a good thing, " said he merrily,
" To beat off men that bother pretty girls. "
So, when her wooer came again to woo,
She smiled and said she'd found a new support —
Her cane — he would not want a poor, lame wife —
The school was but a few short blocks away —
She well could walk it, with her good stout cane —
Then all her children seemed to love her so —
The little lad she saved was one of them —
So — he was kind, and she, perhaps, was wrong —
But — she made choice to give her life — to them .
Back to her school she limped the well-known way,
And to the other teachers gaily cried: —
" See, I have found a husband — my good cane —
So many women marry just " poor sticks"! "
Thus, self-denied the safety of the wife,
Renouncing all the joy of motherhood,
She made her lonely pathway bloom again
With flowers of sympathy for other lives.
Tongues could but stammer, eyes grow dim with tears,
Recounting all the good deeds that she did,
While even her face seemed like a lovely flower
That haunted long the invalid's abode.
So, in the busy current of the town,
Part of its endless pathos, endless life,
Unknown, perhaps, to rich, or wise, or great,
The Teacher took her place and held her rank
In that stout army of unselfish souls
Whose lives rebloom again in other lives,
And even on earth win immortality.