The Good Teacher

Amidst the preachings of our many preachers,Only a very fewAre worthy of our self-created teachers,As good or true.

But once I learnt in youth, what yet abidethOn memory's page;It was an old man's lesson, and it glidethFrom youth to age.

Bald was his head and grey, and bore serenelyThe weight of years;Youth's spring flowers he had gathered, nor felt keenly,Time's lost arrears.

There was one flower immortal, for it everBloomed on its bed—That bed, the old man's nose, where faded never—The poppy red.

And every day it glowed more brightly, whenThe fostering wineNourished its roots, and bade the flower againRichly to shine.

It was a marvellous plant, that night and morningMore brilliant grew,—Not needing dews of heaven, and even scorningThe cellar dew.

Under the nose roof, a moustachio hairyLooked gravely round;One end was pointed upward, light and airy,One to the ground.

'Neath the moustachio was an open mouth,Where a pipe hung,The mouth was like a cavern's depth, uncouth,Which caged a tongue.

He wore a coat called Zrinyi, made of yore,'Neath Arpads race,Of the old colours it no colour bore—No! not a trace.

The buttons on the coat that covered those limbsWere ancient jobs,That had been used for shooting at the Moslems,Old, rough, round knobs.

There were such zig-zag laces, bobs and tags,In strange array,That midst them even the lightning's wild zig-zagsSoon lost their way.

With him, for many a month and year, I hadMuch intercourse;A noble fellow was the ancient lad,Worth just—his horse.

He taught me much, experience much he brought me;'Tis useful yet—And all the cunning lessons that he taught meI'll not forget.

And I was grateful then, and I repaid himIn grateful glee;Treasured his precious counsels, and obeyed himMost reverently.

I gave him sausages and ham and bacon,All of the best;Which from mine host's own knapsack I had taken—I was his guest.