"The Teacher" Poem
Item Information
- Title:
- "The Teacher" Poem
- Description:
-
Tutor and guide and friend throughout the years-- For half a century a source of light, That, coming through the voice and spirit, pierced The darkness of deep and dismal night. For fifty years the mirror of a world Invisible to sighless, yearning eyes, You helped a gallant woman through the mists To sit among the noble and the wise. You found her as a helpless, groping child, A babe who could not speak, or see, or hear, And helped her clinb the mountains to the heights Where fear and doubt and shadows disappear. The bleak and dark imprisonment you broke, An Easter morn to one with senses dead; That was the perfect tribute, you recall... "My Easter morning"... that is what she said. The name of Helen Keller stirred the world, Her life a symbol of unconquered will, But your devotion paved the weary way And smoothed the long, hard journey up the hill. The pall of blindness as a child you'd known, You gloried in the priceless gifts of God, And served as only gallant women do. To Helen Keller, deaf and dumb and blind, You came as might an angel in the night; Communion of two dauntless souls took place, And darkness and despair took silent flight. Long, trying days to make this child perceive And sense and feel and fully comprehend... The years so full of dark discouragement... And then the child's first words, "My teacher!...Friend!" The honors and the praise of far- flung lands, Great years of triumph and contented days: Two lives so interwoven that the world Stood conscious of its selfish, petty ways. Heroic woman, in the final days To know again the sudden, fading scene- Yet face it with the courage and the smile That marked the bruised and bleeding Nazarene. "But you will smile and walk with me again"... Thus whispers Helen Keller. So 'twill be: With eyes wide open, lips and ears made quick, You both shall walk through all eternity.
- Name on Item:
-
New York Evening Sun
- Date:
-
1936
- Format:
-
Newspapers
- Genre:
-
Clippings
- Location:
-
Perkins School for the Blind
Samuel P. Hayes Research Library - Collection (local):
-
Condolence Letters and Clippings
- Subjects:
-
Blind
Perkins School for the Blind
- Permalink:
- https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/b8516418v
- Terms of Use:
-
Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Contact host institution for more information.
- Notes:
-
Poem titled "The Teacher (To Anne Sullivan Macy)" printed in "The Sun Dial" section of the New York Evening Sun. Author is unknown.
- Accession #:
-
AG88-n-22
