Opus VI

How can I answer the challenge of so many eyes! They do not delight in the grain of rigor. No creeping tenderness comforts my heart, chill with loneliness. I will sit and wait for the bell.

As I deny the pain of looks askance

From my fellow colleagues at breakfast

("He is so sullen..."

"He bore a dark mark!"

"He's really so homely,"

"He's far too young to teach,")

I lay a finger on the bridge of my nose

And beg that the day pass with speed.

An unexpected, reluctant schoolmaster,

I am Ichabod Crane:

My heart is beleaguered,

My mind is far from prepared,

My will is burdened by obligation,

My soul is stretched by grief.

I survive strictly on Dumbledore's charity

And must grovel in humility.

I am bent like a supple reed,

With so little within my control;

Overwhelmed by children's laughter too loud,

Overwhelmed by the muffling silence of my chambers,

Overwhelmed by the careless loss of my better half,

Overwhelmed by the anger that comes despite self-reproach.

Can I ever feel organic joy again

When my every breath is remotely regulated?

In the brown gloom of candlelight

I wash upon the beach of the classroom,

Feeling as hapless as a cork on the sea,

Feeling the weight of my sins infiltrate my pores

Feeling saturated with predestination

Feeling like Gulliver crossed with a thousand threads.

It is early and I can be alone for a minute to brood

Before forty eyes challenge the man who enchained himself.

They enter and speak of snow and dancing sunbeams

And I greet them with sternness only I deserve:

I wrap their childish joy in a bundle of graded parchments,

I slap them into silence with fierce commands of chalk,

I trap their unspoken thoughts with indifference,

I sap the life of these adolescent blossoms with glee.

But we mutually avert our eyes; each pale face resembles

The ancient moon that plays an unwelcome role in my bondage.

No, they are a constellation of stars; each has potential.

I tell myself that my austerity will be an asset to them,

If only to prepare them for the harshness of life,

If only to prevent them from frolicking about in danger,

If only to provide a training against which genius can react,

If only because I hope my own adversity can be overcome.

But how can I answer the challenge of so many eyes!

They do not delight in the grain of rigor.

I want to be the teacher I wish I had:

Professionally strict, personally interested, perpetually aware.

So I notice the feuds that erupt in class and without

So I notice the swaggering boys and the sashaying girls

So I notice the phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, and sanguine

So I notice when one of my charge steps out of his archetypal pattern.

But I fear to interfere, lest I displease my master,

Lest I find my skills in deduction* are unworthily esteemed.

It takes a meditation on dark memories to inspire

The necessary courage of spirit and sense of urgent need

To summon my inborn delight in seeing justice served,

To approach the haughty roosters of the pecking order,

To inflate my ego over boys scarcely younger than I,

To relish the righteous anger and release it like the waters of the Jordan.

I am uneasy on the precipice of authority;

My anger is only a counterbalance to my insignificance.

Why must I remain here, thick crumpled snow upon the roof?

Some teachers are eaves and allow their students to build nests in them,

And to them, like swallows, year after year the children gladly return,

To them the students seek solace in the winters of adolescent life,

To them their youth approach with warm puppydog tenderness,

To them the infants beg for a suckle and find a comfortable breast.

Why must I be the cold force of weighty reality in this uplifted dreamworld?

No creeping tenderness will ever comfort my heart, chill with loneliness.

There are no potions today in this first-year class;

Instead their round heads are bowed, engaged in essay writing.

Not a one of them looks to me with anything but fear,

Not a one of them raises his face to meet my eyes,

Not a one of them smiles or exclaims in the ecstasy of work,

Not a one of them seeks to be led to twine towards the heavens.

It is sweet to not be noticed as I briefly allow my facade to collapse;

For an instant or two, the swarming lives before me are forgotten.

I was given a poem on my first day of class

By Dumbledore, man of many faces and motives.

I found many things in it:

I found an undue chorus of optimism

I found an impressionistic painting of idealism,

I found a grain of reality.

The wisest line I found to be the last:

I will sit and wait for the bell.

*N.B. I do dislike to use the word 'deduction' when the proper word for the logical process is indeed abduction, but Snape wouldn't know that, as most people do not know that except the occasional Holmes scholar or student of logic. Therefore, I ameliorate the problem with this footnote.
Also: The poem in question that he received from Dumbledore, if you choose to look it up, is in a book of verse by D.H. Lawrence, called "The Schoolmaster."