Character
Character
If ever I will reach my pension of all ages
And leave the town, where I a teacher was,
My heart will – if they pay my wages,
Be stamped a lot, like in a pass.
Even the youngest child that ever markings made,
Its inerasable mark on every edge;
Some marks a mortal never will translate.
Character, children, no more than a scratch.
So be it – But I really get upset,
If pedagogues do talk in ways that one too bad
Of what a teacher only children gives.
God willing – He will give to all the classes
A stamp that’s good or bad in all their passes:
For it is he who owns a thousand stamps and lives.
Translation (!) of Ida Gerhardt's Sonnetten van een leraar 32 into an English Sonnet by RienB (2014)
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