Farewell, Old Cloakroom Bell

Ah! In the halls where echoes chase the chalk,

An old fable man limped the twilight walk—

His robes were thread-bare, hat askew,

Yet eyes still twinkled, deep and true.

He once stood straight with voice like flame,

The kind young lads both feared and claimed.

His jokes were dry, his tests were steep,

His silence, long enough to weep.

He taught them Latin, life, and grace,

How not to cheat, nor flee your face.

But time, that thieving and tireless ghost,

Had left him tales and tea at the most.

He’d paced that stage through bombs and war,

Through whispers, chalk-dust, claps, and more...—

A prank once set his own cloak on burning fire,

He’d laughed so hard that he cracked the choir!

A boy once wept inside the pew,

And Gulp, with words so soft, so true,

Said, “Grief’s a lesson I still take—

And tears—My son! They do not break.”

But hush—what secrets haunt that night?

In the "Room Eleven", fully dim of light,

A pretty girl had died, the tale went round,

Though never once her even prettier name was found.

He heard her sobs in the winter’s gale,

A haunting tune moved in every new tale.

Yet Gulp, he’d nod and sip his tea—

“No ghost out there can lecture me!”

He once had a love—a fiery soul,

Julia, who made the timid whole.

She danced through logic, scorned the rules—

Taught him to smile and mock the fools.

But she was gone, the child too!

Lost to a storm in only twenty-two.

The bell had tolled, and Gulp would have aged—

His world must reduced to chalk and page.

Still, in the spring, when chill, daffodils

Would riot through those ancient tiny hills,

He’d swear he heard her laughter's ring,

Like echoes of fear sewn on sparrow’s wing.

One day he slept, and dreamt of boys—

Of ink-stained desks and shouted joys.

They called his name from chapel pews,

They raised their hands, and shared their views!

Then silence grew—a golden hush—

As if the Earth had paused to blush.

A final breath of ice, a silent cheer—

And Gulp was gone, won, but never mere.

In every bell that makes the hour,

In every word with a quiet power,

Though his life remains—a thread of light,

Still teaching wrong and Showing right.