I'd have said I didn't count and cherish students

Who like me for being myself, or like my courses.

I'd have said liking wasn't a thing I needed to know.

But once in a doorway I heard a short freshman say,

The one I can't stand is Holmes, damn him. I hate him."

I thought, "Well, damn you, too," and walked away,

And it hurt, and I knew I'd told myself for years,

I am liked here. My students all like me, I had thought.

Well, I'm not, and they don't, That made me feel better,

What if I had persuaded some few forty or fifty?

The fifty-first was the one I wanted to get.