What happens when, after many years, you read a poem you first encountered in school?

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I was watching a heated political debate on television. Both sides were defending their ideologies and administrative abilities. The left supported the right to education for the poor, and the right wanted a different way of doing it. Faces reddened, voices rose, and criticism replaced argument. Soon the debate dissolved into interruption and insult. The chaos spilled from the studio into countless living rooms.

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And then, quite suddenly, I remembered a line from a poem I had studied in high school:

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‘For forms of government let fools contest;
Whatever is best administered is best.’

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I did not remember the title of the poem or the name of the poet. But the couplet stayed with me. I searched for it and found it was part of the poem An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. I began to read it again. Slowly. Then again.

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Another couplet, equally powerful, seemed to speak directly to the moment:

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‘For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.’

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As I lingered over these lines, something unexpected happened. I was no longer in my living room. I was back in my classroom. I could see myself on the front bench, where I usually sat. The poetry book lay open before me. Our English teacher was holding the book in his left hand and reading the poem aloud. He would often pause to explain difficult words, metaphors, and meanings. Then he would leave his chair and sit on the table, perhaps more relaxed. There, he would go beyond the text—interpret its inner layers and draw out its values. Perhaps, he wanted us to carry something from it into our lives.

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At that time, we were hardly aware of what he was doing. For us, it was just another class, another poem, another explanation.

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But now, many years later, I realise that something had quietly stayed. Perhaps that is why the couplet returned to me so effortlessly, in the middle of a noisy television debate. My teacher had intervened—gently, but firmly—reminding me of a different way of looking at things.

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I again read the poem. It didn’t ask me to deny disagreement or dismiss conviction. But it whispered that the worth of an idea lies less in how fiercely it is defended and more in how well it is lived. Faith, likewise, is not proved through argument, but through conduct.

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Sitting there, I found myself reading those lines again and again. Something had endured even after decades.

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Life, of course, has changed me. I have grown older, gathered opinions, biases, and certainties. I do make mistakes and have become, in many ways, more complicated than I  once was. And yet, a few things have remained with me. The poem, my classroom, my teacher's voice - all refuse to fade.

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On the television, the argument continued; in my mind, the poem.