A Williams Anthology | Page 7

monarchs of primeval days!
Ye that hold lofty converse with the stars,

And bind your shaggy brows with clustering clouds
As if with
wreaths of laurel! ye that count
Your years by thousands, and your
bosoms robe
With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold,
And lull
your sleep of ages with the wild
And murmurous drone of woodland
waterfalls,
And multitudinous song of windy groves!
What spell hath bound ye now? what lethargy
O'ercomes your
ancient power? that undisturbed
Ye slumber on, as if ye heeded not

The piercing shriek from yonder fuming car,
Which saith that even
here presumptuous man
Has dared intrude upon the green domain,

Which ye inherited when Time was born.
Awake! arise! are ye
forever dumb?
Let Greylock, most majestic of your band,
Stand up
and shout aloud to Audubon,
Until from peak to peak the sound rolls
round,
Until yon mountain that o'erlooks the west
Takes up the cry,
of vengeance upon him
Whose strange devices break your long
repose.
In vain! ye are indeed forever dumb,
Obedient to the will of Destiny,

Who sits enthroned among the stars of heaven,
And unto man's
inquiring vision points
Toward the westering sun forevermore.

Such is the law that rules the universe;--
Planets and systems, e'en the
sun himself,
Around one common point progressive move.
And
thus a few millenniums more shall man
Proclaim the march of mind,
and when ye pass
Into oblivion with your weight of years,
When
galaxies and suns are quenched in gloom,
Th' unshackled soul of man,
itself a star
Lit by the smile of God, shall wing through space,
The
destined heir to immortality.
Quarterly, 1859.
THE YELLOW JASMINE

FRANKLIN CARTER '62
Ye golden bells, that toss your heaven-born fragrance
On air around,

And know to make the most harmonious music
Without a sound!
Ye fragile flowers, whose delicate, dear tendrils
Upward do climb,

Reveal to us the sweet, mysterious secret
Of love sublime!
Entwining with your gentle cunning fingers
The ragged tree,
Ye
leave behind ye crowns and chaplets wondrous,
Of jewelry!
Not pearls nor diamonds of a radiance peerless,
Not amethyst.

When softly swaying on the human bosom,
Or flexile wrist,
Can add to life and beauty lustrous splendor,
With grace divine,
As
when ye wreathe on gnarled oak and holly
Your trailing vine!
Oh, love of God! in gracious ways unnumbered,
With gentlest touch,

Thou teachest men and pitifully showest
Of patience much!
We pray, dear Father, teach thine erring children
This lesson meet--

To climb through fragile, earth born, human tendrils
To life
complete.
Quarterly, 1871.
AFTER DINNER SPEECHES
FRANKLIN CARTER '62
According to common opinion Americans are the nation most addicted
to speechmaking. Laboulaye makes a good point by representing the
son of a leading character in "Paris in America" discovered by his
father before a large audience, in the full tide of political speech, and
maintaining afterwards to the old gentleman that it is the common
practice among all the boys to make a speech on every possible
occasion, that they may thus fit themselves for public life.

In New York, which tends rapidly to become the center of activity for
most of the important influences of our country, there are every year
many dinners, anniversaries, and assemblies, at which oratory of an
ephemeral nature finds expression and attention. All the
nationalities,
all the religious and literary societies, all the clubs, all the distinguished
foreigners, and all the leading and following colleges, must have a
dinner, and every dinner must have at least a dozen speeches. Most of
these speeches are more eloquent to the opinion of their authors than to
the minds of their hearers.
It certainly is one of the best moral illustrations of the first law of
motion that in spite of all the heroism necessary to endure such a
volume of speech, the patient public seems (if we may judge from the
increase in volume) every year more and more willing to sit at the
tables and listen to this flow of sound. Perhaps this patience is only
apparent, for competition for an opportunity to speak is said to be lively.
Possibly every one of the thousands who listen is secretly comparing
the eloquence of the speaker with his own skilful ability, and not quite
calmly biding the time when he shall enrapture, where the present
speaker wearies and annoys.
Yet not every speech made on those occasions is dull. Now and then
the happy mingling of fun and sense really lifts the company out of the
tiresome monotony. Were it not for these addresses beautiful and rare,
we can believe that dinner speeches would be abandoned, or exchanged
for a single oration from one competent to delight.
For the distinguishing mark of the dinner speech should be that it
amuse not in the rough, coarse way of the demagogue, but in the subtle,
fine way of the man of culture.
The dinner speeches with which the readers of this paper are perhaps
most familiar, those made when the alumni of a noble college gather
around the table of their alma mater, ought to be characterized by the
broad