Before the Curfew | Page 9

the low murmur of the leaves that stir,?The tinkling teardrop of la roche qui pleure.
So when the third ripe century stands complete,?As once again the sons of Harvard meet,?Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands,?Drawn from all quarters,--farthest distant lands,?Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals,?Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals,?Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown,?Where Sacramento sees the suns go down;?Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide?Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,--?Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring,?While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring,?These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey,?Once more emerging to the light of day,?Not all unpleasing to the listening ear?Shall wake the memories of this bygone year,?Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow?From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau.
Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all?Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call:?One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,--?Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower,?Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain,?With all the future throbbing in its brain,?And mightiest instincts which the beating heart?Fills with the fire its burning waves impart.
O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,--?Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair,?Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height?Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light,?Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits,?Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats?Nature's rash promise every day is broke,--?A thousand acorns breed a single oak,?The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay?In barren beauty throw their lives away;?Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields?The painted blossoms which adorn the fields,?When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit?Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit??Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed,?In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed,?Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring,?To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,--?Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth?Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth!
Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust?We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust:?While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves?From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves;?While o'er those portals Veritas you read?No church shall bind you with its human creed.?Take from the past the best its toil has won,?But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun.?Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed,?Quit the old paths that error loved to tread,?And a new wreath of living blossoms seek,?A narrower pathway up a loftier peak;?Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear?Leave far behind you, all who enter here!
As once of old from Ida's lofty height?The flaming signal flashed across the night,?So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays?Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze.?Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale,?A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale;?Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine,?And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine;?O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal,?Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel;?Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound?Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round,?Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire?If the whole church of Calvin is on fire!?Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns?As a dry creed that nothing ever learns??Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain?Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain.
Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine,?Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine,?An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost,?Touched by the finger of November's frost,?With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day,?And all that listened to my first-born lay.?With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,--?Would that my tribute worthier were of thee!
POST-PRANDIAL
PHI BETA KAPPA
WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET
1881
"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"--so the schoolboys used to say; The Dutch have taken Harvard,--no doubt of that to-day!?For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans.
Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P.,?Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee;?Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we,?And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V.
It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea?On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me?Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite agree?With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee.
Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined To speak,--well,--somewhat frankly,--to let us know your mind, And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head.
But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne;?You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little