Poems Class of 29 (1851-1889) | Page 7

born!
The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run,?As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun;?Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,--?His sceptre once broken, the world is our own!
OUR OLDEST FRIEND
1865
I GIVE you the health of the oldest friend?That, short of eternity, earth can lend,--?A friend so faithful and tried and true?That nothing can wean him from me and you.
When first we screeched in the sudden blaze?Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays,?And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air,?This old, old friend stood waiting there.
And when, with a kind of mortal strife,?We had gasped and choked into breathing life,?He watched by the cradle, day and night,?And held our hands till we stood upright.
From gristle and pulp our frames have grown?To stringy muscle and solid bone;?While we were changing, he altered not;?We might forget, but he never forgot.
He came with us to the college class,--?Little cared he for the steward's pass!?All the rest must pay their fee,?Put the grim old dead-head entered free.
He stayed with us while we counted o'er?Four times each of the seasons four;?And with every season, from year to year,?The dear name Classmate he made more dear.
He never leaves us,--he never will,?Till our hands are cold and our hearts are still;?On birthdays, and Christmas, and New-Year's too,?He always remembers both me and you.
Every year this faithful friend?His little present is sure to send;?Every year, wheresoe'er we be,?He wants a keepsake from you and me.
How he loves us! he pats our heads,?And, lo! they are gleaming with silver threads;?And he 's always begging one lock of hair,?Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear.
At length he will tell us, one by one,?"My child, your labor on earth is done;?And now you must journey afar to see?My elder brother,--Eternity!"
And so, when long, long years have passed,?Some dear old fellow will be the last,--?Never a boy alive but he?Of all our goodly company!
When he lies down, but not till then,?Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen?That writes in the day-book kept above?Our lifelong record of faith and love.
So here's a health in homely rhyme?To our oldest classmate, Father Time!?May our last survivor live to be?As bald and as wise and as tough as he!
SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH
A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU
1865
LIKE the tribes of Israel,?Fed on quails and manna,?Sherman and his glorious band?Journeyed through the rebel land,?Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand,?Marching on Savannah!
As the moving pillar shone,?Streamed the starry banner?All day long in rosy light,?Flaming splendor all the night,?Till it swooped in eagle flight?Down on doomed Savannah!
Glory be to God on high!?Shout the loud Hosanna!?Treason's wilderness is past,?Canaan's shore is won at last,?Peal a nation's trumpet-blast,--?Sherman 's in Savannah!
Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide?Find a tough old tanner!?Soon from every rebel wall?Shall the rag of treason fall,?Till our banner flaps o'er all?As it crowns Savannah!
MY ANNUAL
1866
How long will this harp which you once loved to hear?Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear??How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,?While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?
Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;?The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;?It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,--?"We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."
Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,?Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,?Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone?It is still the old harp that was always your own.
I claim not its music,--each note it affords?I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;?I know you will listen and love to the last,?For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.
Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold?No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;?He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres?That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.
Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,?Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;?Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled,?Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.
Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,?Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;?The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,?Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.
The bird wanders careless while summer is green,?The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;?When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,?The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.
Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling?Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring,?So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget?The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.
While round us the many-hued halo is shed,?How dear are the living, how near are the dead!?One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,?Those walking the shores where