Poems Class of 29 (1851-1889) | Page 4

these waves of crimson lie,
In rosy fetters prisoned fast,

Those flitting shapes that never die,--
The swift-winged visions of the
past.
Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,
Each shadow rends its
flowery chain,
Springs in a bubble from its brim,
And walks the
chambers of the brain.
Poor beauty! Time and fortune's wrong
No shape nor feature may
withstand;
Thy wrecks are scattered all along,
Like emptied
sea-shells on the sand;
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,
The
dust restores each blooming girl,
As if the sea-shells moved again

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of school-boy life,
With creaking stair and
wind-swept hall,
And, scarred by many a truant knife,
Our old
initials on the wall;
Here rest, their keen vibrations mute,
The shout
of voices known so well,
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,
The
chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.
Here, clad in burning robes, are laid
Life's blossomed joys, untimely
shed,
And here those cherished forms have strayed
We miss awhile,
and call them dead.
What wizard fills the wondrous glass?
What
soil the enchanted clusters grew?
That buried passions wake and pass

In beaded drops of fiery dew?
Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,--
Our hearts can boast a warmer
glow,
Filled from a vintage more divine,
Calmed, but not chilled,
by winter's snow!
To-night the palest wave we sip
Rich as the
priceless draught sball be
That wet the bride of Cana's lip,--
The
wedding wine of Galilee!
THE BOYS
1859
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take
him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the
Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's
tipsy,--young jackanapes!--show him the door!
"Gray temples at
twenty?"--Yes! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall
thickest there's nothing can freeze!
Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,--you
will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those
we have shed,--
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking
(in public) as if we were old:--
That boy we call "Doctor," and this
we call "Judge;"
It 's a neat little fiction,--of course it 's all fudge.
That fellow's the "Speaker,"--the one on the right;
"Mr. Mayor," my
young one, how are you to-night?
That's our "Member of Congress,"
we say when we chaff;
There's the "Reverend" What's his
name?--don't make me laugh.
That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had
written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was
/true/!
So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!
There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could
harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood
in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The
Squire."
And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,--
Fate tried to conceal
him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and
the free,--
Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!"
You hear that boy laughing?--You think he's all fun;
But the angels
laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they
troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of
all!
Yes, we 're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen,-- And I
sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be
youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops
smiling away?
Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its
winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our
life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!

LINES
1860
I 'm ashamed,--that 's the fact,--it 's a pitiful case,--
Won't any kind
classmate get up in my place?
Just remember how often I've risen
before,--
I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor!
There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told,--
There are
beauties once charming, too fearfully old,--
There are voices we've
heard till we know them so well,
Though they talked for an hour
they'd have nothing to tell.
Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys!
Made one
by a lifetime of sorrows and joys,
What lips have such sounds as the
poorest of these,
Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees?
What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear
As the simple,
warm welcome that waits for us here?
The love of our boyhood still
breathes in its tone,
And our hearts throb the answer, "He's one of our
own!"
Nay! count not our numbers; some sixty we know,
But these are
above, and those under the snow;
And thoughts are still mingled
wherever we meet
For those we remember with those that we greet.
We have rolled on life's journey,--how fast and how far!
One round
of humanity's many-wheeled car,
But up-hill and down-hill, through
rattle and rub,
Old, true Twenty-niners! we've stuck to our hub!
While a brain lives to think, or a