University of Virginia Library

But Alma Mater, with her mother-eyes
Seeing us graver grown if not more wise,—
She calls us back, dear comrades—ah, how dear,
And dearer than when each to each was near!
Time thickens blood! Enough to know that one
Our classmate was and is, and is her son;—
She looks unto the East, the South, the West,
Asking, “Now who have kept my maxims best?
Who have most nearly held within their grasp
The fluttering robe that each essayed to clasp?”
Can ye not answer, brothers, even as I,
That still in front the vision seems to fly,—
More light and fleet her shining footsteps burn,
And speed the most when most she seems to turn?
And some have fallen, fallen from our band
Just as we thought to see them lay the hand
Upon her scarf: we know their precious names,
Their hearts, their work, their sorrows, and their fames.
Few gifts the brief years brought them, yet how few
Fell to the living as the lots we drew!
But some, who most were baffled, later found
Capricious Fortune's arms a moment wound
About them; some, who sought her on one side,
Beheld her reach them by a compass wide.
What then is Life? or what Success may be
Who, who can tell? who for another see?
From those, perchance, that closest seem to hold
Her love, her strength, her laurels, or her gold,
In this meridian hour she far has sped
And left them but her phantom mask instead.

A grave, sweet poet in a song has told
Of one, a king, who in his palace old
Hung up a bell; and placed its cord anear
His couch,—that thenceforth, when the court should hear
Its music, all might know the king had rung
With his own hand, and that its silver tongue
Gave out the words of joy he wished to say,
“I have been wholly happy on this day!”
Joy's full perfection never to him came;
Voiceless the bell, year after year the same,
Till, in his death-throes, round the cord his hand
Gathered—and there was mourning in the land.

I pray you, search the wistful past, and tell
Which of you all could ring the happy bell!
The treasure-trove, the gifts we ask of Fate,
Come far apart, come mildewed, come too late.
What says the legend? “All that man desires
Greatly at morn he gains ere day expires;”
But Age craves not the fruits that gladden Youth,—
It sits among its vineyards, full of ruth,
Finding the owner's right to what is best
Of little worth without the seeker's zest.

Yet something has been gained. Not all a waste
The light-winged years have vanished in their haste,
Howbeit their gift was scant of what we thought,
So much we thought not of they slowly wrought!
Not all a waste the insight and the zeal
We gathered here: these surely make for weal;
The current sets for him who swims upbuoyed
By the trained skill, with all his arts employed.
Coy Fortune may disdain our noblest cares,
The good she gives at last comes unawares:—
Long, long in vain,—with patience, worth, and love,—
To do her task the enchanted princess strove,
Till in the midnight pitying fairies crept
Unravelling the tangle while she slept.

This, then, the boon our Age of Wisdom brings,—
A knowledge of the real worth of things:
How poor, how good, is wealth; how surely fame
And beauty must return to whence they came,
Yet not for this less beautiful and rare—
It is their evanescence makes them fair
And worth possession. Ours the age still strong
With passions, that demand not curb nor thong;
And ours the age not old enough to set
Youth's joys above their proper worth, nor yet
So young as still to trust its empery more
Than unseen hands which lead to fortune's door.
For most have done the best they could, and all
The reign of law has compassed like a wall;
Something accrued to each, and each has seen
A Power that works for good in life's demesne.
In our own time, to many a masquerade
The hour has come when masks aside were laid:
We 've seen the shams die out, the poor pretense
Cut off at last by truth's keen instruments,
The ignoble fashion wane and pass away,—
The fine return a second time, to stay,—
The knave, the quack, and all the meaner brood,
Go surely down, by the strong years subdued,
And, in the quarter-century's capping-race,
Strength, talent, honor, take and hold their place.
More glad, you say, the song I might have sung
In the free, careless days when all were young!
Now, long deferred, the sullen stroke of time
Has given a graver key, a deeper chime,
That the late singer of this strain might prove
Himself less keen for honors, more for love,
And in the music of your answer find
The charms that life to further action bind.
The Past is past; survey its course no more;
Henceforth our glasses sweep the further shore.
Five lustra, briefer than those gone, remain,
And then—a white-haired few shall meet again,
Lifting their heads that long have learned to droop,
And hear some sweeter minstrel of our group.
But stay! which one of us, alone, shall dine
At the Last Shadowy Banquet of the line?
Who knows? who does not in his heart reply,
“It matters not, so that it be not I.”