READ AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, APRIL 29, 1886.
A Latin-School poem? ’Twere easy to write
On a theme so suggestive an epic at sight,
An ode, full of fire, or, if that wouldn’t do,
An Eclogue, or even a Georgic or two,
With allusions to classical roots, and Greek ponies
Hard ridden and worn—I confess that my own is.
A poet could scarce fail of making a hit,
Inspired by the presence of beauty and wit!
Alas, for the days of our ancestors bold,
When the wassail was drunk, brave stories were told,
While the mirth of the feasters grew louder and higher,
And the bard struck the quivering chords of the lyre,
Without an apology, blush, or evasion,
Or stammering reference to—“this occasion,”
As raising his voice o’er the tumult and din,
He recounted in song all the fights they’d been in.
Let bygones be bygones, the past be the past;
We live in the world of to-day, and at last
Society calls for less noise, more decorum,
Remarks less akin to the street than the forum;
Nay, mounting in civilization still higher,
The bard soon must go—perhaps even the lyre!
And if things should be ever at sixes and sevens,
There lies an appeal to his Honor Judge Devens.[1]
And what, do you ask, is this tirade about?
Why not, as in Hunting the Snark, “leave that out”?
Ah, can I forget why we schoolmates are here?
How often we laugh when we’d fain hide a tear!
The ripples are bright on the waves of mid-ocean;
Eyes dance and smiles play over depths of emotion;
Oh, dear Alma Mater, be patient to-night,
Our hearts, misconstrued, thou canst translate aright!
How memory pictures bright scenes to us all!—
The old, shaky building, the school-room, the hall,
The way the grim doctor read Greek verbs and Latin,
The desk where he wrote and the chair that he sat in,
His upraised forefingers and forehead portentous,
The terror we felt when we found that he meant us;
Eyes gleaming below that great frontlet of hair,—
Ah, could we have known of what really was there,
And fathomed that grand heart, so gentle and true,
Beneath the stern front that bent o’er me and you!
Those lessons—how useless and tiresome they seemed,
While we “mulled” over Cæsar, drew pictures, and dreamed;
How Xenophon’s mighty Anabasis came
To cloud our young lives, till we hated his name,
The characters playing strange pranks on the pages,
While still we droned on, “He—advanced—thirteen—stages.”
We wished the Ten Thousand had all broken loose
Before they began on their endless σταθμοῦς;
We preferred that they wouldn’t get on quite so fast;
We wished that their leader had not ἀναβάσ-ed;
But Xenophon brought them all safe to the sea,
He got out of the woods, and, at last, so did we.
Did you march on the Common? How proud were we then
To be reckoned in newspapers “two hundred men”!
How the uniforms shone as we wheeled o’er the grass—
No koh-i-noor gleams like those buttons of brass!
Our scabbards and sashes were artfully dangled,
And if they at times in our ankles got tangled,
The terror to others was full compensation
For dangers attending our perambulation.
Was it fun? There are those within reach of my words
Who remember when ploughshares were cleft into swords;
When hushed was the voice of youth’s laughter and mirth,
As the flag, broken-winged, fluttered, bleeding, to earth.
Are there men who will cherish their country’s last breath?
Are there three hundred thousand who love—to the death?
Hark!—the answering cry to that agonized call—
And the Latin-School boys are the foremost of all!
We have proved we’ve a banner, a country, a God,
By thousands of arguments—under the sod!
Who knows if the dear boys who fell in the fight
May not hold their reunion, as we do, to-night?
From the morning-land fair, and a rest never ending,
Their voices, well-loved, with our own still are blending;
Hark!—can we not hear the sweet echoes to-day,
As from camp grounds afar comes the soft reveillé?
Oh, soldiers, still serving in ranks like their own,
But a little more quiet, more dignified, grown,
Still fighting from morning till set of the sun,
Each day new defeats or fresh victories won,
Pressing onward, undaunted still, shoulder to shoulder,
With our hearts growing young as our muskets grow older,
Let us take for our motto, emblazoned in light,
That stern old command of Forward—Guide Right!
[1] Presiding at the Dinner.