POEMS OF OCCASION
Round the old board, with talk and song and laughter,
Each unto each shall gossip of his lot;
Here at Life's noon we look before and after;
Glad let us be, then, nor sigh for what is not.
Peace to the Dead! the spoiler has bereft us;
Dear are their names when the red wine is poured!
Drain we the cup to every comrade left us,
Near ones and far ones, round the old board.
Chorus:
Yale, old Yale! the same old elms above us!
Comrades, are ye here, the mates that never fail?
Some have sought the skies, we know their spirits love us;
Some in far-off places are thinking of old Yale.
MERIDIAN
AN OLD-FASHIONED POEM
The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Yale Class of 1853
Inque brevi spatio mutantur sæcla animantum
Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.
I
The tryst is kept. How fares it with each one
At this mid hour, when mariners take the sun
And cast their reckoning? when some level height
Is reached by men who set their strength aright,—
Who for a little space the firm plateau
Tread sure and steadfast, yet who needs must know
Full soon begins the inevitable slide
Down westward slopings of the steep divide.
How stands it, comrades, at this noontide fleet,
When for an hour we gather to the meet?
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