ODE.

I.

FAIR Harvard! We come to the last sacred rite, -

On thy shrine mystic garlands we lay,

That were twined of thought-flowers new born in the light

Of the morn of thy bridal day:

For the clouds of a century dim not thy youth,

Ever green are thy tendrils above, -

Thy dower thou giv'st us of honor and truth,

So to thee we vow life-lasting love.

II.

The soft light of the past bears the past far away,

And the future yields Hope all its fears;

But the flowrets that bloom on this hallowed day

Are bedewed with sad Memory's tears;

Though they gleam in the light of the present, yet all

Have a fragrance that breathes of the night, -

But the shadows are bright and still softly they fall,

As the shadows of faery flight.

III.

O'er our course that is past, as we look from the mount

We have reached on this midsummer day,

May the rivers that flow from the high-nurtured fount,

Cast in halos their silvery spray;

May the waters of Lethe, o'er letters in sand,

Flow the steeps and the deserts between, -

Blessed Eunoe, stream of the lotos-fed land,

Keep the meadows of memory green!