Write on your doors the saying wise and old, "Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less;Better like Hector in the field to die, Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly,And now, my classmates; ye remaining few That number not the half of those we knew, Ye, against whose familiar names not yet The fatal asterisk of death is set, Ye I salute! The horologe of Time Strikes the half-century with a solemn chime, And summons us together once again, The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.
Where are the others? Voices from the deep Caverns of darkness answer me: "They sleep!"I name no names; instinctively I feel Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel, And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss, For every heart best knoweth its own loss.
I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white Through the pale dusk of the impending night;O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;We give to each a tender thought, and pass Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass, Unto these scenes frequented by our feet When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet.
What shall I say to you? What can I say Better than silence is? When I survey This throng of faces turned to meet my own, Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown, Transformed the very landscape seems to be;It is the same, yet not the same to me.
So many memories crowd upon my brain, So many ghosts are in the wooded plain, I fain would steal away, with noiseless tread, As from a house where some one lieth dead.
I cannot go;--I pause;--I hesitate;
My feet reluctant linger at the gate;
As one who struggles in a troubled dream To speak and cannot, to myself I seem.
Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!
Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!
Whatever time or space may intervene, I will not be a stranger in this scene.
Here every doubt, all indecision, ends;
Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, friends!
Ah me! the fifty years since last we met Seem to me fifty folios bound and set By Time, the great transcriber, on his shelves, Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.
What tragedies, what comedies, are there;What joy and grief, what rapture and despair!
What chronicles of triumph and defeat, Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat!
What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears What pages blotted, blistered by our tears!
What lovely landscapes on the margin shine, What sweet, angelic faces, what divine And holy images of love and trust, Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dust!
Whose hand shall dare to open and explore These volumes, closed and clasped forevermore?
Not mine.With reverential feet I pass;
I hear a voice that cries, "Alas! alas!
Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again;The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be."As children frightened by a thundercloud Are reassured if some one reads aloud A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught, Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought, Let me endeavor with a tale to chase The gathering shadows of the time and place, And banish what we all too deeply feel Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.
In mediaeval Rome, I know not where, There stood an image with its arm in air, And on its lifted finger, shining clear, A golden ring with the device, "Strike here!"Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed The meaning that these words but half expressed, Until a learned clerk, who at noonday With downcast eyes was passing on his way, Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well, Whereon the shadow of the finger fell;And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found A secret stairway leading under ground.
Down this he passed into a spacious hall, Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;And opposite in threatening attitude With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.
Upon its forehead, like a coronet, Were these mysterious words of menace set:
"That which I am, I am; my fatal aim None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!"Midway the hall was a fair table placed, With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold, And gold the bread and viands manifold.
Around it, silent, motionless, and sad, Were seated gallant knights in armor clad, And ladies beautiful with plume and zone, But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;And the vast hall was filled in every part With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.
Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;Then from the table, by his greed made bold, He seized a goblet and a knife of gold, And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang, The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang, The archer sped his arrow, at their call, Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall, And all was dark around and overhead;--Stark on the door the luckless clerk lay dead!
The writer of this legend then records Its ghostly application in these words:
The image is the Adversary old, Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;Our lusts and passions are the downward stair That leads the soul from a diviner air;The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone By avarice have been hardened into stone;The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.
The scholar and the world! The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life!
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books;The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!
But why, you ask me, should this tale be told To men grown old, or who are growing old?
It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
