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From “Poems of the Class of ’Twenty-nine”
[Harvard]
HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? | |
| If there has, take him out, without making a noise. | |
| Hang the Almanac’s cheat and the Catalogue’s spite! | |
| Old Time is a liar! We ’re twenty to-night! | |
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| We ’re twenty! We ’re twenty! Who says we are more? | 5 |
| He ’s tipsy,—young jackanapes!—show him the door! | |
| “Gray temples at twenty?”—Yes! white, if we please; | |
| Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there ’s nothing can freeze! | |
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| Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! | |
| Look close,—you will see not a sign of a flake! | 10 |
| We want some new garlands for those we have shed,— | |
| And these are white roses in place of the red. | |
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| We ’ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, | |
| Of talking (in public) as if we were old: | |
| That boy we call “Doctor,” and this we call “Judge;”— | 15 |
| It ’s a neat little fiction,—of course it ’s all fudge. | |
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| That fellow ’s the “Speaker,”—the one on the right; | |
| “Mr. Mayor,” my young one, how are you to-night? | |
| That ’s our “Member of Congress,” we say when we chaff; | |
| There ’s the “Reverend” What ’s his name?—don’t make me laugh! | 20 |
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| That boy with the grave mathematical look | |
| Made believe he had written a wonderful book, | |
| And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! | |
| So they chose him right in,—a good joke it was too! | |
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| There ’s a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, | 25 |
| That could harness a team with a logical chain; | |
| When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, | |
| We called him “The Justice,” but now he ’s “The Squire.” | |
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| And there ’s a nice youngster of excellent pith,— | |
| Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, | 30 |
| But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,— | |
| Just read on his medal, “My country,” “of thee!” | |
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| You hear that boy laughing?—You think he ’s all fun; | |
| But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; | |
| The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, | 35 |
| And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! | |
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| Yes, we ’re boys,—always playing with tongue or with pen; | |
| And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men? | |
| Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, | |
| Till the last dear companion drop smiling away? | 40 |
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| Then here ’s to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! | |
| The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! | |
| And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, | |
| Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS. | |
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