1879年6月25日，哈佛大学校友毕业典礼晚宴上朗诵的一首学术诗。当美好而悲伤的回忆包围着我们时，沉默比最甜美的歌声更甜美;然而，当树叶青翠，天空湛蓝的时候，树林应当献上合唱的颂词;当漫漫长夜使天空变冷的时候，我们渴望在鸟儿飞之前听到它的歌声，像现在一样，热烈欢迎孤独的吟游诗人站在它那光秃秃的枝头上。这是我们的黄金之年——黄金之日;新婚的记忆很快就会消逝;不久，它那垂死的乐声将停止，每年都要松开几根银弦，直到最后的颤音不再颤动，——双手安息，心永远静止。一些灰白的头加入了形成的行列;我们听到召唤了，二十九班!靠近最前面的，唉，少得可怜!这些“男孩们”是我们亲爱的妈妈认识的吗? Sixty brave swimmers. Twenty--something more-- Have passed the stream and reached this frosty shore! How near the banks these fifty years divide When memory crosses with a single stride! 'T is the first year of stern 'Old Hickory' 's rule When our good Mother lets us out of school, Half glad, half sorrowing, it must be confessed, To leave her quiet lap, her bounteous breast, Armed with our dainty, ribbon-tied degrees, Pleased and yet pensive, exiles and A. B.'s. Look back, O comrades, with your faded eyes, And see the phantoms as I bid them rise. Whose smile is that? Its pattern Nature gave, A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave; KIRKLAND alone such grace from Heaven could win, His features radiant as the soul within; That smile would let him through Saint Peter's gate While sad-eyed martyrs had to stand and wait. Here flits mercurial _Farrar_; standing there, See mild, benignant, cautious, learned _Ware_, And sturdy, patient, faithful, honest _Hedge_, Whose grinding logic gave our wits their edge; _Ticknor_, with honeyed voice and courtly grace; And _Willard_, larynxed like a double bass; And _Channing_, with his bland, superior look, Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook, While the pale student, shivering in his shoes, Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak His martial manhood on a class in Greek, _Popkin_! How that explosive name recalls The grand old Busby of our ancient halls Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons, Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons: He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms, But every accent sounded 'Shoulder arms!' Names,--empty names! Save only here and there Some white-haired listener, dozing in his chair, Starts at the sound he often used to hear, And upward slants his Sunday-sermon ear. And we--our blooming manhood we regain; Smiling we join the long Commencement train, One point first battled in discussion hot,-- Shall we wear gowns? and settled: We will not. How strange the scene,--that noisy boy-debate Where embryo-speakers learn to rule the State! This broad-browed youth, sedate and sober-eyed, Shall wear the ermined robe at Taney's side; And he, the stripling, smooth of face and slight, Whose slender form scarce intercepts the light, Shall rule the Bench where Parsons gave the law, And sphinx-like sat uncouth, majestic Shaw Ah, many a star has shed its fatal ray On names we loved--our brothers--where are they? Nor these alone; our hearts in silence claim Names not less dear, unsyllabled by fame. How brief the space! and yet it sweeps us back Far, far along our new-born history's track Five strides like this;--the sachem rules the land; The Indian wigwams cluster where we stand. The second. Lo! a scene of deadly strife-- A nation struggling into infant life; Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun. LANGDON sits restless in the ancient chair,-- Harvard's grave Head,--these echoes heard his prayer When from yon mansion, dear to memory still, The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's Hill. Count on the grave triennial's thick-starred roll What names were numbered on the lengthening scroll,-- Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring,-- Winthrop, Hale, Eliot, Everett, Dexter, Tyng. Another stride. Once more at 'twenty-nine,-- GOD SAVE KING GEORGE, the Second of his line! And is Sir Isaac living? Nay, not so,-- He followed Flainsteed two short years ago,-- And what about the little hump-backed man Who pleased the bygone days of good Queen Anne? What, Pope? another book he's just put out,-- 'The Dunciad,'--witty, but profane, no doubt. Where's Cotton Mather? he was always here. And so he would be, but