ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY,

CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.

FEBRUARY 22, 1856.

ELCOME to the day returning,
Dearer still as ages flow,

While the torch of Faith is burning,
Long as Freedom's altars glow!

See the hero whom it gave us

Slumbering on a mother's breast;
For the arm he stretched to save us,
Be its morn forever blest!

Hear the tale of youthful glory,

While of Britain's rescued band

Friend and foe repeat the story,
Spread his fame o'er sea and land,
Where the red cross, proudly streaming,
Flaps above the frigate's deck,
Where the golden lilies, gleaming,
Star the watch-towers of Quebec.

Look!

The shadow on the dial

Marks the hour of deadlier strife;

Days of terror, years of trial,

Scourge a nation into life.

Lo, the youth, become her leader!

All her baffled tyrants yield;

Through his arm the Lord hath freed her;
Crown him on the tented field!

Vain is Empire's mad temptation!
Not for him an earthly crown!
He whose sword hath freed a nation!
Strikes the offered sceptre down.
See the throneless Conqueror seated,
Ruler by a people's choice;
See the Patriot's task completed;
Hear the Father's dying voice!

"By the name that you inherit, By the sufferings you recall, Cherish the fraternal spirit;

Love your country first of all! Listen not to idle questions

If its bands may be untied; Doubt the patriot whose suggestions Strive a nation to divide!"

Father! We, whose ears have tingled
With the discord-notes of shame,

We, whose sires their blood have mingled
In the battle's thunder-flame,
Gathering, while this holy morning
Lights the land from sea to sea,
Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning;
Trust us, while we honor thee!

CLASS OF '29.

FOR THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1856.

OU'LL believe me, dear boys, 'tis a pleasure to rise

With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes,

To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone Which have greeted me oft in the years that have

flown.

Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall,
My locks would turn brown at the sight of
you all;
If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand,
It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand.

There are noontides of autumn, when summer re

turns,

Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns,

And the bird on his perch that was silent so long Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song.

We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June:
Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune;
One moment of sunshine from faces like these,
And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees.

The voices of morning! How sweet is their thrill
When the shadows have turned, and the evening

grows still!

The text of our lives may get wiser with age,

But the print was so fair on its twentieth page!

Look off from your goblet and up from your plate, Come, take the last journal and glance at its date, Then think what we fellows should say and should do, If the 6 were a 9, and the 5 were a 2.

Ah no! For the shapes that would meet with us here

From the far land of shadows are ever too dear! Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms,

We should see but the comrades we clasped in our

arms.

A health to our future, -a sigh for our past!
We love, we remember, we hope to the last :
And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold,
While we've youth in our hearts, we can never
grow old.

FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS

CLUB.

1856.

HE mountains glitter in the snow
A thousand leagues asunder;
Yet here, amid the banquet's glow,
I hear their voice of thunder;
Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks;
A flowing stream is summoned;
Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks;
Monadnock to Ben Lomond!

Though years have clipped the eagle's plume
That crowned the chieftain's bonnet,
The sun still sees the heather bloom,
The silver mists lie on it;
With tartan kilt and philibeg,

What stride was ever bolder
Than his who showed the naked leg
Beneath the plaided shoulder?

The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills,
That heard the bugles blowing
When down their sides the crimson rills
With mingled blood were flowing;
The hunts where gallant hearts were game,
The slashing on the border,

The raid that swooped with sword and flame,
Give place to "law and order."

Not while the rocking steeples reel
With midnight tocsins ringing,
Not while the crashing war-notes peal,
God sets his poets singing;
The bird is silent in the night,
Or shrieks a cry of warning

While fluttering round the beacon-light,
But hear him greet the morning!

The lark of Scotia's morning sky!
Whose voice may sing his praises?
With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye,
He walked among the daisies,

Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong
He soared to fields of glory;

But left his land her sweetest song
And earth her saddest story.