Do! I tell you, I rather guess She was a wonder, and nothing less! Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 60 Deacon and deaconess dropped away, Children and grandchildren-where were they? But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;-it came and found The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. Eighteen hundred increased by ten;- Little of all we value here 70 A few can touch the magic string, But die with all their music in them! 1 From the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. "Read what the singing-women-one to ten thousand of the suffering women-tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the next churchyard with very commonplace blue slate-stones at their head and feet, for whom it was just as true that 'all sounds of life assumed one tone of love' as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they could not." 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 tonight! We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? He's tipsy, young jackanapes!-show him the door! "Gray temples at twenty?"-Yes! white if we please; Where the snowflakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! 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. We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, Of talking (in public) as if we were old: 1 For the reunion of the famous Harvard class of 1829. From 1851 to 1889 Holmes brought his annual poem to the reunion. 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, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! 2 George T. Bigelow, Chief-justice of Massachusetts. Hon. Francis B. Crowninshield, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. G. W. Richardson, of Worcester, Mass. Hon. George L. Davis. James Freeman Clarke. 7 Prof. Benjamin Peirce. 8 B. R. Curtis, Justice of the United States Supreme Court. S. F. Smith, the author of "America." There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I 'm old"; So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict old? 40 I thank you, Mr. President, you 've kindly broke the ice; Virtue should always be the first,—I 'm only Second Vice (A vice is something with a screw that 's made to hold its jaw Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw). Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by, All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck. We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, 10 Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear. Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame; We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. We have been playing many an hour, and far away we 've strayed, Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the shade; And some have tired, and laid them down where darker shadows fall,Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. What miles we 've travelled since we shook the dew-drops from our shoes We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues! How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped away, Since we 've been running up and down, and having out our play! 20 One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown and band, One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging in the sand, |