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COMRADES

RICHARD HOVEY

Comrades, pour the wine to-night, For the parting is with dawn. Oh, the clink of cups together, With the daylight coming on! Greet the morn

With a double horn,

When strong men drink together!

(1864-1900)

Comrades, gird your swords to-night,
For the battle is with dawn.
Oh, the clash of shields together,
With the triumph coming on!
Greet the foe

And lay him low,

When strong men fight together.

Comrades, watch the tides to-night,
For the sailing is with dawn.
Oh, to face the spray together,
With the tempest coming on!
Greet the Sea

With a shout of glee,
When strong men roam together.

Comrades, give a cheer to-night,

For the dying is with dawn. Oh, to meet the stars together, With the silence coming on! Greet the end

As a friend a friend,

When strong men die together.

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From Ode read at 60th convention of Psi Upsilon fraternity, May 18, 1893.

THE WANDER LOVERS

Down the world with Marna!
That's the life for me!

Wandering with the wandering wind,
Vagabond and unconfined!
Roving with the roving rain
Its unboundaried domain!
Kith and kin of wander-kind,
Children of the sea!

Petrels of the sea-drift! Swallows of the lea!

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Arabs of the whole wide girth
Of the wind-encircled earth!
In all climes we pitch our tents,
Cronies of the elements,
With the secret lords of birth
Intimate and free.

All the seaboard knows us
From Fundy to the Keys;
Every bend and every creek
Of abundant Chesapeake;
Ardise hills and Newport coves
And the far-off orange groves,
Where Floridian oceans break,
Tropic tiger seas.

Down the world with Marna,
Tarrying there and here!
Just as much at home in Spain
As in Tangier or Touraine!
Shakespeare's Avon knows us well,
And the crags of Neufchatel;
And the ancient Nile is fain
Of our coming near.

Down the world with Marna,
Daughter of the air!

Marna of the subtle grace,
And the vision in her face!
Moving in the measures trod ⚫
By the angels before God!
With her sky-blue eyes amaze
And her sea-blue hair!

Marna with the trees' life
In her veins a-stir!

Marna of the aspen heart
Where the sudden quivers start!
Quick-responsive, subtle, wild!
Artless as an artless child,
Spite of all her reach of art!
Oh, to roam with her!

Marna with the wind's will,
Daughter of the sea!
Marna of the quick disdain,
Starting at the dream of stain!
At a smile with love aglow,
At a frown a statued woe,
Standing pinnacled in pain
Till a kiss sets free!

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And life slips its tether When the boys get together, With a stein on the table in the fellowship of spring.

A road runs east and a road runs west 120 From the table where we sing;

And the lure of the one is a roving quest, And the lure of the other a lotus dream. And the eastward road leads into the West

Of the lifelong chase of the vanishing gleam;

And the westward road leads into the East,

Where the spirit from striving is released, Where the soul like a child in God's arms lies

And forgets the lure of the butterflies. And west is east, if you follow the trail to the end;

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And east is west, if you follow the trail to the end;

And the East and the West in the spring of the world shall blend

As a man and a woman that plight
Their troth in the warm spring night.
And the spring for the East is the sap
in the heart of a tree;

And the spring for the West is the will in the wings of a bird;

But the spring for the East and the West alike shall be

An urge in their bones and an ache in their spirit, a word

That shall knit them in one for Time's foison, once they have heard.

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For all the bonds shall be broken and rent in sunder,

And the soul of man go free
Forth with those three
Into the lands of wonder;
Like some undaunted youth
Afield in quest of truth,

Rejoicing in the road he journeys on 230
As much as in the hope of journey done.
And the road runs east, and the road runs
west,

That his vagrant feet explore;

And he knows no haste and he knows no rest,

And every mile has a stranger zest
Than the miles he trod before;

And his heart leaps high in the nascent year

When he sees the purple buds appear: For he knows, though the great black frost may blight

The hope of May in a single night, 240 That the spring, though it shrink back

under the bark,

But bides its time somewhere in the dark

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God has said: "Ye shall fail and perish;
But the thrill ye have felt to-night
I shall keep in my heart and cherish
When the worlds have passed in night."
Give a cheer!

For the soul shall not give way.
Here's to the greater to-morrow
That is born of a great to-day!

Now shame on the craven truckler
And the puling things that mope!
We've a rapture for our buckler
That outwears the wings of hope.
Give a cheer!

For our joy shall not give way.
Here's in the teeth of to-morrow
To the glory of to-day!

LOVE IN THE WINDS

When I am standing on the mountain crest,

Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray. My love of you leaps foaming in my breast.

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Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray;

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