So the Laird of Ury said,
Turning slow his horse's head

Towards the Tolbooth prison,
Where, through iron gates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word

Preach of Christ arisen !

Not in vain, confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told

Of thy day of trial!

Every age on him, who strays
From its broad and beaten ways,
Pours its seven-fold vial.

Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,

O'er the rabble's laughter;
And, while Hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.

Knowing this--that never yet
Share of Truth was vainly set

In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.

Thus, with somewhat of the seer,

Must the moral pioneer

From the future borrow

Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,

And on midnight's sky of rain,

Paint the golden morrow!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Meeting of the Alumni of Harvard

I

College.

1857.

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, 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!

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,
One flying paper kites on change, one planting little pills,-
The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little

bills.

What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in hand!

What cherubs,-not the legless kind, that fly, but never stand!

How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver

crown!

What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled brown!

But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have shone,

Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trimmed

our own;

A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing fire!

And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's millionchorded lyre

We've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars,

Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the set

ting stars;

And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, To find the planet's vertebræ and sink its spinal cord.

We've tried reform,—and chloroform,—and both have turned our brain;

When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe to pain;

Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown,— Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their lightning down.

We've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer,
Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear;
We've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the big-
gest pile,

And met with many a "perfect brick" beneath a rimless "tile."

What dreams we've had of deathless name, as scholars, statesmen, bards,

While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture cards!

Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered,

"Ah!

I said you should be something grand,-you'll soon be grandpapa."

Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take

their turn;

There's something always to forget, and something still to

learn ;

But how to tell what's old or young, the tap-root from the

sprigs,

Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs?

The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and bolt,

As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt;

Don't be too savage with the boys,—the Primer does not say, The kitten ought to go to church because "the cat doth

prey."

The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three;
Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A. B.
When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through
the skies,

He taught a lesson to the old,-go thou and do like Wise!

Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low degree,

Remember how we only get one annual out of three;

And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with fun.

I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time for me to set ;
A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am lingering yet,
As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and-watery moon
Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of noon.

Farewell! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall; God save the Queen,-whose throne is here,—the Mother of us all!

Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore

and sea,

And "Expectantur" all mankind, to take their last Degree! OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

An Evening Hymn.

How many days, with mute adieu,

Have gone down yon untrodden sky!

And still it looks as clear and blue
As when it first was hung on high.
The rolling sun, the frowning cloud
That drew the lightning in its rear,
The thunder, trampling deep and loud,
Have left no dark impression there.