American Academy Centennial Celebration Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCC DEDEE FGFGG HIHII JKJKK FLFLL MFMFF HNHNN OPOPP FKFQQ AFAFF RNRNN FSFSS TUTUU| MAY | A |
| - | |
| SIRE son and grandson so the century glides | B |
| Three lives three strides three foot prints in the sand | C |
| Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides | B |
| Into the stillness of the far off land | C |
| How dim the space its little arc has spanned | C |
| - | |
| See on this opening page the names renowned | D |
| Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves | E |
| Scarce on the scroll of living memory found | D |
| Save where the wan eyed antiquarian delves | E |
| Shadows they seem ab what are we ourselves | E |
| - | |
| Pale ghosts of Bowdoin Winthrop Willard West | F |
| Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow | G |
| Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed | F |
| Asking of all things Whence and Why and How | G |
| What problems meet your larger vision now | G |
| - | |
| Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's path | H |
| Has Bowdoin found his all surrounding sphere | I |
| What question puzzles ciphering Philomath | H |
| Could Williams make the hidden causes clear | I |
| Of the Dark Day that filled the land with fear | I |
| - | |
| Dear ancient school boys Nature taught to them | J |
| The simple lessons of the star and flower | K |
| Showed them strange sights how on a single stem | J |
| Admire the marvels of Creative Power | K |
| Twin apples grew one sweet the other sour | K |
| - | |
| How from the hill top where our eyes beheld | F |
| In even ranks the plumed and bannered maize | L |
| Range its long columns in the days of old | F |
| The live volcano shot its angry blaze | L |
| Dead since the showers of Noah's watery days | L |
| - | |
| How when the lightning split the mighty rock | M |
| The spreading fury of the shaft was spent | F |
| How the young scion joined the alien stock | M |
| And when and where the homeless swallows went | F |
| To pass the winter of their discontent | F |
| - | |
| Scant were the gleanings in those years of dearth | H |
| No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones | N |
| That slumbered waiting for their second birth | H |
| No Lyell read the legend of the stones | N |
| Science still pointed to her empty thrones | N |
| - | |
| Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown | O |
| Herschel looked heavenwards in the starlight pale | P |
| Lost in those awful depths he trod alone | O |
| Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil | P |
| While home bred Humboldt trimmed his toy ship's sail | P |
| - | |
| No mortal feet these loftier heights had gained | F |
| Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry | K |
| In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained | F |
| To scan with wondering gaze the summits high | Q |
| That far beneath their children's footpaths lie | Q |
| - | |
| Smile at their first small ventures as we may | A |
| The school boy's copy shapes the scholar's hand | F |
| Their grateful memory fills our hearts to day | A |
| Brave hopeful wise this bower of peace they planned | F |
| While war's dread ploughshare scarred the suffering land | F |
| - | |
| Child of our children's children yet unborn | R |
| When on this yellow page you turn your eyes | N |
| Where the brief record of this May day morn | R |
| In phrase antique and faded letters lies | N |
| How vague how pale our flitting ghosts will rise | N |
| - | |
| Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red | F |
| For us the fields were green the skies were blue | S |
| Though from our dust the spirit long has fled | F |
| We lived we loved we toiled we dreamed like you | S |
| Smiled at our sires and thought how much we knew | S |
| - | |
| Oh might our spirits for one hour return | T |
| When the next century rounds its hundredth ring | U |
| All the strange secrets it shall teach to learn | T |
| To hear the larger truths its years shall bring | U |
| Its wiser sages talk its sweeter minstrels sing | U |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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