Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum - An Academic Poem Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFFGG HHBBII JJKKLLMN CCOOPPQQRRSSTUVV WWXXYYZZZZ RRA2A2B2B2C2C2QQJJD2 D2E2E2EE F2F2 G2G2H2H2 I2I2J2J2RRGGK2K2FF HHZZL2L2M2M2 A2N2ZZZZM2M2M2M2M2M2 M2M2OOO2O2M2M2P2P2ZZ Q2Q2II R2R2IIZZZZN2A2 ZZZZM2M2M2M2O2O2L2L2 ZZ EES2S2T2T2M2M2M2M2M2 M2While fond sad memories all around us throng | A |
Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song | A |
Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is blue | B |
The choral tribute of the grove is due | B |
And when the lengthening nights have chilled the skies | C |
We fain would hear the song bird ere be flies | C |
And greet with kindly welcome even as now | D |
The lonely minstrel on his leafless bough | D |
- | |
This is our golden year its golden day | E |
Its bridal memories soon must pass away | E |
Soon shall its dying music cease to ring | F |
And every year must loose some silver string | F |
Till the last trembling chords no longer thrill | G |
Hands all at rest and hearts forever still | G |
- | |
A few gray heads have joined the forming line | H |
We hear our summons Class of 'Twenty Nine | H |
Close on the foremost and alas how few | B |
Are these The Boys our dear old Mother knew | B |
Sixty brave swimmers Twenty something more | I |
Have passed the stream and reached this frosty shore | I |
- | |
How near the banks these fifty years divide | J |
When memory crosses with a single stride | J |
'T is the first year of stern Old Hickory 's rule | K |
When our good Mother lets us out of school | K |
Half glad half sorrowing it must be confessed | L |
To leave her quiet lap her bounteous breast | L |
Armed with our dainty ribbon tied degrees | M |
Pleased and yet pensive exiles and A B 's | N |
- | |
Look back O comrades with your faded eyes | C |
And see the phantoms as I bid them rise | C |
Whose smile is that Its pattern Nature gave | O |
A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave | O |
KIRKLAND alone such grace from Heaven could win | P |
His features radiant as the soul within | P |
That smile would let him through Saint Peter's gate | Q |
While sad eyed martyrs had to stand and wait | Q |
Here flits mercurial Farrar standing there | R |
See mild benignant cautious learned Ware | R |
And sturdy patient faithful honest Hedge | S |
Whose grinding logic gave our wits their edge | S |
Ticknor with honeyed voice and courtly grace | T |
And Willard larynxed like a double bass | U |
And Channing with his bland superior look | V |
Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook | V |
- | |
While the pale student shivering in his shoes | W |
Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze | W |
And the born soldier fate decreed to wreak | X |
His martial manhood on a class in Greek | X |
Popkin How that explosive name recalls | Y |
The grand old Busby of our ancient halls | Y |
Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons | Z |
Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons | Z |
He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms | Z |
But every accent sounded Shoulder arms | Z |
- | |
Names empty names Save only here and there | R |
Some white haired listener dozing in his chair | R |
Starts at the sound he often used to hear | A2 |
And upward slants his Sunday sermon ear | A2 |
And we our blooming manhood we regain | B2 |
Smiling we join the long Commencement train | B2 |
One point first battled in discussion hot | C2 |
Shall we wear gowns and settled We will not | C2 |
How strange the scene that noisy boy debate | Q |
Where embryo speakers learn to rule the State | Q |
This broad browed youth sedate and sober eyed | J |
Shall wear the ermined robe at Taney's side | J |
And he the stripling smooth of face and slight | D2 |
Whose slender form scarce intercepts the light | D2 |
Shall rule the Bench where Parsons gave the law | E2 |
And sphinx like sat uncouth majestic Shaw | E2 |
Ah many a star has shed its fatal ray | E |
On names we loved our brothers where are they | E |
- | |
Nor these alone our hearts in silence claim | F2 |
Names not less dear unsyllabled by fame | F2 |
- | |
How brief the space and yet it sweeps us back | G2 |
Far far along our new born history's track | G2 |
Five strides like this the sachem rules the land | H2 |
The Indian wigwams cluster where we stand | H2 |
- | |
The second Lo a scene of deadly strife | I2 |
A nation struggling into infant life | I2 |
Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won | J2 |
Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun | J2 |
LANGDON sits restless in the ancient chair | R |
Harvard's grave Head these echoes heard his prayer | R |
When from yon mansion dear to memory still | G |
The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's Hill | G |
Count on the grave triennial's thick starred roll | K2 |
What names were numbered on the lengthening scroll | K2 |
Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring | F |
Winthrop Hale Eliot Everett Dexter Tyng | F |
- | |
Another stride Once more at 'twenty nine | H |
GOD SAVE KING GEORGE the Second of his line | H |
And is Sir Isaac living Nay not so | Z |
He followed Flainsteed two short years ago | Z |
And what about the little hump backed man | L2 |
Who pleased the bygone days of good Queen Anne | L2 |
What Pope another book he's just put out | M2 |
The Dunciad witty but profane no doubt | M2 |
- | |
Where's Cotton Mather he was always here | A2 |
And so he would be but he died last year | N2 |
Who is this preacher our Northampton claims | Z |
Whose rhetoric blazes with sulphureous flames | Z |
And torches stolen from Tartarean mines | Z |
Edwards the salamander of divines | Z |
A deep strong nature pure and undefiled | M2 |
Faith firm as his who stabbed his sleeping child | M2 |
Alas for him who blindly strays apart | M2 |
And seeking God has lost his human heart | M2 |
Fall where they might no flying cinders caught | M2 |
These sober halls where WADSWORTH ruled and taught | M2 |
- | |
One footstep more the fourth receding stride | M2 |
Leaves the round century on the nearer side | M2 |
GOD SAVE KING CHARLES God knows that pleasant knave | O |
His grace will find it hard enough to save | O |
Ten years and more and now the Plague the Fire | O2 |
Talk of all tongues at last begin to tire | O2 |
One fear prevails all other frights forgot | M2 |
White lips are whispering hark The Popish Plot | M2 |
Happy New England from such troubles free | P2 |
In health and peace beyond the stormy sea | P2 |
No Romish daggers threat her children's throats | Z |
No gibbering nightmare mutters Titus Oates | Z |
Philip is slain the Quaker graves are green | Q2 |
Not yet the witch has entered on the scene | Q2 |
Happy our Harvard pleased her graduates four | I |
URIAN OAKES the name their parchments bore | I |
- | |
Two centuries past our hurried feet arrive | R2 |
At the last footprint of the scanty five | R2 |
Take the fifth stride our wandering eyes explore | I |
A tangled forest on a trackless shore | I |
Here where we stand the savage sorcerer howls | Z |
The wild cat snarls the stealthy gray wolf prowls | Z |
The slouching bear perchance the trampling moose | Z |
Starts the brown squaw and scares her red pappoose | Z |
At every step the lurking foe is near | N2 |
His Demons reign God has no temple here | A2 |
- | |
Lift up your eyes behold these pictured walls | Z |
Look where the flood of western glory falls | Z |
Through the great sunflower disk of blazing panes | Z |
In ruby saffron azure emerald stains | Z |
With reverent step the marble pavement tread | M2 |
Where our proud Mother's martyr roll is read | M2 |
See the great halls that cluster gathering round | M2 |
This lofty shrine with holiest memories crowned | M2 |
See the fair Matron in her summer bower | O2 |
Fresh as a rose in bright perennial flower | O2 |
Read on her standard always in the van | L2 |
TRUTH the one word that makes a slave a man | L2 |
Think whose the hands that fed her altar fires | Z |
Then count the debt we owe our scholar sires | Z |
- | |
Brothers farewell the fast declining ray | E |
Fades to the twilight of our golden day | E |
Some lesson yet our wearied brains may learn | S2 |
Some leaves perhaps in life's thin volume turn | S2 |
How few they seem as in our waning age | T2 |
We count them backwards to the title page | T2 |
Oh let us trust with holy men of old | M2 |
Not all the story here begun is told | M2 |
So the tired spirit waiting to be freed | M2 |
On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall read | M2 |
By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed | M2 |
Not Finis but The End of Volume First | M2 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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