Classic Poem

P AST is the high noon-day: and henceforth, steadily westward,
Slowly the bending sun slopes down to the distant horizon.
Crystal streamlets now for a moment flash in the glory:
Now his beams on the hamlet kindle a blaze in the windows.
Cool, deep shadows creep, from the groves on the crown of the hilltops,
Downward along their slanting sides; till, broader and broader,
All of the vale is dim with the damp dewy gloom of the twilight.
Weary the laborer homeward turns from toil in the meadows, —
Turns to his opening door whence clattering feet of the children
Rush to a shouting welcome, mingled with loud, happy laughter.
Twinkling lights from the casement shine, where, frugal and cheerful,
Stands his loving wife, and the bright flame burns on the hearthstone.
Sweetly from mountain and hill, through gathering mists of the lowlands,
Fainter and fainter afar re-echo the tinkling sheep-bells.
One by one, like stars of the earth going out into darkness,
Quench'd are the village lights: while, high in the deepening azure,
One by one, shine forth heav'n's stars in the clearness eternal.
Last, in her full-orb'd beauty, the moon looks down on the valley,
Bathing the whole wide scene in midnight's silvery silence.

Classmates, thus have we now passed the height of the noon-day,
Henceforth steadily moving on toward sunset and evening.
Where success may have brought full floods, they flash in a splendor
Bright, though brief; and the stream runs cold while blazing in sunshine:
Not for itself, but for eyes far off, it is gilded with glory.
Shadows gently steal, from the crowning hilltop of manhood,
Downward along declining years, till, broader and broader,
All of the vale of life is dank with the dew of the twilight.
Weary the toiler turns from the field of his lifelong labor, —
Turns to his resting-place, to the one dear treasure of home , — where
Children's voices cheerily ring, and the wife on the hearthstone
Kindles the fire that brightest burns when daylight is over.
Out from the gathering mists of memory sounds may re-echo, —
Dreams, perchance, or wandering strains of tenderer music, —
Faintly at times recalling the glorious tones of the morning,
Shepherds' horns, and songs, and the cliffs on the sunshiny mountains.
One by one, dim candles of earth go out into darkness.
One by one, new stars of heav'n shine out in the azure.
Last, over our long home broods only the silence of midnight.

Twofold, Classmates dear, twofold is the course of a lifetime.
As on the watery plain swift wave over wave moveth onward,
Passing in contrary ways, yet neither impeding the other:
So on the surface of life great circles of love and of friendship
Clasp and embrace many souls, filling all our youthful horizon.
Time moves on. Death takes from the number. Slowly and sadly,
Year by year, that wave contracts; till, shrunk to a unit,
Lost in a point, it appears no more: and a lifetime is over!
Yet from the same one point, that unit of personal being,
Outward a wave flows forth, with a glad and a glorious motion,
Outward the wave of Knowledge flows, from infancy onward,
Out through childhood and manhood, through old age, ever onward:
Knowledge of life, love, beauty and art, and science, and wisdom,
Knowledge of States and of wars, and the blood-stain'd tale of the Ages,
Knowledge of self, and of sin, of struggle and earnest endeavor,
Knowledge of grace, and faith, and joy, and peace in believing,
Knowledge of God and of man: till at length, grown wider and wider,
There where sea meets sky, Time's wondrous wavelet is ended,
Lost in Eternity's Ocean rolling for ever and ever.