Classic Poem

One greeting more to one of noble fame,
Our comrade since our birth; our fathers', too;
Into whose spring-time hopes our grandsires came,
Whose promises to them for us came true.

What struggles and what gains have filled his day!
What peerless triumphs of a mind set free!
What stubborn shrinking, oftentimes, to pay
The woful birth-price of the is-to-be.

Hoary, sublime, deathless yet doomed to die,
No other New Year's dawning his shall be.
Vouchsafe him, Time, such end that men shall cry,
" Grand was thy passing, Nineteenth Century! "