Classic Poem

AT THE Alpha D ELTA P HI C ONVENTION , M AY 8, 1879

For Forty Years
Of mingled hopes and fears, —
Of tales of battle, told with bated breath,
Of peace, returning with her olive wreath,
Of love, of joy, of sorrow, and of death!

For suns will sink, and twilights melt away,
Cool evenings hurry on, nor midnight stay,
But at the summons of the morn e'en night grows gray,
Stars fade from sight, and lo, the light, the day!

Such change from day to night,
From dark to light,
Fills up the record of my forty years.

For Forty Years
You boys look forward on another page.
The hall is dressed; the candles are not lit;
The page is white, — the annals are not writ;
The stage is set, the curtain pulled away,
The actors dressed and ready for the play,
And I for chorus stand;
Is it for me
To say if it be farce or tragedy?
What shall the dancers dance, or what the rage
That heaves the history of the stormy age,
For Forty Years?

Not mine! For Forty Years
The stage is all your own; the page is yours,
Of storm or peace,
Of work or ease,
Of winter tempests or of summer showers;
Not mine to tell
What hand shall work for woe, or what work well!

Only this oracle for gathering strife,
Only this lesson from a happy life;

Who lives and works for Love
The miracle shall prove;
The Eternal Power is his, whate'er he do;
Weakness is strength for him, and old things are made new,
As he mounts higher on these rounds of time,
His grasp more sure, his foot more quick to climb.

Faster the race is run,
As one by one
Our selfish handicaps away we fling.
Love works the miracle of youth, —
Love speaks the oracle of truth;
And they who prove
The strength of love
Grow younger and more young
For Forty Years!