The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-07-15
MORITURI sALUTAMUs.a
BY HENRY ". LoSeFELLow


BY HENRY LoSGFELLow-
written for the fiftteth anniversary of the |
class of 1875 in Bowdoin College. Pupllsnen, py
arrangement with the author, exclusively III
Harper's Magazine.l
labuntur. Tacitisque senescimus annls'
TT fugiunt freno non remorante dies
-[Ovid. Fastorum, Lib. iv.
go Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute your was the gladiators cry |
In the arena, standing face TO face
With death and with the Roman populace'
N We familiar scenes-ye groves OF pine,
That once was mine and are no longer mine
Thou river, widening through the meadows
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen
We halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalatlons, rose
And yanished,-we who are about 10 die
salute YOU; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the imperial sun that scatters down
HIS sovereign splendors upon grove and town.
Yedo no. answer us We do not hear!
We are forgotten and in your austere
whether we come or go, or whence or where.
What passing generations NIL these nalls,
what passing Voices echo from these walls,
We heed not; are only as the blast,
A. moment heard, and then forever past
Not so the teachers who in earlier days
Led our bewildered feet through learnings
Tbsv answer us-alasl what have / said?
What greetings come there from the voiceless
What sslutation welcome, or reply?
What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie?
They are no longer here; they all are gone
Honor and reverence. and the good repute
That follows faithful service sits fruit,
Re unto him, whom living we salute.
The great Italian poet, when he made
His dreadful Ourney TO the realms OF shade
Net there the old instructor OF his youth,
And cried in tones of pity and of ruth:
30, never from the memory OF my heart
Your dear, paternal image snail depart, u,uo,
Who while on earth, ere yet Dy deatn surprised
Taught me how mOrtals are 1mmOrtanZedi
How grateful am for that patient care
All my life long my language shall declare.
To-day we make the poets words our own,
And utter them in plalntive undertone;
Nor to the living only be they SAID,
But to the other living called the dead,
Whose dear, paternal images appear
Not raped in gloom, but ROBBED in sunshine
Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,
Were part and parcel Of great natures law;
Who said not to their Lord, as II AFRAID,
@sHere is thy talent in a napkin laid,
But labOred in their sphere, as those who live
In the delight that work a one can give.
Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,
Aud the fuIhllment of the great behest;
"Ye have been faithful over few things,
Over ten cities shall We reign as kings"
And We who fill the places we once filled,
And follow in the burrows that we titled,
Young men, whose generous hearts are oeaunS
high,
We who are old are about 10 ole,
Salute you; hail you; take your hands in ours,
And crown you with our welcome as with
flowers!
How beautiful is youth! how bright it CLEANS
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!
Book of beginnings, story without end.
Each made a heroine, and each man friend!
Aladdin's lamp, and fortunatus's purse,
That holds the treasures of the universe!
All possibilities are l. its hands,
No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;
In its sublime audaeity of faith,
abe thou removed it to the mountain saith,
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!
AS ancient Prism at the Scaean gate
Sat on the walls of Troy In regal state
With the old men, too old and weak to fight,
CHIPPING like grasshoppers IN their delight
To see the embattled hosts, with spear and
OF Trojans and Achaians in the field;
So from the snowy SUBMITS of our years
We see you in the plain, as each appears,
That towers above the others? Which may be
Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus.
Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?"
Let him not boast who puts his armor on
As he VINO puts 1t on, the battle done.
Study yourselves; and, most of all, note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit;
Flung il aside, when she her face surveyed
Distorted in fountain as she played;
The unlucky Marsyas found ii, and his fate
Was one to make the bravest hesitate.
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold be bold and everywhere be bold;
Be not too boldp' Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector In the field TO die,
Than like perfumed Paris turn and fly.
And now, my classmates, We remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew;
Ye against whose familiar names notyet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye salutei The horologe of Time
Strikes the half century with a solemn chime,
And summons us together once again,
The joy ofmeeting not unmixed with pain.
Where are the Others? Voices from the deep
Caverns of darkness answer me; "They sleep :
name no names: instinctively feel
Each at some well remembered grave vii
skneel,
And from the inscription wipe the weeds ant
moss,
For every heart best knoweth its own loss.
see the scattered gravesJones cleaning white
Through the pale dusk of the i'm pending night
Ger al alike the impartial sunset throws
Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;
We give to all a tender thought, and pass
Out OF the graveyards with their tangled grass,
Unto these scenes frequented by our feet
When we were young, and life was fresh an
sweet.
What shall say to you? What can l say
Better than silence is? When survey
This throng of faces turned to meet my own,
Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown,
Transformed the very landscape seems TO be;
1t is the same, yet not the same to me.
So many memories crowd upon my Drain,
So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,
fain would steal away. with nOiseless tread,
As from house where some one lieth dead.
can not go; pause-I hesitate;
Ny feet reluctant linger at The gate;
As one who struggles in a troubled dream
To speak and can not, to myself L seem.
Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!
Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!
Whatever time or space may intervene,
will not be a stranger in this scene
Here every doubt, all indecision ends;
Hail. my companions, comrades, cIassmate: