Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-07-10
goetital.
MORITURI SALUTAMUS.
BY HENRY w. LONGFELLOW.

HENRY W. LONGFEILOW.
The following is copy of Professor Longfellow's
Poem delivered at Bowdoin College, Wednesday,
on the occasion of the reunion of the class of 1925
Temporal idbuntur, tocitisque SenescimuS annis,
Eifugiunt treno non rensorante dies.
- ovid, "Fastorum," Lib. vi.
90 Caesar who are about to die
Salute you was the gladiators cry
In the arena standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace
o ye familiar scenes-ye groves ofpne,
That once were mine and are no longer mine
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
TO the vast sea- so near and yet unseen
Ge halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms offame, like exhalatons, rose
And vanished-we who are about TO die
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky.
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.
Ye do not answer us We do not hear
We are forgotten aud in your austere
And calm indifference, ye little care
W hether we come or go, or whence or where.
What passing generations fill these halls.
What passing voices echo from these walls,
le heed not; we 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 learning's maze;
They answer us-aas what have | said
What greetings come there from the voiceess dead
What saiutation, welcome or reply?
What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie
Into the land OF shadows--all save one.
Honor and reverence. and the good repute
That follows faithful service as its fruit,
Be unto him, whom living we salute.
The great Italian poet, when he made
His dreadful journey to the realms of shade
Met there the old instructor of his youth,
And cried in tones fpity and ofruth,
"Ob, never from the memory OF my heart
Your dear, paterna image shall depart,
Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,
Taught me how mortals are immo talized;
How Qrateiui am Flor that patient
All my life long my language shall declare"
To-day make the poets words our owp,
And utter them in plaintive undertone;
Nor to the living only be they said;
But to the ether living called the dead
Whose dear, paternai images appear
Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here !;
Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,
Were part and parcel oil great Natures law;
Who said not to their Lord as if afraid,
Here is thy talent in a napkin laid"
But labored in their sphere, as those who live
In the delight that work alone can give.
Peace be to them; ct ernal pt ace and rest,
And the fulflment of the great behest:
Eye have been faithful over a few things,
Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings"
And ye who fill the places we once filed,
Aud follow in the burrows we have TILED,
Young men, whose generous hearts beating
high
We Who are old, and are about to die,
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 maid heroine, and each man friend
Aladdn's Lamp and Fortunatus' Purse
That holds the treasures of the universel
All possibilities are in its hands,
No danger daunts it, and no toe withstands;
In its sublime audacity of faith
BE thou removed =" it to the mountain saith.
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud
A ancient Priam at the Scaan gate
sat the walls of Troy in regal state
Chipping like grasshoppers in their delight
To see the embatted hosts, with spear and shield,
OF Tro jams and Achaians in the field;
So from the snowy submits OF our years
We see you in the plain, as each appears
And question Of you, asking, Who is he
That towers above the others? Which may he
Atredes, Menelaus, Odysseus,
a AjaX the great, or bold ldomeneus" :"
LIE; him not boast " no puts his armor
As he who puts it off, the battle done.
Study yourselves and most OF all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you TO excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit;
Minerva,the inventress of the flute,
Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed
Distorted in fountain as she played
The unlucky Marsyas found il, 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 bold" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less:
Better like II ctor in the field to die,
THAI Ike periumed Paris turH and fly.
And now my classmates. ye remaining few
That number not the half OF those we knew,
le against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk OF death is set,
Ye sautel The horoogue OF time
Strikes he half.century with a solemn chime,
And summons us together once again,
The JOY of meeting not unmlXed with pain.
Where are the others? Voices from the deep
Caverns ofdarknes IS answer me :"They sleepW
name names instinctively | feel
| Each at some wellremembered grave will kneel,
And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,
For every heart best knoweth its own less.
see the scattered grave.stones cleaning white
Through the pale dusk OF the impending night;
Der all alike The impartial sunset throws
Its golden lii, mingled with the rose;i
We give to all tencer thought and pass
Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass,
Unto these scenes lrequented by our feet
When we were young ana LIE was resh anu sweet.
What shall say to you2 What can say
Better than silence i>2 When survey
This throng offaces 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 brain,
So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,
fain would steal away with noseless tread,
As from house where some one leth dead.
cannot go:-I pause; Il hesitate;
My feet reluctant lnger at the gate;
AS one who struggles in a troubled dream
10 speak and cannot, to myself seem.
Vanish the dream Vanish the idle fears
Vanish the olling msts OF fifty years
Whatever time or space may intervene,
will not be stranger in this scene.
Here every doubt all indecision ends.
Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates,
friends
All me the fifty years since last we met
Seem to me fifty ioos bound and set
BY Time, the great ranscriber, on his shelves,
Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.
What tragedies, what comedies are there;
What JOY and 81 ief, what rapture and despair
What chronicles OF triumph and defeat,
OF struggle, and temptation, and retreatl
What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears
What pages blotted, blistered by our tears
What lovely landscapes on the margin shine
What sweet, angelic faces, what divine
And holy images of love and trust
Undimmed by age unsoiled by damp or dust
Whose hand shall dare to open and explore
These volumes closed ami clasped forevermore
Not mine. With reverential feet pass;
hear voice that cries. "Alas alas
Whatever hath been written shall remain.
Nor he erased nor written DER again;
The unwrtlen only still belongs to thee,
Tn ke he and pOnder well what that shall ba