The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-07-18

mere Is Thy talent IN a napkin laid"
But labored IN their sphere, as those who live
Ia the delight that work alone can give
feace De TO them; eternal peace and rest
And the fulfillment of the great behest:
4e have been faithful over few things.
Over ten cities shall we reign as Kings
And We who fill the places we once flied.
And f,llow in the burrows that We tiled,
Young men, whose generous hearts are 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 It's Illusions, aspirations, dreams
BOOK OF Beginnings, Story without Eud.
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend
Aladdlns Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse,
That holds the treasures OF the Universe,
Al possibilities are in it's hands,
NO danger daunts it, and no foe withstands
10 Its sublime audacity Of faith.
BE thou removed! 1t to the mountain saith,
and with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud
As ancient Pram at the ocBan gate
Sat on the walls OF Troy in regal state
with the old men, too CID and weak to fight,
Chrping like Srasshoppers in their del ght
10 see the embatted host, with spear and shield,
or Trojans 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, 8 no is he
Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,
AJAX the great, or bold Idomeneus?"
Let him not boast who puts his armor on
AS he who puts it off. the battle done.
Study yourselves, and most of all, note well
Wherein kind Nature meaut you to excel.
Not every blossom rlpens into fruit
Minersa, the inventress of the flute,
Flung 1t aside, when she her face surveyed
Distorted in a fountain she played;
The unlucky Marsyas found it. and his fate
Was one to make the brayest hesitat
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 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 not yet
The fatal asterisk Of death is set.
" | salute The no ologue of Time
Strikes the half-century with sole mn chime,
And summons us together once gain,
The Joy OF meeting not unmixed with pain.
Caverns OF darkness answer me: "fhey sleep."
1name no Dames instinctively feel
Each at some well-remember- grave will kneel,
And from the inscription wipe the weeds and
moss,
For every heart best knoweth it's own loss
see the scattered gravestones cleaning white
Through the pale dusk OF the impending night
Ger Ike the impartial sunset throws
It's golden lilies mingled with the rose;
We give to all a tenuer thought, and pass
Ont of the graveyards with their tangled grass,
Unto these scenes frequented by our feet
When we were young, and life was fresh and
sweet.
What shall say to you? What can | say
Better tuan 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 !;
II is the same, yet no. the same to me.
S3many memories crowd upon my brain,
So many ghosts are in the wood d PLAIN.
fan would steal away, W til noiseless tread
As from house where some one lieth dead.
/ can not go pause-I hesitate;
My feet reluctant linger at the gate;
As one who struggles in troubled dream
To speak and cannot, to myself l seem.
Vanish the dream Vanish the idle fears!
Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years.
Whats yer time or space may intervene,
| will not be stranger in this scene,
Here every doubt, all undecision ends;
Hail. my companions, comrades, classmates,
friends!
All me the fifty years since last we met
Seem to me fifty foios bound and set
BY Time the great transcrlber, on his Shelves
Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.
What tragedies, what comedies are there;
What Joy and grief, what rapture and despair!
What chronicles of triumph and defeat,
OF struggle and temptation, and retreat
What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears |
Wbat 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 and clasped forevermore ?
Not mint. With reverential feet pass;
| hear voice that cries. "Alasl alas
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written DER again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee,
Take heed, and pom Ter well what that shall be.
As children frightened by thunder-cloud
Are treasured if acme one reads aloud
tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,
Or wild adventure that drverts their thought,
Let me endeavor with tale to chase
The gathering shadows of the time and place,
And Danish what we all too deeply feel
Wholly TO say, or wholly to conceal.
a medieval Rome. know not where,
There stood an image with its arm in air, .
And on it's lifted finger, shining clear,