Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1901-07-04
TRADITIONS OF ST. MARY's
CLARE BLANCHE CopPERsMIrn.

''The beauty which old Greece and Rome.
Sung, painted. wrought, lies close ut home.
We only need an eye. an ear,
Totace the markings Of incarnate grace.
The hymns Of gods TO hear"
When those whom the years have
taught to love st. Mary's come to
bid her so long q farewell, as must
the class of 1901 today, it is not
strange that her scenes, so lavishly
adorned By nature seem never so
beautiful before and awakening to
the sweetness about to be Withdrawn
from our lives, the heart fills with
sad sense Of approaching loss.
grief that lies too deep for tears.
Today, for Us, is the dividing
line between the future and the
past and ere We go hence we fain
would take q last fond look at out
girlhood's other home, to craven
on our memory forever each br-
loved feature there. See the fami-
liar wooded outline, the golden
sand strip Of the farther shore los
ing itself in the dim blue distance;
the long headlands jutting out pic
turesquely in the CHASING mirror
of the river the smooth slope at
our feet stretching to the nearer
waters, where the buttercups each
Spring renew the "Field of the
Cloth Of Gold"
Here, the sweet, stately seclusion
Of our venerable Alma Mater. sac
red to the memory of generations
OF scholarly women, hard by the
little cross-crowned. ivy-wreathed
church, in whose shadow the crude
forefathers of the hamlet Sleep"
Over all this scenic beauty fingers
the strange atmospheric charm Of
history and tradition, that atmos-
phere which cannot be contained or
conveyed in anything so material
as words. And all this set for as
to the daily music Of birds and
bells and the merry laughter of our
young companions.
The favorite home of that conse-
Grated enclosure made more sacred
still by the footprints of our fore
fathers, shall echo to our footsteps
no more.
What dreams of the future have
We dreamed there. What pictures
OF the unrevealed past have we con-
lured up from the mists of tradition.
How often guessed the life stories
OF those pathetically hidden from
as under the green hillocks and
messy marbles at our feet, who
knew once as we do now struggle
and conquest, joy aud sorrow,
smiles aud tears.
We have tried to people again in
imagination the "Acre of God"
with the activity of colonial life,
beating with the pulse and stir OF
the little town, ringing with the
sounds of coming and going, Of
buying and selling, of busy house
wife plying her evening care, OF
homes, of loves, of marriage and
giving in marrisge-but the winds
whispering through the cedars,
bear to us the prophets sad lament,
Glow doth the city sit desolate
that once was full of people," and
the ivy on the graves murmur back
"Sic transit Gloria Mundi."
Robbed of her civic Importance
by the removal of the capital to
Annapolis 1894, st. Mary's steadily
declined, until with the razing of
the old Court House to the ground,
there was literally left of her not
one stone upon another. The
hard-trodden paths of the little
town, the grasses of many seasons
have overgrown, the ashes of her
firesides the winds of a century
have scattered, and the grave OF
the ancient city is only marked by
the memorial stones of the Court
House site, the monument to the
noble founders, and the clustered
tombs Of those who sleep in this
City of the dead.
Perhaps in this neglected spot Is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands that the rod of empire might have
swayed
Or walked to ecstasy the living Tyre"
Gone. aud with them that other
race who acted out life's drama be-
fore them on the same broad stage,
the unfortunate Indian. That
morn suspicious for rs, the Indian
watchers marked in the distances
the dark hull Of "The Ark" and
the white wing of the "Dove, 81
seeking rest as Of old, no prophet