from Morituri Salutamus

Poem for the fiftieth anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Book of Beginnings, Story without End,

Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

Aladdin’s Lamp, and Fortunatus’ Purse,

That holds the treasures of the universe!

All possibilities are in its hands,

No danger daunts it, and no foe 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!

As ancient Priam at the Scæan Gate

Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state

With the old men, too old and weak to fight,

Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight

To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,

Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;

So from the snowy summits 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 be

Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,

Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?”