"As the singing ceased, the students began running swiftly around the tree, and at the cry, 'Harvard!' a second circle was formed by the other students, which gave a tumultuous excitement to the scene. It broke up at last with a perfect storm of cheers, and a hasty division among the class of the garland which encircled the elm, each taking a flower in remembrance of the day."--_Greenwood Leaves_, Ed. 3d, 1851, pp. 350, 351. In the poem which was read before the class of 1851, by William C. Bradley, the comparisons of those about to graduate with the youth who is attaining to his majority, and with the traveller who has stopped a little for rest and refreshment, are so genial and suggestive, that their insertion in this connection will not be deemed out of place. "'T is a good custom, long maintained, When the young heir has manhood gained, To solemnize the welcome date, Accession to the man's estate, With open house and rousing game, And friends to wish him joy and fame: So Harvard, following thus the ways Of careful sires of older days, Directs her children till they grow The strength of ripened years to know, And bids their friends and kindred, then, To come and hail her striplings--men. "And as, about the table set, Or on the shady grass-plat met, They give the youngster leave to speak Of vacant sport, and boyish freak, So now would we (such tales have power At noon-tide to abridge the hour) Turn to the past, and mourn or praise The joys and pains of boyhood's days. "Like travellers with their hearts intent Upon a distant journey bent, We rest upon the earliest stage Of life's laborious pilgrimage; But like the band of pilgrims gay (Whom Chaucer sings) at close of day, That turned with mirth, and cheerful din, To pass their evening at the inn, Hot from the ride and dusty, we, But yet untired and stout and free, And like the travellers by the door, Sit down and talk the journey o'er." As a specimen of the character of the Ode which is always sung on Class Day to the tune "Fair Harvard,"--which is the name by which the melody "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms" has been adopted at Cambridge,--that which was written by Joshua Danforth Robinson for the class of 1851 is here inserted. "The days of thy tenderly nurture are done, We call for the lance and the shield; There's a battle to fight and a crown to be won, And onward we press to the field! But yet, Alma Mater, before we depart, Shall the song of our farewell be sung, And the grasp of the hand shall express for the heart Emotions too deep for the tongue.