“‘Old classmate, say Do you remember our Commencement Day? Were we such boys as these at twenty?’ Nay, God called them to a nobler task than ours, And gave them holier thoughts and manlier powers,— This is the day of fruits and not of flowers! These ‘boys’ we talk about like ancient sages Are the same _men_ we read of in old pages— The bronze recast of dead heroic ages! We grudge them not, our dearest, bravest, best,— Let but the quarrel’s issue stand confest: ’Tis Earth’s old slave-God battling for his crown And Freedom fighting with her visor down.” HOLMES. * * * * * “Many loved Truth, and lavished life’s best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life’s dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger’s sweetness round her. Where faith made whole with deed Breathes its awakening breath Into the lifeless creed, They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.” LOWELL, _Commemoration Ode_. HARVARD COMMEMORATION SPEECH MR. CHAIRMAN, AND GENTLEMEN: With whatever opinion we come here, I think it is not in man to see, without a feeling of pride and pleasure, a tried soldier, the armed defender of the right. I think that in these last years all opinions have been affected by the magnificent and stupendous spectacle which Divine Providence has offered us of the energies that slept in the children of this country,—that slept and have awakened. I see thankfully those that are here, but dim eyes in vain explore for some who are not.