THE SPEECH. (The speaker, rising to be seen, Looks very red, because so very green.) I rise--I rise--with unaffected fear, (Louder!--speak louder!--who the deuce can hear?) I rise--I said--with undisguised dismay --Such are my feelings as I rise, I say Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, Already gorged with eloquence and song; Around my view are ranged on either hand The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; "Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek; Behold the naturalist who in his teens Found six new species in a dish of greens; And lo, the master in a statelier walk, Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk; And there the linguist, who by common roots Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots,-- How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles! --Fired at the thought of all the present shows, My kindling fancy down the future flows: I see the glory of the coming days O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays; Near and more near the radiant morning draws In living lustre (rapturous applause); From east to west the blazing heralds run, Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, Through the long vista of uncounted years In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers). My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, Sees a new advent of the age of gold; While o'er the scene new generations press, New heroes rise the coming time to bless,-- Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, Dined without forks and never heard of soap,-- Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings, Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,-- But genuine articles, the true Carlyle; While far on high the blazing orb shall shed Its central light on Harvard's holy head, And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled Here in the focus of the new-born world The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs! One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs! . . . . . . . . THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line,-- A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; Long metre answers for a common song, Though common metre does not answer long. She came beneath the forest dome To seek its peaceful shade, An exile from her ancient home, A poor, forsaken maid; No banner, flaunting high above, No blazoned cross, she bore; One holy book of light and love Was all her worldly store. The dark brown shadows passed away, And wider spread the green, And where the savage used to stray The rising mart was seen; So, when the laden winds had brought Their showers of golden rain, Her lap some precious gleanings caught, Like Ruth's amid the grain.