How he loves us! he pats our heads, And, lo! they are gleaming with silver threads; And he 's always begging one lock of hair, Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear. At length he will tell us, one by one, "My child, your labor on earth is done; And now you must journey afar to see My elder brother,--Eternity!" And so, when long, long years have passed, Some dear old fellow will be the last,-- Never a boy alive but he Of all our goodly company! When he lies down, but not till then, Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen That writes in the day-book kept above Our lifelong record of faith and love. So here's a health in homely rhyme To our oldest classmate, Father Time! May our last survivor live to be As bald and as wise and as tough as he! SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU 1865 LIKE the tribes of Israel, Fed on quails and manna, Sherman and his glorious band Journeyed through the rebel land, Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand, Marching on Savannah! As the moving pillar shone, Streamed the starry banner All day long in rosy light, Flaming splendor all the night, Till it swooped in eagle flight Down on doomed Savannah! Glory be to God on high! Shout the loud Hosanna! Treason's wilderness is past, Canaan's shore is won at last, Peal a nation's trumpet-blast,-- Sherman 's in Savannah! Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide Find a tough old tanner! Soon from every rebel wall Shall the rag of treason fall, Till our banner flaps o'er all As it crowns Savannah! MY ANNUAL 1866 How long will this harp which you once loved to hear Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold? Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong; The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song; It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,-- "We will bid our old harper play on till he dies." Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings, Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings, Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone It is still the old harp that was always your own. I claim not its music,--each note it affords I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; I know you will listen and love to the last, For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past. Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs. Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.