As one by one is falling Beneath the leaves or snows, Each memory still recalling, The broken ring shall close, Till the nightwinds softly pass O'er the green and growing grass, Where it waves on the graves Of the BOYS OF '29! QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1852 WHERE, oh where are the visions of morning, Fresh as the dews of our prime? Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, Down the back entry of time. Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses, Nursed in the golden dawn's smile? Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, On the old banks of the Nile. Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas, Loving and lovely of yore? Look in the columns of old Advertisers,-- Married and dead by the score. Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies, Saturday's triumph and joy? Gone, like our friend πόδας ωκύς Achilles, Homer's ferocious old boy. Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, Hopes like young eagles at play, Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, How ye have faded away! Yet, through the ebbing of Time's mighty river Leave our young blossoms to die, Let him roll smooth in his current forever, Till the last pebble is dry. AN IMPROMPTU Not premeditated 1853 THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers, And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud. Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art If you see through its rags the full throb of his heart? Who asks if his comrade is battered and tanned When he feels his warm soul in the clasp of his hand? No! be it an epic, or be it a line, The Boys will all love it because it is mine; I sung their last song on the morn of the day That tore from their lives the last blossom of May. It is not the sunset that glows in the wine, But the smile that beams over it, makes it divine; I scatter these drops, and behold, as they fall, The day-star of memory shines through them all! And these are the last; they are drops that I stole From a wine-press that crushes the life from the soul, But they ran through my heart and they sprang to my brain Till our twentieth sweet summer was smiling again! THE OLD MAN DREAMS 1854 OH for one hour of youthful joy! Give back my twentieth spring! I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, Than reign, a gray-beard king. Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! Away with Learning's crown! Tear out life's Wisdom-written page, And dash its trophies down! One moment let my life-blood stream From boyhood's fount of flame! Give me one giddy, reeling dream Of life all love and fame. My listening angel heard the prayer, And, calmly smiling, said, "If I but touch thy silvered hair Thy hasty wish hath sped. "But is there nothing in thy track, To bid thee fondly stay, While the swift seasons hurry back To find the wished-for day?"