THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; Where mountains towered the billows sweep, Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, And build new empires from the deep. So while the floods of thought lay waste The proud domain of priestly creeds, Its heaven-appointed tides will haste To plant new homes for human needs. Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled The change an outworn church deplores; The legend sinks, but Faith shall build A fairer throne on new-found shores. POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned The hundredth circle of his yearly round, When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song? Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, I see in state the long procession pass Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, Still seen in front, as on that far-off day His ribboned baton showed the column's way. Not all are gone who marched in manly pride And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, These to be with us envious Time has spared. Few are the faces, so familiar then, Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; Scarce one of all the living gathered there, Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; Close at its side the pallid son of art, Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. Here is the patient scholar; in his looks You read the titles of his learned books; What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! For never thought but left its stiffened trace, Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, As the swift record of a raindrop stands, Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. On every face as on the written page Each year renews the autograph of age; One trait alone may wasting years defy,-- The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,-- _Non omnis moriar_ is its proud refrain. Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; He who should claim its honors is not there,-- Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,-- Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, Who for the altar bore the kindled torch To freedom's temple, dying in its porch.