class="i1">Adventurous spirit burning to explore
Untrodden paths where hidden danger lies,
And homesick heart looking with wistful eyes
Through every twilight to a mother’s door;
Thou daring, darling, inconsistent boy,
How dull the world would be
Without thy presence, dear barbarian,
And happy lord of high futurity!
Be what thou art, our trouble and our joy,
Our hardest problem and our brightest hope!
And while thine elders lead thee up the slope
Of knowledge, let them learn from teaching thee
That vital joy is part of nature’s plan,
And he who keeps the spirit of the boy
Shall gladly grow to be a happy man.
What constitutes a school?
Not ancient halls and ivy-mantled towers,
Where dull traditions rule
With heavy hand youth’s lightly springing powers;
Not spacious pleasure courts,
And lofty temples of athletic fame,
Where devotees of sports
Mistake a pastime for life’s highest aim;
Not fashion, nor renown
Of wealthy patronage and rich estate;
No, none of these can crown
A school with light and make it truly great.
But masters, strong and wise,
Who teach because they love the teacher’s task,
And find their richest prize
In eyes that open and in minds that ask;
And boys, with heart aglow
To try their youthful vigour on their work,
Eager to learn and grow,
And quick to hate a coward or a shirk:
These constitute a school—
A vital forge of weapons keen and bright,
Where living sword and tool
Are tempered for true toil or noble fight!
But let not wisdom scorn
The hours of pleasure in the playing fields:
There also strength is born,
And every manly game a virtue yields.
Fairness and self-control,
Good-humour, pluck, and patience in the race,
Will make a lad heart-whole
To win with honour, lose without disgrace.
Ah, well for him who gains
In such a school apprenticeship to life:
With him the joy of youth remains
In later lessons and in larger strife!
On Jersey’s rolling plain, where Washington,
In midnight marching at the head
Of ragged regiments, his army led
To Princeton’s victory of the rising sun;
Here in this liberal land, by battle won
For Freedom and the rule
Of equal rights for every child of man,
Arose a democratic school,
To train a virile race of sons to bear
With thoughtful joy the name American,
And serve the God who heard their father’s prayer.
No cloister, dreaming in a world remote
From that real world wherein alone we live;
No mimic court, where titled names denote
A dignity that only worth can give;
But here a friendly house of learning stood,
With open door beside the broad highway,
And welcomed lads to study and to play
In generous rivalry of brotherhood.
A hundred years have passed, and Lawrenceville,
In beauty and in strength renewed,
Stands with her open portal still,
And neither time nor fortune brings
To her deep spirit any change of mood,
Or faltering from the faith she held of old.
Still to the democratic creed she clings:
That manhood needs nor rank nor gold
To make it noble in our eyes;
That every boy is born with royal right,
From blissful ignorance to rise
To joy more lasting and more bright,
In mastery of body and of mind,
King of himself and servant of mankind.
Old Lawrenceville,
Thy happy bell
Shall ring to-day,
O’er vale and hill,
O’er mead and dell,
While far away,
With silent thrill,
The echoes roll
Through many a soul,
That knew thee well,
In boyhood’s day,
And loves thee still.
Ah, who can tell
How far away,
Some sentinel
Of God’s good will,
In forest cool,
Or desert gray,
By lonely pool,
Or barren hill,
Shall faintly hear,
With inward ear,
The chiming bell,
Of his old school,
Through darkness pealing;
And lowly kneeling,
Shall feel the spell
Of grateful tears
His eyelids fill;
And softly pray
To Him who hears:
God bless old Lawrenceville!
Who Follow the Flag
Phi Beta Kappa Ode
Harvard University
June 30, 1910
All day long in the city’s canyon-street,
With its populous cliffs alive on either side,
I saw a river of marching men like a tide
Flowing after the flag: and the rhythmic beat
Of the drums, and the bugles’ resonant blare
Metred the tramp, tramp, tramp of a myriad feet,
While the red-white-and-blue was fluttering everywhere,
And the heart of the crowd kept time to a martial air:
O brave flag, O bright flag, O flag to lead the free!
The glory of thy silver stars,
Engrailed in blue above the bars
Of red for courage, white for truth,
Has brought the world a second youth
And drawn a hundred million hearts to follow after thee.
Old Cambridge saw thee first unfurled,
By Washington’s far-reaching hand,
To greet, in Seventy-six, the wintry morn
Of a new year, and herald to the world
Glad tidings from a Western land—
A people and a hope new-born!
The double cross then filled thine azure field,
In token of a spirit loath to yield
The breaking ties that bound thee to a throne.
But not for long thine oriflamme could bear
That symbol of an outworn trust in kings.
The wind that bore thee out on widening wings
Called for a greater sign and all thine own—
A new device to speak of heavenly laws
And lights that surely guide the people’s cause.
Oh, greatly did they hope, and greatly dare,
Who bade the stars in heaven fight for them,
And set upon their battle-flag a fair
New constellation as a diadem!
Along the blood-stained banks of Brandywine
The ragged troops were rallied to this sign;
Through Saratoga’s woods it fluttered bright
Amid the perils of the hard-won fight;
O’er Yorktown’s meadows broad and green
It hailed the glory of the final scene;
And when at length Manhattan saw
The last invaders’ line of scarlet coats
Pass Bowling Green, and fill the waiting boats
And sullenly withdraw,
The flag that proudly flew
Above the battered line of buff and blue,
Marching, with rattling drums and shrilling pipes,
Along the Bowery and down Broadway,
Was this that leads the great parade to-day—
The glorious banner of the stars and stripes.
First of the flags of earth to dare
A heraldry so high;
First of the flags of earth to bear
The blazons of the sky;
Long may thy constellation glow,
Foretelling happy fate;
Wider thy starry circle grow,
