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. 20 Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; 1 For a reunion of the class of '29 That war has tried in edge and temper; It writes upon its sacred seal omnes semper! 51 The priest's ubique It lends the sky a fairer sun That cheers our lives with rays as steady As if our footsteps had begun To print the golden streets already! The tangling years have clinched its knot Too fast for mortal strength to sunder; The lightning bolts of noon are shot; No fear of evening's idle thunder! Too late! too late! -no graceless hand Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor To rive the close encircling band That made and keeps us one forever! So when upon the fated scroll The falling stars have all descended, Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother: 'My children. Boys of '29. In pace. How they loved each other!'' 1867, 60 71 1867. O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had to be replaced by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of course filled up. (HOLMES.) See Morse's Life of Holmes, vol. i, pp. 17 and 231 232. For a reproduction of the portrait, see Scribner's Magazine, May, 1879. |