Included are…
1) Two pretty stanzas from the ten stanza poem “On Loch Katrine” from his first book of poetry (The Christmas Tree and Other Poems)
But not a ripple stirs the tide
Of Loch Katrine, the queenly lake,
As o’er its silvery face we glide,
Save those the highland oarsmen make.
The autumn evening lingering low,
Now hastens, ere the sun is set,
To fling its last expiring minaret.
2) One quatrain from a poem in his second book (Translations, Imitations, and a Few Originals). (A little moral included…)
Though scandal’s tongue is never mute,
One thought should always comfort bring:
‘Tis not the sour and crabbed fruit
That wasps delight the most to sting.
3) The entire poem that he wrote for his 50th reunion at Bowdoin (only published in this article. Not in either collection, according to the article’s writer). (I particularly like the first half of this one)
We’re half way through. So sang our odist when
The years gone by, like those to come, were twain,
And chose the happy phrase as fit refrain
To tell of years that ne’er should come again.
Since then we’ve more than halved the century;
But what of that? There’s still no dearth of time,
Nor will be while the patient aeons climb
Toward the top round of eternity.
Nay, what of that or this? A hundred years
It will be all the same to you and me,
Whether we pledge the passing century
In aqua pure or the cup that cheers;
For years will go, and lives will multiply,
With earth below and overhead the sky.
We’ve reached the goal where all ambitions cease;
And now mid shadows lengthening like our days,
A paen to this year of Jubilee we raise,
And sit us down in idleness and ease,
Life’s duties done, henceforth perennial peace
Is ours; and though not all our brows with bays
Are crowned, we fear not on the west to gaze,
Nor apples pluck of the Hesperides.
Since sad allusions hath our scribe forbade,
All sadness to the shades we’ll relegate,
And laugh amain, like him of old, whose mad
Guffaw, for all life’s ills was anodyne,
Whilst this long-looked-for day we consecrate,
With oft oblations of a classmate’s wine.
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