Classic Poem

Just fifty summers are past,
And fifty winters of snow,
Since you, our friends, first joined your bands
In wedlock, for weal or woe.

'Twas a quiet New England town,
On a quiet Autumn day,
The sunshine came like a blessing down,
And the winds were soft as May.

From the meadows shorn and brown,
No more came the mower's din,
For the summer fruits and the golden sheaves,
From the hillside were gathered in.

The maples were tinged with crimson hues,
The linden and ash with gold,
As silver tinges the human hair,
When we are growing old.

Then a merry company
Were gathered of old and young,
And the parson gave his blessing in prayer,
And the marriage psalm was sung.

And that wedding company
Went out to meet no more;
Some wandered far, and all, save one,
Have passed to the shadowy shore.

And now when fifty years
Have rolled their suns away,
A merry company are met
On the golden wedding day.

'Tis far away from the scene
In that quiet New England town,
But the sunlight falls like a blessing here,
And the same heaven looks down.

In those fifty years what blessings
Have crowned each passing day;
The unseen hand of the Merciful One
Has led you all the way.

And sons and daughters were born,
To gladden and cheer your home;
Your sons with manly vigor and strength;
Your daughters, with beauty and bloom.

And then as the years rolled on,
The prattling grand-children appear.
Ah, methinks that a golden wedding day
Without them, were cold and drear.

If yours is not wealth or power, —
These fall to the lot of few —
The better rewards of dutiful toil
And goodness belong to you.

Such lovely examples as yours,
At the plow, the shop and the wheel,
And the rearing of children to dutiful lives,
Are the stay of the common weal.

'Tis not the wealthy and proud;
'Tis not whom the world calls great,
But an earnest people who will to be free;
That build and support the State.

Thus our nation in fifty years
Has passed o'er the mountains's hoar,
And reared her swarming cities and towns
By the broad Pacific shore.

Till she grasps the mighty oceans,
That wash the shores of the globe;
And people of every clime and land,
Find shelter beneath her robe.

What a wonderful march of thought
Those fifty years have known,
How the comforts of life have multiplied,
And science and knowledge grown.

What engines of mighty power,
What nice invention and skill,
Dull lifeless matter have seemingly forced
To work with a human will.

And how many plans and hopes,
How many devices of men.
Have vanished like morning dreams away,
In the years, 'twixt now and then.

What myriads have sprung to life
And what myriads have passed away,
A vast procession hast'ning along,
Like a river on its way.

Ten lustrums ago the cloud
Of war hung over our shore;
But a darker cloud hangs over us now,
Than the land ever saw before.

But light is breaking through,
And the dawn of peace is at hand,
Which shall make this truly the home of the free
A great and happy land.

For the onward sweep of war,
That bears us along like a wave,
Is breaking the bands of the master's power
And the fetters of the slave.

May you live to see that day;
May your aged eyes behold,
Over all this fair and goodly realm,
The flag of the free unrolled.