Classic Poem

Such musky smell of maiden night!
Such bridal bough, like orange tree!
Such wondrous stars! Yon lily moon
Seems like some long-lost afternoon!

More perfect than a string of pearls
We hold the full days of the year;
The days troop by like flower girls,
And all the days are ours here.
Here youth must learn; here age may live
Full tide each day the year can give.

No frosted wall, no frozen hasp,
Shuts Nature's book from us today;
Her palm leaves lift too high to clasp;
Her college walls, the milky way.
The light is with us! Read and lead!
The larger book, the loftier deed!