Classic Poem

Princeton: Class Poem, 1917

The Spring comes down this way again
With footsteps like the fall of rain,
And garments changing like a mist
From sudden gold to amethyst.
She's taken to the road that wanders down
From Kensington to Morristown;
At Torresdale none saw her pass,
But oh, her footprint on the grass!
They say she'd scarcely smile in Trenton
But a little by each bole she'd leant on
Began to stir with tiny green;
And you can see that she has been
By Stony Brook, for through the mold
The heart-shaped violet leaves unfold,
And blades of white and violet
Show wherever her feet were set.

But Princeton is the place of places
Where first she lingers in her traces.
Flowers are many and grass is deep,
And all the ways are calm as sleep
And rich as a dream. There she stays
And half forgets to count her days.
Oh! Spring comes down these ways once more
Turning the wards on a precious store
Of balm and saffron, myrrh and nard,
Whose scent is spilt on every sward,
As once in Bethany they poured
A costly spice before our Lord.

But what of all the Princeton men
Who shall not come these ways again,
Or if they come, then not together
As in the old triumphant weather
When it was wealth but to behold
The blue sky fade to a sky of gold,
Then deepen to a richer blue
With points of gold just pricking through?
Oh! what of all the Princeton men
Who shall not know next April when
These elms and maples blend their shade,
And colors change, and the grass is laid
With snow-white petals instead of snow?
For Princeton men of all I know
Love best the way that leaves a friend
A trust to hold by to the end.
For Princeton men of all the earth
Know best the quiet ways of mirth.
They are not over good, nor yet
Dark with the things the good regret.
They never rise before the dawn
Or linger after midnight's gone,
Straining with curious brain and eyes
To grow inordinately wise.
But oh! the one essential truth,
The ancient carelessness of youth—
That holds life all but cheap unless
Wisdom is touched with kindliness.
For them there is one word—Farewell,
And after, silence.

Who can tell
Which shall achieve a heritage
Of quiet eyes and serene age
And come again and find these places
Fair with light of ghostly faces,
And try these walks till memory
Comes sweet as hidden harmony?
Or who shall lie ungarlanded
Where France lays dust upon her dead,
All thought laid by, their youth foregone,
Glad at the last, if but the dawn
Follow where night shows fugitive?
Such gifts as these no god could give,
And they fare well.

And what of her,
Now, then, and still our nurturer,
Our Lady of the Courts and Spires,
Crowned with the seven mystic fires,
The Three and Four which scholars hold
Of purer worth than sea-born gold.
There is no word a son can say
But wish her men like these alway.
For she—her ways are not as ours,
She sits above the tide of hours,
Life, death may take her sons, but she
Sits throned in that eternity
Where Love and Truth and Beauty are
Of lordlier brilliance than a star.