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From Poems of the Class of Twenty-nine [Harvard] HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? | |
If there has, take him out, without making a noise. | |
Hang the Almanacs cheat and the Catalogues spite! | |
Old Time is a liar! We re twenty to-night! | |
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We re twenty! We re twenty! Who says we are more? | 5 |
He s tipsy,young jackanapes!show him the door! | |
Gray temples at twenty?Yes! white, if we please; | |
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there s nothing can freeze! | |
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Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! | |
Look close,you will see not a sign of a flake! | 10 |
We want some new garlands for those we have shed, | |
And these are white roses in place of the red. | |
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We ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, | |
Of talking (in public) as if we were old: | |
That boy we call Doctor, and this we call Judge; | 15 |
It s a neat little fiction,of course it s all fudge. | |
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That fellow s the Speaker,the one on the right; | |
Mr. Mayor, my young one, how are you to-night? | |
That s our Member of Congress, we say when we chaff; | |
There s the Reverend What s his name?dont make me laugh! | 20 |
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That boy with the grave mathematical look | |
Made believe he had written a wonderful book, | |
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! | |
So they chose him right in,a good joke it was too! | |
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There s a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, | 25 |
That could harness a team with a logical chain; | |
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, | |
We called him The Justice, but now he s The Squire. | |
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And there s a nice youngster of excellent pith, | |
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, | 30 |
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, | |
Just read on his medal, My country, of thee! | |
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You hear that boy laughing?You think he s all fun; | |
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; | |
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, | 35 |
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! | |
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Yes, we re boys,always playing with tongue or with pen; | |
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men? | |
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, | |
Till the last dear companion drop smiling away? | 40 |
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Then here s to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! | |
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! | |
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, | |
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS. | |
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