w;
But laugh in the light of their memories bright,
And treasure them all for the morrow.
Then roll the song in waves along,
While the hours are bright before us,
And grand and hale are the towers of Yale,
Like guardians towering o'er us.

* * * * *

'Clasp ye the hand 'neath the arches grand
That with garlands span our greeting.
With a silent prayer that an hour as fair
May smile on each after meeting:
And long may the song, the joyous song,
Roll on in the hours before us,
And grand and hale may the elms of Yale
For many a year bend o'er us.'

Then standing in closer circle, they pass around to give, each to each,
a farewell grasp of the hand; and amid that extravagant merriment the
lips begin to quiver, and eyes grow dim. Then, two by two, preceded by
the miscellaneous band, playing 'The Road to Boston,' and headed by a
huge base-viol, borne by two stout fellows, and played by a third, they
pass through each hall of the long line of buildings, giving farewell
cheers, and at the foot of one of the tall towers, each throws his
handful of earth on the roots of an ivy, which, clinging about those
brown masses of stone, in days to come, he trusts will be typical of
their mutual, remembrance as he breathes the silent prayer: 'Lord, keep
our memories green!'

So end the college-days of these most uproarious of mirth-makers and
hardest of American students; and the hundred whose joys and sorrows
have been identified through four happy years, are dispersed over the
land. They are partially gathered again at Commencement, but the broken
band is never completely united. On the third anniversary of their
graduation, the first class-meeting takes place; and the first happy
father is presented with a silver cup, suitably inscribed. On the tenth,
twentieth, and other decennial years, the gradually diminishing band, in
smaller and smaller numbers, meet about the beloved shrine, until only
two or three gray-haired men clasp the once stout hand and renew the
remembrance of 'the days that are gone.'

'They come ere life departs,
Ere winged death appears.
To throng their joyous hearts
With dreams of sunnier years:
To meet once more
Where pleasures sprang,
And arches rang
With songs of yore.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: 'In the fourteenth century, Novella de Andrea, daughter of
the celebrated canonist, frequent