"And the wreath that we break with our scattered band,
As it twines round the aged elm,—
Its fragments we'll keep with a sacred hand,
But the fragrance shall rise to them.
"So to-day we will dance right merrily,
An unbroken band, round the old elm-tree;
And they shall not ask for a greener shrine
Than the hearts of the class of '49."
Its grateful shade has in later times been used for purposes similar to those which Hutchinson records, as the accompanying lines will show, written in commemoration of the Rebellion of 1819.
"Wreaths to the chiefs who our rights have defended;
Hallowed and blessed be the Liberty Tree:
Where Lenox[44] his pies 'neath its shelter hath vended,
We Sophs have assembled, and sworn to be free."
The Rebelliad, p. 54.
The poet imagines the spirits of the different trees in the College yard assembled under the Liberty Tree to utter their sorrows.
"It was not many centuries since,
When, gathered on the moonlit green,
Beneath the Tree of Liberty,
A ring of weeping sprites was seen."
Meeting of the Dryads,[45] Holmes's Poems, p. 102.
It is sometimes called "the Farewell Tree," for obvious reasons.
"Just fifty years ago, good friends,
a young and gallant band
Were dancing round the Farewell Tree,
—each hand in comrade's hand."
Song, at Semi-centennial Anniversary of the Class of 1798.
See CLASS DAY.
LICEAT MIGRARE. Latin; literally, let it be permitted him to remove.