"Alas! our dear Mother, we see on thy face
A shadow of sorrow to-day;
For while we are clasped in thy farewell embrace,
And pass from thy bosom away,
To part with the living, we know, must recall
The lost whom thy love still embalms,
That one sigh must escape and one tear-drop must fall
For the children that died in thy arms.
"But the flowers of affection, bedewed by the tears
In the twilight of Memory distilled,
And sunned by the love of our earlier years,
When the soul with their beauty was thrilled,
Untouched by the frost of life's winter, shall blow,
And breathe the same odor they gave
When the vision of youth was entranced by their glow,
Till, fadeless, they bloom o'er the grave."
A most genial account of the exercises of the Class Day of the graduates of the year 1854 may be found in Harper's Magazine, Vol. IX. pp. 554, 555.
CLASSIC. One learned in classical literature; a student of the ancient Greek and Roman authors of the first rank.
These men, averaging about twenty-three years of age, the best Classics and Mathematicians of their years, were reading for Fellowships.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 35.
A quiet Scotchman irreproachable as a classic and a whist-player.—Ibid., p. 57.
The mathematical examination was very difficult, and made great havoc among the classics.—Ibid., p. 62.
CLASSIC SHADES. A poetical appellation given to colleges and universities.
He prepares for his departure,—but he must, ere he repair
To the "classic shades," et cetera,—visit his "ladye fayre."
Poem before Iadma, Harv. Coll., 1850.
I exchanged the farm-house of my father for the "classic shades" of Union.—The Parthenon, Union Coll., 1851, p. 18.