At a class reunion. By permission of, and by special arrangement with,
Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's works.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!
We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy, young jackanapes!—show him the door!
'Gray temples at twenty?'—Yes! white if we please;
Where the snowflakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!
Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,—you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,—
And these are white roses in place of the red.
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';
It's a neat little fiction,—of course it's all fudge.
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?—don't make me laugh.
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!
There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
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.'
And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,—
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,—
Just read on his medal, 'My country,' 'of thee!'