"O star on the breast of the river,
O marvel of bloom and grace,
Did you fall straight down from heaven,
Out of the sweetest place?
You are white as the thought of the angel,
Your heart is steeped in the sun;
Did you grow in the golden city,
My pure and radiant one?
"Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven;
None gave me my saintly white;
It slowly grew in the blackness,
Down in the dreary night,
From the ooze of the silent river
I won my glory and grace;
While souls fall not, O my poet,
They rise to the sweetest place."
THE TWO SEALS[43]
By Professor George William Cook
Secretary of Howard University
Mr. Toastmaster and Friends:
Let me first thank the Committee and you all for your generosity in tendering me this evidence of good wishes and good will. It is stated in your invitation, "In honor of George William Cook, Secretary of Howard University"—a double compliment, at once personal and official. Surely it is an honor to find so many men of varied occupations and duties turning aside to spend time and money to express appreciation of one's character. Dull indeed must the creature be who cannot find gratitude enough to return thanks; for grateful minds always return thanks. To be direct I deeply feel the personal and non-official side of the compliment you pay me, but will you pardon me, gentlemen, if I confess that to compliment me as Secretary of Howard University touches me in a tender and vulnerable spot. "I love old Howard," and always have been and am now anxious to be in the team to tug at the administrative phase of Howard's movements. Accept then, my sincere thanks.
Now let us then turn aside in sweet communion as brothers to talk about our alma mater. Let us trace her from foundation to present eminence; re-affirm our family pledges and form resolutions new. Howard men will spring up with both money and spirit, not far in the future, when the mother's cry in want will be met with a generous hand from her sons and daughters. A little more time for preparation and accumulation; then will be the time when endowment will precede request for preferment. When black philanthropists can turn desert spots into oases of learning and build halls of culture, then will Howard be reaping the reward in her own harvest and justify her being in the great family of Universities.
Though I wax warm in sentiment, I crave your indulgence but for a short while, for I pledge you my honor, and I say it seriously, that there is an affection underlying my words that makes Howard but second in love to my wife and child. She has been a gracious mother to me, supplying my necessities and defending me in my adversities, for which I have ever sought with might and main to return loyalty and service. When I am referred to as a Howard man, I have an uplift in the consciousness of relationship and fealty to an institution which to honor is but to be honored.
Visible manifestations of thought and idea have ever marked the purposes of man. Monuments and cities but express precurrent mental objects. God, in His message to Moses, directed that a tabernacle be built and that it should be the sign of his pleasure and approbation, a veritable indwelling of the spirit of God. Living thought can be said to have habitation. Greek and Roman art, Egyptian architecture, Catholic grandeur, or Quaker simplicity, all speak some great and noble soul-moving and world-moving power. Within the temple area was centered the devotion of the Jew, both political and religious. The Hebrew theocratic system of government made it so. St. Peter's at Rome, no more nor less than St. Paul's at London, speaks of God and the mission of His son. The Mosque of Omar, Saint Sophia at Constantinople, point that Allah is God and Mohammed is His Prophet; the Taj-Mahal is at once the emblem and creation of love; the Sistine Chapel teaches the glories and joys of maternity and God incarnate in man. The Pan-American Building at Washington, the Carnegie Peace Building at The Hague, teach unity of mankind, and but heighten the angelic chorus of "Peace and good will to men."