Who hath conquered death and hell;
Captive led captivity;
Always doing, all things well;
Giving us the victory!”
[My Schoolboy Days.]
The following poem was read at the forty-fifth anniversary of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. James Swaney, on January 11th, 1883. Mr. and Mrs. Swaney’s residence is not far from the site of the school house where Mr. Scott first went to school.
Dear friends and neighbors, one and all,
I’m pleased to meet you here;
’Tis fit that we should make this call
Thus early in the year.
That time flies rapidly along,
And hurries us away,
Has been the theme of many a song,
And it is mine to-day.
I stand where in my childhood’s days,
I often stood before,
But nothing meets my altered gaze
As in the days of yore.
The trees I climbed in youthful glee,
Or slept beneath their shade.
Have disappeared—no trace I see
Of them upon the glade.
The school house, too, which stood near by,
Has long since ceased to be;
To find its site I often try,
No trace of it I see.
The road I traveled to and fro,
With nimble feet and spry,
I cannot find, but well I know
It must have been hard by.
The pond where skating once I fell
Upon the ice so hard—
I lost my senses for a spell,
And hence became a bard—