Is dry land now where grain or grass
Is growing year by year;
I see the spot, as oft I pass,
No ice nor pond is there.
A barn is standing on the spot
Where once the school house stood;
A dwelling on the playground lot,
A cornfield in the wood.
I mourn not for these altered scenes,
Although it seems so strange
That all are changed; I know it means
That everything must change.
I mourn the loss of early friends,
My schoolboy friends so dear;
I count upon my fingers’ ends
The few remaining here.
In early youth some found their graves,
With friends and kindred by;
While some beneath the ocean’s waves
In dreamless slumbers lie;
While many more, in distant lands,
No friends nor kindred near,
Are laid to rest by strangers’ hands,
Without one friendly tear.
A few survive, both far and near,
But O! how changed are they!
Like the small band assembled here,
Enfeebled, old, and gray.
Strange feelings rise within my soul,
My eyes o’erflow with tears,
As backward I attempt to roll
The flood of by-gone years.
This honored pair we come to greet,
For five-and-forty years
Through winter’s cold and summer’s heat,
Have worn the nuptial gears.
The heat and burden of the day
They honestly have borne,
Until their heads are growing gray,
Their limbs with toil are worn.