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[174] I would joy in your joy: let me have a friend's part
In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of heart,—
On your play-ground of boyhood unbend the brow's care,
And shift the old burdens our shoulders must bear.
Long live the good School! giving out year by year
Recruits to true manhood and womanhood dear:
Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty sent forth,
The living epistles and proof of its worth!
In and out let the young life as steadily flow
As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go;
And its sons and its daughters in prairie and town
Remember its honor, and guard its renown.
Not vainly the gift of its founder was made;
Not prayerless the stones of its corner were laid:
The blessing of Him whom in secret they sought
Has owned the good work which the fathers have wrought.
To Him be the glory forever! We bear
To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat with the tare.
What we lack in our work may He find in our will,
And winnow in mercy our good from the ill!
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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