Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN ANSWER; TO THE YALE CLASS OF 1861, by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN ANSWER; TO THE YALE CLASS OF 1861, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dear friends, ask not from me a song
Last Line: Shall bless the world of humankind.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew
Subject(s): Yale University


DEAR friends, ask not from me a song:
The singing days to spring belong,
And in our hearts, as in this clime,
Spring has long turned to summer-time.
The morning dreams have fled afar,
When every dew-drop held a star:
The broad, full noon is here -- till even
The stars have drawn away to heaven.

With you 't is June; and rosebuds blush,
And golden sunsets glow and flush:
While every breeze, with Psyche wings,
Wafts promise of immortal things;
And every shower of perfumed rain
Brightens to rainbow hope again.
'T is meet that in that fragrant air
Your songs defy old Time and care,
While overhead the elms shall swing,
And hand to hand old friendships cling:
Ah, sweet and strong your voices ring!

But here, upon the planet's verge,
The grassy velvet turns to serge:
No shower has wet the hillocks sere
Since April shed her parting tear.
The poppies on the hill are dead,
And the wild oat is harvested:
The canyon's flowers are brown with seed,
And only blooms some wayside weed.
No leafy elms their shadows throw,
No moist and odorous breezes blow;
But all the bare, brown hills along
The ocean wind sweeps sad and strong.
Then ask not, friends, from me a song!

Yet think not that this sombre strain
Would, dear old friends, of fate complain.
Though spring has gone, and singing days,
The sunshine, and the starshine, stays.
If no more bloom the hillsides yield,
The tented sheaves are in the field:
The tawny slopes are sending down
Their harvest loads to farm and town.
If early spring-time fled with tears,
Yet earlier harvest-time appears.
And if far off, as in a dream,
I see your merry faces beam,
And if far off, as through the deep,
I hear your songs their cadence keep,
I know 't were childishness to weep.

For all the time is grand indeed!
And whether June bring flower or seed --
And whether softest breezes blow,
Or ocean's organ-music flow,
Not backward only turn our eyes,
But forward, where along the skies
The brighter dawn-lights break and rise.
For all the love these years have stored
Wells up to manlier deed and word.
The nerveless grasp of girlish youth
Grips now the banner staff of truth;
The careless song, half sung, rings out
Changed to a mighty battle-shout;
And we that kept our holiday
With wine and fragrant mists and play,
Shall yet, perchance, even such as we,
Fulfill our half-heard prophecy.
The vision we but half divined,
Wrought out with steadier heart and mind,
Shall bless the world of humankind.





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