Classmates A-K
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows;
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven;
that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.
Alfred lord Tennyson, "Ulysses," Poems, 2 vol., Boston: W.D.Ticknor, 1842
It seems a hundred years or more
Since I, with note-book, ink and pen,
In cap and gown, first trod the floor
Which I have often trod since then;
Yet well do I remember when
With fifty other fond fanatics,
I sought delights beyond my ken,
The deep delights of Mathematics.
I knew that two and two made four,
I felt that five times two were ten,
I felt that five times two were ten,
But, as for all profounder lore,
The robin redbreast or the wren
The sparrow, whether cock or hen, Knew quite as much about Quadratics,
Was less confused by x and n,
The deep delights of Mathematics.
Robert Fuller Murray, "The Delights of Mathematics", The Scarlet Gown: Being Verses by a St. Andrews Man, 2nd ed., Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1909
There are places I remember
All my life tho' some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With Lovers and Friends I still can recall...
Some are dead and some are living
In my Life...I've Loved them All
