I climbed the stair to Learning’s Hall,
Where thronged her votaries at her call,
And knowing it was she whose hand,
Should rule the Rulers of the land,
I thought to see around her crowd,
A train of Bookmen, heavy browed,
With faces stern and solemn eyes
To pierce through Nature’s last disguise.
Ah well! my dream was swept away,
Like mist at sunrise, by th’array
Of “sweet girl graduates,” fresh and fair,
In earnest council gathered there.
No helmed goddess, such as clove
The laboring head of thunderous Jove,
Shed fear adown the peopled aisles,
But “nods and backs and wreathed smiles,”
Welcomed the guest and banished awe;
And glancing at her face he saw
That Learning’s self was just the true
Composite of this happy crew;
Their hundred faces’ mingled grace
Evolving one seraphic face;—
In that one name I grasp the whole,
And read their mission in her soul.
She leads the Baby toward her alms
By chosen gifts and pleasant games,
This guide and playmate for the time,
Till strong her steeper paths to climb.
To growing youth she brings the lore,
Her prudence treasured up before;
The gift of Letters, and the power
Of rigid Reason in its hour;
The mystery that melts away
In keenness of her true x-ray
That guides through labyrinths of th’unknown
To Demonstration’s golden throne.
She brings the crystal key of heaven
That parts a dim starbeam to seven.
That write the story of their birth,
And how they shun or seek the earth;
She spans the blk and weighs the mass
Of utmost worlds that o’er us pass,
And prophesies the sure return
Of meteor streams that flash and burn.
In paths where crumbling comets fly,
Trailing their dust along the sky!
Descending from these airy flights,
Once more on solid earth she lights,
Explores the carbon pits and cliffs,
To read their pictured hieroglyphs
That tell how grew, as yet they grow,
Lush ferms a million years ago;
Unearths the burled troglodyte,
Who shared the cave-bear’s cheerless night;
Or, come to later ages, reads
The tale of Nimrod’s impious deeds,
In arrowy script on broken tiles,
Exhumed from Babel’s buried aisles.
But sweetest is the love she brings,
From breathing life and blooming things;
All plants the plodding savant claims,
And smothers under fatal names;
From stately cedars fair and tall,
To the low hyssop on the wall’
And bird and insect, fish and beast,
Soight through and through, from most to least;
And worthiest of all her role,
The lessons of the Heart and Soul,
And man’s miraculous crowning dome,
Divinely wrought for Wisdom’s home!
Come back, girl graduates, from the state
Of this impersonal aggregate.
And go your several ways to teach
The love all bequeathed to each,
And lead through Wisdom’s narrow way,
Your flocks to Heaven’s eternal day
Hand mit Ringen
