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Show The Bugle of Memory. Up from the vale of Youth's morning, and on to the noon of Life's hills; Beyond them, and over, and downward down-ward to the purpling foothills of eve, Silvery, the voice of a bugle, rings out with a cadence that thrills The dreamer who truna in her wanderings, wan-derings, the doer who ceases to weave. Who can resist the commanding clear call to companions at arms! When Memory's lips touch the bugle, the heart moves to answer its calls, Lured by the song of the sunrise, the clarion peal that has charms To level Life's barrier of changes, and storm down its Jericho walls!. ' I Once again past the old portals, swung open with welcome that cheers, While Memory lets fall her bugle it has gathered the friends of the past, Gathered beneath the old roof-tree far off rave the winds of the years, Or wandering down lanes of remembrance remem-brance with joy that such fairness can last. There is no tree in this garden that beckons with chcarms that can cease, And there is no nook 'neath that roof-tree roof-tree Affection can seek and not find; There is no face of the Old-time, unlit by the Old-time's deep peace, Ah, hearts were not human to sigh not, recalling their youth left behind! be-hind! . I Yet, like . the shadow that renders the sunshine a thing of delight, And yet, like the minor chord sighing at Music's sweet apogee, Missed are the faces of dear ones and brave hearts who won the Good Fight. And silent the voices we harked to, heard only in Dreamland's low key; Shades of the being we loved so, and dust that we cherish with tears, O steal from the Land of the Spirit and walk down these lanes by our side. Almost we see you and hear you; touch now Life and Death's parted spheres, For Love's voice is calling, compelling, compell-ing, who says that our loved ones e'er died? Dear are. the living who link us with hearts that we loved in our youth, We are again the young children, and warm are the hands that we hold, Teach us again the old lessons of Faith that is deathless, and Truth, O, teach us again the high maxims as strong as the old world is old; Read from some book of our springtime, spring-time, for some of us must have forgot; Tell of the angels of childhood, their glory has faded for some. We are the children who listened, and this is the selfsame spot, Here where Love's miracles flowered for souls that were deaf, blind and dumb. Hark! to the blare of the bugle that warns of the Present that waits, And finished the tale in its telling, the tale that shall be as a creed. Slowly the portals ate swinging, and Life calls outside from the gates, Since that is our tragedy ever; our Edens forever recede. Like to the Mother Primeval, who looked back to Lost Paradise, " Through lengthening distance that made it, as far and as fair a3 a star, All of us turn in our parting to gladden our world-weary eyes. Ah, all of us turn in our parting where Childhood's sweet memories are. Mary Sullivan Spence,- '82, In Notre Dame Quarterly. |