[From Canal Boy to President by Horatio Alger, Jr.]@TWC D-Link bookFrom Canal Boy to President CHAPTER XVII 5/6
It is entitled "MEMORY. "'Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. No light gleams at the window save my own, Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes, And leads me gently through her twilight realms. What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung, Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed The enchanted, shadowy land where Memory dwells? It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear, Dark-shaded by the lonely cypress tree. And yet its sunlit mountain tops are bathed In heaven's own blue.
Upon its craggy cliffs, Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, Are clustered joys serene of other days; Upon its gently sloping hillside's bank The weeping-willows o'er the sacred dust Of dear departed ones; and yet in that land, Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore, They that were sleeping rise from out the dust Of death's long, silent years, and round us stand, As erst they did before the prison tomb Received their clay within its voiceless halls. "The heavens that bend above that land are hung With clouds of various hues; some dark and chill, Surcharged with sorrow, cast their sombre shade Upon the sunny, joyous land below; Others are floating through the dreamy air, White as the falling snow, their margins tinged With gold and crimson hues; their shadows fall Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, Soft as the shadows of an angel's wing. When the rough battle of the day is done, And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, I bound away across the noisy years, Unto the utmost verge of Memory's land, Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, And Memory dim with dark oblivion joins; Where woke the first remembered sounds that fell Upon the ear in childhood's early morn; And wandering thence along the rolling years, I see the shadow of my former self Gliding from childhood up to man's estate. The path of youth winds down through many a vale, And on the brink of many a dread abyss, From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, Save that a phantom dances o'er the gulf, And beckons toward the verge.
Again, the path Leads o'er a summit where the sunbeams fall; And thus, in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along." During the year 1856 young Garfield was one of the editors of the college magazine, from which the above extracts are made.
The hours spent upon his contributions to its pages were doubtless well spent. Here, to use his own words, he learned "to hurl the lance and wield the sword and thus prepare for the conflict of life." More than one whose names have since become conspicuous contributed to it while under his charge.
Among these were Professor Chadbourne, S.G.W.Benjamin, Horace E.Scudder, W.R.Dimmock, and John Savary.
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