Celebrating the Class of 2022

Hello everyone – 

This fortnight’s quotations are dedicated to all our listmembers who are receiving their academic degrees as members of the ACES James Scholar Diamond Jubilee Class of 2022 These are some of my all-time favorite pieces of poetical wisdom, packaged together just for our graduates.

“THE HIGHER LIFE” (1913)

By Madeline S. Brigham

 

There are royal hearts, there are spirits brave,

There are souls that are pure and true;

Then give to the world the best you have,

And the best will come back to you.

 

Give love, and love to your life will flow,

And strength in your utmost needs;

Have faith, and a score of hearts will show

Their faith in your work and deeds.

 

Give truth, and your gift will be paid in kind,

And a song a song will meet;

And the smile which is sweet will surely find

A smile that is just as sweet.

 

Give pity and sorrow to those that mourn,

You will gather in flowers again

The scattered seeds from your thoughts outborne,

Though the sowing seemed in vain.

 

For life is the mirror of king and knave,

‘Tis just what we are and do;

Then give to the world the best you have,

And the best will come back to you.

 

“Say Not, the Struggle Naught Availeth”

By Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

 

Say not, the struggle naught availeth,

The labor and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been, they remain.

 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase even now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

 

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the Sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

 

“We can never see the sunrise by looking toward the west.” – Traditional Japanese Proverb

 

“A Psalm of Life”

(What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist)

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream ! —

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

 

Life is real !   Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal ;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way ;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

 

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle !

Be a hero in the strife !

 

Trust no Future, however pleasant !

Let the dead Past bury its dead !

Act,— act in the living Present !

Heart within, and God overhead !

 

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time ;

 

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

 

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate ;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

 

Look out world -- here they come -- the Class of 2022, at the vanguard of the Phoenix Generation!

Rob 😊

The Earth as viewed from Apollo 17 in December 1972. (Photo Credit: Public Domain -- NASA)