And every manly game a virtue yields. 
    Fairness and self-control,
  Good-humour, pluck, and patience in the race,
    Will make a lad heart-whole
  To win with honour, lose without disgrace. 
    Ah, well for him who gains
  In such a school apprenticeship to life: 
    With him the joy of youth remains
  In later lessons and in larger strife!

V

  On Jersey’s rolling plain, where Washington,
  In midnight marching at the head
  Of ragged regiments, his army led
  To Princeton’s victory of the rising sun;
  Here in this liberal land, by battle won
      For Freedom and the rule
  Of equal rights for every child of man,
      Arose a democratic school,
  To train a virile race of sons to bear
  With thoughtful joy the name American,
  And serve the God who heard their father’s prayer. 
  No cloister, dreaming in a world remote
  From that real world wherein alone we live;
  No mimic court, where titled names denote
  A dignity that only worth can give;
  But here a friendly house of learning stood,
  With open door beside the broad highway,
  And welcomed lads to study and to play
  In generous rivalry of brotherhood. 
  A hundred years have passed, and Lawrenceville,
  In beauty and in strength renewed,
  Stands with her open portal still,
  And neither time nor fortune brings
  To her deep spirit any change of mood,
  Or faltering from the faith she held of old. 
  Still to the democratic creed she clings: 
  That manhood needs nor rank nor gold
  To make it noble in our eyes;
  That every boy is born with royal right,
  From blissful ignorance to rise
  To joy more lasting and more bright,
  In mastery of body and of mind,
  King of himself and servant of mankind.

VI

      Old Lawrenceville,
      Thy happy bell
      Shall ring to-day,
      O’er vale and hill,
      O’er mead and dell,
      While far away,
      With silent thrill,
      The echoes roll
      Through many a soul,
      That knew thee well,
      In boyhood’s day,
      And loves thee still.

      Ah, who can tell
      How far away,
      Some sentinel
      Of God’s good will,
      In forest cool,
      Or desert gray,
      By lonely pool,
      Or barren hill,
      Shall faintly hear,
      With inward ear,
      The chiming bell,
      Of his old school,
  Through darkness pealing;
  And lowly kneeling,
      Shall feel the spell
      Of grateful tears
      His eyelids fill;
      And softly pray
      To Him who hears: 
  God bless old Lawrenceville!

TEXAS

A DEMOCRATIC ODE [1]

I