Centennial.

A hundred times the bells of Brown
    Have rung to sleep the idle summers,
And still to-day clangs clamouring down
    A greeting to the welcome comers.

And far, like waves of morning, pours
    Her call, in airy ripples breaking,
And wanders to the farthest shores,
    Her children's drowsy hearts awaking.

The wild vibration floats along,
    O'er heart-strings tense its magic plying,
And wakes in every breast its song
    Of love and gratitude undying.

My heart to meet the summons leaps
    At limit of its straining tether,
Where the fresh western sunlight steeps
    In golden flame the prairie heather.

And others, happier, rise and fare
    To pass within the hallowed portal,
And see the glory shining there
    Shrined in her steadfast eyes immortal.

What though their eyes be dim and dull,
    Their heads be white in reverend blossom;
Our mothers smile is beautiful
    As when she bore them on her bosom!

Her heavenly forehead bears no line
    Of Time's iconolastic fingers,
But o'er her form the grace divine
    Of deathless youth and wisdom lingers.

We fade and pass, grow faint and old,
    Till youth and joy and hope are banished,
And still her beauty seems to fold
    The sum of all the glory vanished.

As while Tithonus faltered on
    The threshold of the Olympian dawnings,
Aurora's front eternal shone
    With lustre of the myriad mornings.

So joys that slip like dead leaves down,
    And hopes burnt out that die in ashes,
Rise restless from their graves to crown
    Our mother's brow with fadeless flashes.

And lives wrapped in traditions mist
    These honoured halls to-day are haunting,
And lips by lips long withered kissed
    The sagas of the past are chanting.

Scornful of absence' envious bar
    BROWN smiles upon the mystic meeting
Of those her sons, who, sundered far,
    In brotherhood of heart are greeting;

Her wayward children wandering on
    Where setting stars are lowly burning,
But still in worship toward the dawn
    That gilds their souls' dear Mecca turning;

Or those who, armed for God's own fight,
    Stand by His Word through fire and slaughter,
Or bear our banner's starry light
    Far-flashing through the Gulf's blue water.

For where one strikes for light and truth,
    The right to aid, the wrong redressing,
The mother of his spirit's youth
    Sheds o'er his soul her silent blessing.

She gained her crown a gem of flame
    When KNEASS fell dead in victory gory;
New splendour blazed upon her name
    When IVES' young life went out in glory!

Thus bright for ever may she keep
    Her fires of tolerant Freedom burning,
Till War's red eyes are charmed to sleep
    And bells ring home the boys returning.

And may she shed her radiant truth
    In largess on ingenuous comers,
And hold the bloom of gracious youth
    Through many a hundred tranquil summers!