Poem of the Week
PotW.org
Founded August 1996
PotW #183
This Week's Poem

Past Poems...
...by Poet
...by Title and First Line
...by Occasion

Contact about...
...Free Subscription
...Submitting a Poem
...other Questions

The Fine Print...
...Copyright Information
...Page Mission
...Privacy Policy

Links to...
...other Poetry Sites


 

 

The Last Party
- Jesse H. Wilson, Jr.

    HERE'S to the end of the century, lads,
        Here's the end of our comradeship,
    Clench your trembling hands then, lads,
        Sing! and drink in good fellowship.

            [Tho' all foretell for good Cornell
                Fair, ever bright'ning days,
            Where's a sign of mine or thine
                Beyond our college days?]

    Bring us our mammoth rubicons
        While we sit at the self-same board;
    Oft we'll sit at lonely ones
        Where a single glass is poured.

            [The years have passed, God knows how fast,
                While we have been together;
            How will they stride when, far and wide,
                Apart we chafe the tether?]

    Poured to a silent standing toast,
        Drunk to dear old days gone by,
    Drunk on hill or plain or coast
        Till the last of the class shall die.

            [For who can read the fateful screed,
                Until it has unrolled,
            Who does not shrink nor ever think
                Of all it may enfold?]

    Here's to the end of the century, boys,
        Come drink to blunt your sorrow;
    Our yesterdays were daily joys,
        To-day is fraught with to-morrow.
    So it's drink, drink, drink,
        And never mind your vows,
    For he's a cad who stops to think
        At this our last carouse!

 


The above is the unofficial class poem for the Cornell University class of Nineteen Hundred. It first appeared in the Cornell Widow.

It can be found for example in:

  • Paget, R.L. Cap and Gown. Third Series. Boston: L.C. Page & Company, 1902.