Poem of the Day: ‘At Graduation 1905’

Between 1898 and 1905 — a teenager, still living at his St. Louis home — the young T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) studied at the Smith Academy, a college-preparatory school run by Washington University. And before he left for the Milton Academy in Massachusetts, then for Harvard, and then for Europe in 1910, he composed a graduation poem for his St. Louis classmates — a set of fourteen stanzas of six lines of pentameter, rhymed abbaab: all very formal, all very traditional.Except, perhaps, in the fact that the 16-year-old poet had produced a poem with few of the inspirational statements, the hortatory proclamations, that populate the endless run of graduation writing. “We go,” he notes, “like flitting faces in a dream. . . . / A bubble on the surface of the stream, / A drop of dew upon the morning grass.”Already present in the poem are the young Eliot’s studied poses in pagan fatalism, learned from his boyhood reading of Edward Fitzgerald’s 1859 “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” and his certainty that St. Louis is not his destiny, already sensing the “distant lands” to which “we may have gone.” Present too is at least an inchoate notion of life as a journey away and back: “The end of all our exploring,” as he would write forty years later in “Four Quartets,” “will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” And present as well is the earliest intimation of the need to search for beauty: Although the future bristles “with a thousand fears,” he notes, “To hopeful eye of youth it still appears / A lane by which the rose and hawthorn grow.”This is not the great poetry of modern failure that Eliot would write, from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” through “The Hollow Men,” nor the great poetry of modern hope that Eliot would write from “Ash Wednesday” through such work as “Murder in the Cathedral.” “At Graduation 1905” is, however, a talented boy’s take on the promise and the fear that mark departure from an alma mater — and thus a fitting poem with which to end The New York Sun’s week of graduation poetry.At Graduation 1905by T.S. EliotIStanding upon the shore of all we knowWe linger for a moment doubtfully,Then with a song upon our lips, sail weAcross the harbor bar — no chart to show,No light to warn of rocks which lie below,But let us yet put forth courageously.IIAs colonists embarking from the strandTo seek their fortunes on some foreign shoreWell know they lose what time shall not restore,And when they leave they fully understandThat though again they see their fatherlandThey there shall be as citizens no more.IIIWe go; as lightning-winged clouds that flyAfter a summer tempest, when some hasteNorth, South, and Eastward o’er the water’s waste,Some to the western limits of the skyWhich the sun stains with a many splendid dye,Until their passing may no more be traced.IVAlthough the path be tortuous and slow,Although it bristle with a thousand fears,To hopeful eye of youth it still appearsA lane by which the rose and hawthorn grow.We hope it may be; would that we might know!Would we might look into future years.VGreat duties call — the twentieth centuryMore grandly dowered that those which came before,Summons — who knows what time may hold in store,Or what great deed the distant years may see,What conquest over pain and misery,What heroes greater than were e’er of yore!VIBut if this century is to be more greatThan those before, her sons must make her so,And we are her sons, we must goWith eager hearts to help mold well her fate,And see that she shall gain such proud estateAnd shall on future centuries bestowVIIA legacy of benefits — may weIn future years be found with those who tryTo labor for the good until they die,And ask no other guerdon than to knowThat they have helpt the cause to victory,That with their aid the flag is raised on high.VIIISometime in distant years when we are grownGray-haired and old, whatever be our lot,We shall desire to see again the spotWhich, whatsoever we have been or doneOr to what distant lands we may have gone,Through all the years will ne’er have been forgot.IXFor in the sanctuaries of the soulIncense of altar-smoke shall rise to theeFrom spotless fanes of lucid purity,O school of ours! The passing years that rollBetween, as we press to the goal,Shall not have power to quench the memory.XWe shall return; and it will be to findA different school from that which now we know;But only in appearence ’twill be so.That which has made it great, not left behind,The same school in the future shall we findAs this from which as pupils now we go.XIWe go; like flitting faces in a dream;Out of thy care and tutelage we passInto the unknown world—class after class,O queen of schools—a momentary gleam,A bubble on the surface of the stream,A drop of dew upon the morning grass;XIIThou dost not die — for each succeeding yearThy honor and thy fame shall but increaseForever, and may stronger words than theseProclaim thy glory so that all may hear;May worthier sons be thine, from far and nearTo spread thy name o’er distant lands and seas!XIIIAs thou to thy departing sons hast beenTo those that follow may’st thou be no less;A guide to warn them, and a friend to blessBefore they leave thy care for lands unseen;And let thy motto be, proud and serene,Still as the years pass by, the word “Progress!”XIVSo we are done; we may no more delay;This is the end of every tale: “Farewell,”A word that echoes like a funeral bellAnd one that we are ever loth to say.But ’tis a call we cannot disobey,Exeunt omnes, with a last “farewell.”___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past, together with the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘At Graduation 1905’

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