The place has changed, you say, it seems
No longer as it did in yesterdays,
That wall is new, those stubbled lawns,
Once-shaded lanes where now the sunlight plays.
But come with me along the paths
Where you and I were wont to walk of old,
The dimly-quiet passage-ways
And tunnels framed by brick and marble cold;
I knew that scratch! And here's the groove
Along the which our youthful fingers ran,
Remembered chip from mellow stone -
These walls were old before our time began.
The silence softens pacing steps,
The muffled click of feet was just the same
When we as students wandered here.
May we be pardoned if we choose to claim
That we can hear forgotten words?
Or faces see that long ago were dust?
For though we leave the past remains;
In the unchanging may we place our trust;
And in these rooms, the quiet corridors,
Shall echo all the lives of long ago,
So we may pass without regret,
For all our years are frozen here, we know;
If we return in afterdays,
We'll close our eyes, and in the darkness see
The golden light is as it was,
And memory shall seem no more, but be.
