Falsehoods which we spurn today, were the truths of long ago

We meet todayTo thank Thee for the era done,And Thee for the opening one

Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!

How dwarfed against his manliness she sees the poor pretension, the wants, the aims, the follies, born of fashion and convention!

On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll; on plastic clay and leather scroll, man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, and lo! the Press was found at last!