Our tears of tender adolescence have long since dried.
We worshipped at that altar of wisdom and tried
To understand the highest planes of life's reality.
Some without fear, yet with hope and humility.
We return to that place of tightly knotted youth
Where the flaming torch of ideas in a matrix of truth
Swirled painfully around in a maze of measured learning
An anxious puzzlement set ambition quietly burning.
There, the bards, great men, the saints and venerable sages
Leaped from ages past; from tones with yellowed pages
And become etched in some secluded cranial nooks
As we learned from doing, not only from books.
We return to that place wiser in consumed years,
Seasoned by relentless days (decades) and conquered fears.
There we learned of dignity, values, and other honored decrees
That have strengthened life voyages on heavy seas.
The halls became rubble, and are now destoryed and gone.
But always to remain photographs etched on polished stone
In the eyes of the mind, cherished, beautiful to behold.
Though dead, the pictures permit precious memories to unfold.
Forever.
Ritten Edward Lee, Class of '43
*This poem was written originally for the 25th anniversary meeting of the Class of 1943 that took place on July 4 and 5, 1967, at Lincoln School, Marion, Alabama. It has been altered ever so slightly with a fifth verse added.