From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, NewYork: The Macmillan Company; 1925; p. 220.
THE GRADUATES
O where are now the graduates
Who left in June the college gates
In fifties and in forty-eights,
And those that swarmed from high school hives
By twenties and by twenty-fives,
All eager for to try their wings
And eke the sharpness of their stings?
We do not know where they have gone,
But this we know, when years have flown,
And gristle hardened into bone,
When they’re ground smooth where life’s wheels whir,
They will be what they thought they were.
Meanwhile they help to give us pep,
With this old world to keep in step.
If I my weight of years could shake,
Another trip through life to take,
I would not start where life began,
Nor be a boy with cheek of tan,
A-wearing father’s cut down clothes
With big stone bruises on my toes;
But I would choose a later date
And be a fresh young graduate.
The End of the e-text of:
Rude Rural Rhymes,
by
Bob Adams