OUR FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

YOU have heard of the fellow called Ponce de Leon, A gay, flashing blade and a swift rolling stone - At least, in his youth, which he clutched at so long That he furnished all sorts of bad bards with a song.

Now Ponce was a wonderful man with the ladies, Well known to each stern old duenna of Cadiz.

Wherever he roamed in the fair land of Spain, Broken hearts and pinked rivals he left in his train.

He captured the dark senoritas at will; He wooed stately donnas successfully till— Well, he woke up one day with a terrible start And he knew that his youth had prepared to depart.

He saw in his mirror the tread of the crow, In that place near the eye—what it means we all know — And a silvery flash in his coal-colored hair Said: "Ponce, my boy, you're beginning to wear."

'Twas enough. All the horrors of age he foresaw, And the worst was the thought of that pitiless law That would make his flirtations a mock and a jeer And freeze up at last his impassioned career.

What to do? Well, he'd heard from an Indian slave Who'd been brought rather rudely from over the wave Of a marvelous spring in the south of a land Where the trees were bejewelled and gold was the sand.

One drink at this fountain, just one copious swig, Would compel e'en an octogenarian to jig:

While in moderate dose—quantum suff — every day It would plane all the car-tracks of time smooth away.

Then Ponce arose and he hired a ship, Took his dark friend along as a guide for the trip, Sailed and fumed and grew older for three months or more, Till at last stretched before him a long shining shore.

"Florida," he called it, it blossomed so. gay - Just the place for that magical spring; so away On the quest for the water of life Ponce went, And he sampled each spring near his wandering tent; Quaffed iron and sulphur and lithia and lime, Chalybeate and sodium and potash and slime.

He drank before breakfast, he drank in the night, He guzzled and guzzled until, in a fright, He found that a dropsy was swelling him up, And he vowed no more Florida water he'd sup.

He started for Spain without loss of a day And he died there in quite the conventional way.

So he failed? That proves nothing. He went too far South For the fountain of youth. Had he steered for the mouth Of a river the redskins called Quoneticott And ascended that flood by the mountains begot; Over falls and through valleys, past gorges and woods, Ever north till he beached his canoe and his goods Where a noble plateau reared its height from the stream, He were then within reach of fulfilling his dream; For back of that pine-fringe there bubbled in truth In a magical greensward the fountain of youth.

Ah, that fountain of youth on the plains that we love!

How it mirrored the green hills and blue sky above; How it sparkled and flashed in the newrisen sun; How it sent us refreshed, when our day there was done, Out into the world and its strife and its slips With remembrance still keeping its taste on our lips.

Once a year we grow thirsty, Round Table and all, And we gather together at somebody's call For a rousing great drink of that liquor of youth, And men from the North bring it down in good-sooth.— "Professors" they term themselves; that's but a name; Water-bearers to sons of old Dartmouth's their fame.

They tap the bright spring and they bottle the flow And they offer the brand of the loved long ago.

You may call it "four star'' or "three X" or "Grand Yin," You may drink it from goblet or beaker or stein — By some magical art ere it reaches the brain It's the stuff that makes all of us youngsters again.

The justice slides down with a whoop from the bench; The engineer kicks his best tools in the trench; The doctor gives pillules and patients a rest; The parson forgets the far realms of the blest; The lawyer quits chasing elusive "John Doe"; The pedagogue knows that there's no more to know; The congressman sends off his wreath for repairs; The broker locks up all his pet bulls and bears. And each mother's son, whether high, low or jack, Feels he's well shuffled up in this juvenile pack.

And there's one—he's a trump—who stands guard at the spring, Keeps its waters untainted, keeps each evil thing Away from that fountain of youth and of joy, With the brain of a seer and the heart of a boy.

"Old Prexy" they call him, but that doesn't count, He'll never be old while he lives by that fount.

And there's joy and affection and pride in the name, For we find that our Dartmouth is ever the same While his is the power to know and to see It's the old; it's the new; it's the Dartmouth to be.

The winter stars look on a little town; The trees on all the ridges bend their branches down As if to reach and bless the wondrous place Where men revive their strength for life's hard race.

Do we not see the picture, feel the thrill, Taste on our parching lips the water from that rill That in our springtime made the roses bloom And each worn, dingy quarters like Aladdin's room?

Ah, yes, we've drunk it; let its joys remain: Now for another year we're young again.

Read by Wilder Dwight Quint '87, at Annual Banquet of the Boston Alumni