GRADUATION POEMS

Angels

Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college
one winter, hauling a load of Herefords
from Hogtown to Guymon with a pint of
Ezra Brooks and a copy of Rilkeâ??s Duineser
.....

B H Fairchild

Cadet Grey: Canto Ii

I

Where West Point crouches, and with lifted shield
Turns the whole river eastward through the pass;
.....

Bret Harte

The Graduation Dress

I'M not kicking on expenses, now the sewing time commences,
I will buy chiffon and laces till they say they've got enough;
Sure her dress for graduation shall excite the admiration
Of the masses who behold her; it shall be the finest stuff.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

An Instructor's Dream

Many decades after graduation
the students sneak back onto
the school-grounds at night
and within the pane-lit windows
.....

Bill Knott

Song

At her Junior High School graduation,
she sings alone
in front of the lot of us--

.....

Eamon Grennan

Possessions Are Nine Points Of Conversation

Some people, and it doesn't matter whether they are paupers or millionaires, Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs. If they happen to own a 1921 jalopy, They look at their neighbor's new de luxe convertible like the wearer of a 57th Street gown at a 14th Street copy. If their seventeen-year-old child is still in the third grade they sneer at the graduation of the seventeen-year-old children of their friends, Claiming that prodigies always come to bad ends, And if their roof leaks, It's because the shingles are antiques. Other people, and if doesn't matter if they are Scandinavians or Celts, Think that anything is better than theirs just because it belongs to somebody else. If you congratulate them when their blue-blooded Doberman pinscher wins the obedience championship, they look at you like a martyr, And say that the garbage man's little Rover is really infinitely smarter; And if they smoke fifteen-cent cigars they are sure somebody else gets better cigars for a dime. And if they take a trip to Paris they are sure their friends who went to Old Orchard had a better time. Yes, they look on their neighbor's ox and ass with covetousness and their own ox and ass with abhorrence, And if they are wives they want their husband to be like Florence's Freddie, and if they are husbands they want their wives to be like Freddie's Florence. I think that comparisons are truly odious, I do not approve of this constant proud or envious to-do; And furthermore, dear friends, I think that you and yours are delightful and I also think that me and mine are delightful too.



.....

Ogden Nash

Cadet Grey

Canto I

I

.....

Bret Harte (francis)