THE CREMONY TOAST.

NZ Truth, Issue 63, 1 September 1906, Page 5

THE CREMONY TOAST.

In America there is a club, the name of which is for the moment forgotten, which gives "jinks" that the greatest m that great land are willinrr to plead for a chance of attending;. Around its tables, on those occasions, gather the cream of America's intellect and fashion, and sayings, epigrams, flashes of wit thereat uttered become national forms of speech and. lines of thought., A few years back Colonel John C. ■.-Cremony, one of the club's: first members, originated the toast "May the Lord love us, and hot call for us too soon 1 ." And it was at a Christmas jinks sired by Dr. Chismore -that the : following poem, written by Ina D. -CoolbriGh, one of the few honorary -women members of the club, was read :

THE COLONEL'S TOAST. f-^Unto the little child, whose happy i heart bWrth dancing feet keeps merry time . and tune, '-When death comes, and the life plan I falls^ apart, k'Too soon,' we cry ; *Alas ! too soon'! too soon V youth, the dreamer, m whose I vision lies SLife, one long, splendid day of splenI did June, liWhHe Love, the great enchantress, i veils -his eyes, [Too soon the latest summons, all toosoon. • '"Even to the heart grown old with years and care, 'Whose song of life is set to saddest rune — Youth's shining • curls, and Age's ; thin, gray hair, Alike the cry. 'Too soon the call ; too soon ! ' • •'Oh Death ! Thou truest friend of this sad earth, Drawing our souls as draws the tides the moon ! When shall we know thee— not as Death, but Birth, . That gfand new life which may not 'be too soon ?

"We count the vacant chairs where used to sit

Dear friends with merry jest, and laugh and tune, Called hence— ah, question not the truth of it — •To us, but not to them, too soon, too soon !

"It must be that, from some diviner sphere. Back looking to earth's morn, and night, and noon, We yet shall say, 'Our world was fair and dear ; But. loving us, God might not call too soon.' "