Troy Centennial poem by George Lynde Richardson (1889)

(The title of the poem was cropped from the scan of the microfilm of the newspaper)

        The stanzas below were written by George Lynde Richardson, a teacher in the Troy high school, who has contributed in the Williams college publications many of the brightest pages in college literature:

A hundred years! O wondrous change

        From tiny seed to stately tree!

The lonely hamlet by the stream—

        The busy city, great and free;

The quiet, peaceful meadow-land—

        The crowded mart, the noisy street;

A by-way then, a highway now

        With ceaseless tread of countless feet.

A hundred years! Our fathers' thought,

        Our fathers' toil, our fathers' zeal,

A mighty labor now hath wrought,

        A greater promise doth reveal;

We see the fruitage of their hopes

        Their earnest effort, wisely planned,

Then onward! to our mightier task

        With keener thought, with stronger hand.

A hundred years! But not the end;

        'T is but one mile-post in the race.

No pause, no check—on! on! we pres,s

        The fleeting days slip by apace;

With this our watchword—God our guide,—

        Away with doubts, away with fears;

Thrice prospered may our city be

        When comes again one hundred years.

Troy Daily Times. January 5, 1889: 3 col 4.