~ by Charles A. Coulombe
[To New Mexico Military Institute]
The lads with whom I drank my wine,
when all the world seemed grand and fine,
In the days when we were young,
before our youth on life was hung
Have scattered now throughout the world,
their manhood’s standards with joy unfurled.
Some have followed Venus, some love Mars,
some for business, and its paper wars.
But once commerce and affairs of state
could not with drinking songs quite rate.
We told our secrets of love and horror
and ran the case with collegiate ardor.
Drinking and eating o’er a filled-up table,
the greatest was he with the finest fable.
Although we none of us, yet, are old,
we can feel age’s cold.
And nothing seems as it did appear
before the rush to build career.
When all the world seems strange and odd,
for that time, I thank my God,
when the world seemed grand and fine,
to the lads and me, as we drank our wine.
Image Credit – Original art by Charles A. Coulombe