From these stone walls so cold and gray

There come the voices from the past

The sounds of joy and sadness from days of old

When a nation had its image cast

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Within these walls so old

We can hear the sounds of life anew

The first cries of a newborn child

Cries, which faded before our nation grew

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We hear the sounds of nature too

The wind that whistled through the trees

As drafts of falling snow around them grew

The sights of spring one sees

When Mother Nature did her land renew

The first peepers of the spring

As their melody of a bygone day did sing

The honking geese as on a never-ending flight they wing

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We may but search these ancient walls

To have a talk with God from long ago

An outstretched hand from great and small

Grasped God in search of the way to go

God heard the talk from this bygone day

And reached forth this hand to guide the way

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We hear the sounds of its axe ring out

For here beneath these crushing blows

A mighty tree must fall

The plodding oxen will break its earth

And waving fields of wheat and corn will grow

These sights and sounds as not for just today

For they will never fade away

Those who broke the soil that day

Have passed as spring to fall

And their labor yet remains

A silent tribute to them all

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We hear the sounds of life here too

The children’s laughter rings from wall to wall

For here they played with toys long gone

And ran a race long won

But yet the sounds will always stay

To remind us of the young of yesterday

Here too we hear the sounds of greater age

With wise advice for one and all

The old had run their race both long and well

And now these old walls their stories too must tell

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We hear the sounds of peace and war

The clash of steel

The muskets roar

But these too must fade away

And there dawns another day

The hand and mind must turn to other things

To plow the fields, to milk the cow

To rebuild those things destroyed

And do the thousand things yet undone

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