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Title: A Song For The Centennial Celebration Of Harvard College
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes [
More Titles by Holmes]
FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1836
This song, which I had the temerity to sing myself (_felix auda-cia_,
Mr. Franklin Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little
too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It
was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the
popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively
ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found
in the record of the meeting.
WHEN the Puritans came over
Our hills and swamps to clear,
The woods were full of catamounts,
And Indians red as deer,
With tomahawks and scalping-knives,
That make folks' heads look queer;
Oh the ship from England used to bring
A hundred wigs a year!
The crows came cawing through the air
To pluck the Pilgrims' corn,
The bears came snuffing round the door
Whene'er a babe was born,
The rattlesnakes were bigger round
Than the but of the old rams horn
The deacon blew at meeting time
On every "Sabbath" morn.
But soon they knocked the wigwams down,
And pine-tree trunk and limb
Began to sprout among the leaves
In shape of steeples slim;
And out the little wharves were stretched
Along the ocean's rim,
And up the little school-house shot
To keep the boys in trim.
And when at length the College rose,
The sachem cocked his eye
At every tutor's meagre ribs
Whose coat-tails whistled by
But when the Greek and Hebrew words
Came tumbling from his jaws,
The copper-colored children all
Ran screaming to the squaws.
And who was on the Catalogue
When college was begun?
Two nephews of the President,
And the Professor's son;
(They turned a little Indian by,
As brown as any bun;)
Lord! how the seniors knocked about
The freshman class of one!
They had not then the dainty things
That commons now afford,
But succotash and hominy
Were smoking on the board;
They did not rattle round in gigs,
Or dash in long-tailed blues,
But always on Commencement days
The tutors blacked their shoes.
God bless the ancient Puritans!
Their lot was hard enough;
But honest hearts make iron arms,
And tender maids are tough;
So love and faith have formed and fed
Our true-born Yankee stuff,
And keep the kernel in the shell
The British found so rough!
[The end]
Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem: A Song For The Centennial Celebration Of Harvard College
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