CLASS ODE

We have followed four years at a free running pace, Yet the labor is not all our own;

For the motion of ages stirs in this place

Where the Harvard of this day has grown.

When the restless desire to envisage the truth

Made minutes less steadily flow,

We have thought of the great who discovered in youth

That Mortality's changes are slow.

So we chasten our libertine hope and abide

By the spirit infused in those walls;

And at parting we pause, then quicken our stride

Toward the toil of a nation that calls.

It is not for thy learning, nor wisdom, nor power,

Fair Harvard, we rise at thy name;

But our reverence springs, in the peace of this hour,

From the truth of thy symbolic flame.

To be read at the Sanders Theatre exercises at 11 o'clock this morning.