to formal occasions like commencements and alumni reunions, not to athletic rallies and contests. FAIR HARVARD Fair Harvard! thy sons to thy jubilee throng O relic and type of our ancestors' worth That has long kept their memory warm, To thy bowers we were led in the bloom of our youth When our fathers had warned, and our mothers had prayed, Thou then wert our parent, the nurse of our souls; We were moulded to manhood by thee, Till freighted with treasure-thoughts, friendships, and hopes, Thou didst launch us on Destiny's sea. When, as pilgrims, we come, to revisit thy halls, For the good and the great in their beautiful prime Farewell, be thy destinies onward and bright! With freedom to think, and with patience to bear, Let not moss-covered error moor thee at its side Rev. Samuel Gilman (1791-1858) The hymn is probably the one kind of song which has lost nothing of its original importance in an age when poems are coming more and more to be read rather than sung. Yet, although there are a few hymns of great poetic beauty, it is a strange fact, admitted by every one, that most hymns have no poetic merit. This is partly explained by the fact that most hymns are written not by poets, but by ministers, who are naturally more concerned with the teaching of a moral than with the poetic expression of a great emotion. We should also remember that while inferior secular songs die a natural death, thousands of poor hymns are preserved in the hymnals. The great hymn is usually the product of a religious awakening such as that led by Whitefield and the Wesley brothers in the eighteenth century. greatest hymn of modern times, it seems to us, is Cardinal Newman's "Lead, Kindly Light." The hymn reflects the doubt and gloom through which Newman, the leader of the Oxford Movement, passed before he attained faith and peace. The only serious defect in the poem when judged as a song is that there are too many "run-on" lines; there ought to be a pause at the end of each line. The LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT Lead, kindly light, amid th' encircling gloom, The night is dark, and I am far from home; Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou I loved to choose and see my path; but now I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till And with the morn those angel faces smile, Unlike the love song, the patriotic song is not the expression of the emotion of a single individual; like the hymn, it is the expression of the feeling of the crowd. Just as most hymns are written during a time of strong religious feeling, so most patriotic songs are written in war-time; for it is war, not peace, which calls out the passionate love of country. The great national song cannot be made to order; it must await the conjunction of the man and the hour, and, curiously enough, it is almost never the work of a great poet. Great writers like Wordsworth and Milton stand too far apart from the crowd to write representative national songs. Who can recall off-hand the authors of "America," "The Watch on the Rhine," and "Dixie"? The American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was written not by a Poe, a Longfellow, or a Whitman, but by a Baltimore lawyer named Francis Scott Key, who is known for nothing else. The poem was written during the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British in 1814. Key, who had gone aboard the British fleet under a flag of truce to see a friend, was detained, and thus came to witness the bombardment during the night. In the morning he looked anxiously to see if the Stars and Stripes was still waving. Key wrote the poem immediately and set it to an English air, "To Anacreon in Heaven." Both the air and the poem are difficult to sing; for the music has a wider compass than the average voice, and the lines are full of heavy unstressed syllables and difficult combinations of consonants. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the clouds of the fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there; Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave? Chorus: Oh, say, does the Star-Spangled Banner yet wave On that shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep, And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country they'd leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From terror of flight or the gloom of the grave; And the Star-Spangled banner in triumph doth wave Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home, and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the Power that made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!” And the Star-Spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Francis Scott Key (1780-1843) "America" was written in 1832 by Samuel Francis Smith, a Baptist minister and a classmate at Harvard of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Until after he had written the |