A Song For The Centennial Celebration Of Harvard College 1836 by Oliver Wendell Holmes - Poem

A Song For The Centennial Celebration Of Harvard College, 1836 by Oliver Wendell Holmes

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!