"Fair Harvard" is the commencement hymn of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. Composed by the Reverend

The Reverend

The Reverend is a style most often used as a prefix to the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a...

 Samuel Gilman

Samuel Gilman

The Reverend Samuel Gilman was an American clergyman and author.He was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard University in 1811, and in 1819 was ordained pastor of the Unitarian church at Charleston, South Carolina which he continued to serve till his death.He was an active...

 of the class of 1811 for the university's 200th anniversary in 1836, it bids the school an affectionate farewell. Of its four verses, the first and fourth are traditionally sung and the second and third omitted. Its first line, which originally read "..thy sons to thy Jubilee throng", saw a small revision between 1997 and 1998 for gender inclusivity. (As a side effect of the change, the word throng, a verb in the original lyrics, has become a noun.)

The song's lyrics are as follows:

Fair Harvard! we join in thy Jubilee throng,

And with blessings surrender thee o'er

By these festival rites, from the age that is past,

To the age that is waiting before.

O relic and type of our ancestors' worth

That hast long kept their memory warm,

First flow'r of their wilderness! Star of their night!

Calm rising thro' change and thro' storm.

To thy bow'rs we were led in the bloom of our youth,

From the home of our infantile years,

When our fathers had warn'd, and our mothers had pray'd,

And our sisters had blest thro' their tears.

Thou then wert our parent, the nurse of our soul;

We were molded 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,

To what kindlings the season gives birth!

Thy shades are more soothing, thy sunlight more dear,

Than descend on less privileged earth.

For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime,

Thro' thy precincts have musingly trod,

As they girded their spirits or deepen'd the streams

That make glad the fair city of God.

Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!

To thy children the lesson still give,

With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,

And for right ever bravely to live.,

Let not moss-covered error moor thee at its side,

As the world on truth's current glides by

Be the herald of light, and the bearer of love,

Till the stock of the Puritans die.

The song is set to a traditional Irish air, best known in early 19th century America as Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms

Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms

"Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms" is a popular folk song of early 19th century Ireland and America. Irish poet Thomas Moore wrote the words to a traditional Irish air in 1808. His lyrics are as follows:**...

, a popular song whose lyrics were written by the Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 poet Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

. The tune is occasionally wrongly credited to Sir William Davenant, whose library may have been a source of the music for later publishers. (The tune is also a newer setting of My Lodging Is In The Cold, Cold Ground.) Horatio Alger, Jr.

Horatio Alger, Jr.

Horatio Alger, Jr. was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty...

, an 1852 graduate of Harvard's Divinity School, composed his Harvard Odes I-IV, and Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life....

 originally wrote the lyrics of the Tuskegee

Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

 Song, to the tune. The music also makes an appearance in the 1951 Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...

 animated cartoon Ballot Box Bunny

Ballot Box Bunny

Ballot Box Bunny is a 1950 animated Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short released in 1951, directed by Friz Freleng and written by Warren Foster.-Plot:...

 featuring Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

 and Yosemite Sam

Yosemite Sam

Yosemite Sam is an American animated cartoon character in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The name is somewhat alliterative and is inspired by Yosemite National Park...

, as well as in the opening bars of the 1982-83 #1 pop hit Come on Eileen

Come on Eileen

"Come On Eileen" was a single released by Dexys Midnight Runners in 1982. The song was written by Kevin Rowland, "Big" Jim Paterson, and Billy Adams; it was produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. It also appeared on the album Too-Rye-Ay...

 by Dexy's Midnight Runners.

External links

• Harvard University Band audio recording
• Background to the 1997/8 revision