Classic Poem

Within these walls what voices break
The silence to the inward ear!
What memories rise and visions wake
Of friendly guides, of prophet, seer:

The forbears of our household name
Whose lives within our own we feel,
Who from the halls of Harvard came
And bore upon their hearts her seal.

Unbound by outgrown rite and creed,
Yet nurtured from a living past,
They dared to trust the Spirit's lead
Nor deemed its latest word the last.

Here be our holiest vows renewed,
Here be reconsecrate our powers;
The love of truth, the prayerful mood
That stayed the fathers still be ours!