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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,

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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.

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