Link to Full Almamater

[Robb]

IIRC, the chimes came to Cornell pretty early - before McGraw Tower.  I remember seing a picture of them in a temporary shelter on the Arts Quad that was only a story tall or so(while they were waiting for the tower to be built) - now THAT would have been a loud walk to class!

[pat]

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

BTW, I've been meaning to double-check the publication date of the Alma Mater, since I thought it pre-dated McGraw Tower and the Chimes, and yet the later verses seem to make reference to them...[/q]

I'll look for the notes I took when I looked this up umpteen years ago, but if I recall correctly, the first two verses were the extent of the alma mater for quite a while, and the other verses were written later.

Edit: I just looked in Bishop's History and it's three. I also just turned on my reading comprehension on Scersk's post. Mea culpa. (But shouldn't you be writing?!)

[pat]

[Q]Scersk '97 Wrote:

Also, the red song book, "Songs of Cornell," may have a fuller history than Bishop's.
[/q]

Songs has the abbreviated version of what's in Bishop, leaving out the bit about the next two verses. As an aside, my favorite passage from Bishop is farther down the page:

[q]
Of the Cadet Band's efforts at a public function [in 1872], the Ithaca Journal caustically reported: "At this time the Cadet Band played a few strains, but the principal strain was on the audience."
[/q]

[jtwcornell91]

For Saturday night:

Far above Cayuga's waters
With its waves of blue
Stands our noble Alma Mater
Glorious to view
Lift the chorus, speed it onward
Loud her praises tell
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail, all hail, Cornell!

Far above the busy humming
Of the bustling town
Reared against the arch of heaven
Looks she proudly down
Lift the chorus, speed it onward
Loud her praises tell
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail, all hail, Cornell!

Sentry-like o'er lake and valley
Towers her regal form
Watch and ward forever keeping
Braving time and storm
So through clouds of doubt and darkness
Gleams her beacon light
Fault and error clear revealing
Blazing forth the right

To the glory of her founder
Rise her stately walls
May her sons pay equal tribute
Whene'er duty calls
When the moments swiftly fleeting
Ages roll between
Many yet unborn shall hail her
Alma Mater, Queen!

In the music of the waters
As they glide along
In the murmur of the breezees
With their whispered song
In the tuneful chorus blending
With each pealing bell
One refrain seems oft repeated
Hail, all hail, Cornell

Here, by flood and foaming torrent
Gorge and rocky dell
Pledge we faith and homage ever
To our loved Cornell.
May time ne'er efface the memory
Of her natal day
And her name and fame be honored
Far and wide alway!

Note: I changed "away" to "alway", which is how I remember it, but I may be wrong.

[Beeeej]

Note: I changed "away" to "alway", which is how I remember it, but I may be wrong.

You're right.

[Trotsky]

As a aficionado of many (no, not all...) cultural things 19th century, holy shit is our song atrociously terrible.

The only thing worse would be any attempt updating it since about, I dunno, 1927.

So let it ring.

[BearLover]

As an aficionado of many (no, not all...) cultural things 19th century, holy shit is our song atrociously terrible.

It's a great song actually

[stereax]

For Saturday night:

Far above Cayuga's waters
With its waves of blue
Stands our noble Alma Mater
Glorious to view
Lift the chorus, speed it onward
Loud her praises tell
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail, all hail, Cornell!

Far above the busy humming
Of the bustling town
Reared against the arch of heaven
Looks she proudly down
Lift the chorus, speed it onward
Loud her praises tell
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail, all hail, Cornell!

Sentry-like o'er lake and valley
Towers her regal form
Watch and ward forever keeping
Braving time and storm
So through clouds of doubt and darkness
Gleams her beacon light
Fault and error clear revealing
Blazing forth the right

To the glory of her founder
Rise her stately walls
May her sons pay equal tribute
Whene'er duty calls
When the moments swiftly fleeting
Ages roll between
Many yet unborn shall hail her
Alma Mater, Queen!

In the music of the waters
As they glide along
In the murmur of the breezees
With their whispered song
In the tuneful chorus blending
With each pealing bell
One refrain seems oft repeated
Hail, all hail, Cornell

Here, by flood and foaming torrent
Gorge and rocky dell
Pledge we faith and homage ever
To our loved Cornell.
May time ne'er efface the memory
Of her natal day
And her name and fame be honored
Far and wide alway!

Note: I changed "away" to "alway", which is how I remember it, but I may be wrong.

Thanks! I mostly just remember the first line and a half, after which everyone drops off the face of the Earth with recollection 😅 so I'll keep this up!

[ugarte]

my only criticism is that closing multiple verses of the song BUT NOT THE FINAL VERSE with "hail, all hail cornell" is insanity

[jtwcornell91]

my only criticism is that closing multiple verses of the song BUT NOT THE FINAL VERSE with "hail, all hail cornell" is insanity

We discussed this earlier in the thread (like 20 years ago).  I stand by what I say then.

[ugarte]

my only criticism is that closing multiple verses of the song BUT NOT THE FINAL VERSE with "hail, all hail cornell" is insanity

We discussed this earlier in the thread (like 20 years ago).  I stand by what I say then.

i have no opinion on the transposition of the verses and am laughing at how this appears to be the first time in 20 years that keith and i agree on something

[pjd8]

From Songs of Cornell, copyright 1940 (price $2.00), which has the order of verses as above:

"The words of the Cornell Alma Mater were written early in 1872, through mutual suggestion, by Archibald Crosswell Weeks '72 and Wilmot Moses Smith '74, who then occupied rooms in the old Woodruff block on Tioga Street. Only the first two verses are customarily used; the other four are included here, in the version prepared by Mr. Smith for an edition published in 1900."

I am also reminded that it has been far too long since I smelled an old book.

From Morris Bishop's A History of Cornell, copyright 1962, pgs 139-140:

"As Weeks remembered: 'I proposed that we adapt a College Song to the music, and suggested the first two lines of the first verse; [Smith] responded with the third and fourth, I with the fifth and sixth and he with the seventh and eighth. The chorus was the result of mutual suggestion. . . . The next two verses were shortly afterward composed by me.'"

The footnote says that quote was from A.C. Weeks to George William Harris, 18 Jan. 1887.

There is no further mention of the Alma Mater in the index.

Books printed in 1989 don't smell nearly as good.

[Trotsky]

Every year during the last regular season home game, the "full" almamater is passed out and sung.  Does anyone know a link online, or where I can get the "full" version of the almamater?

Does the Cornell Anaphoric (?) Society still do this?

[andyw2100]

Every year during the last regular season home game, the "full" almamater is passed out and sung.  Does anyone know a link online, or where I can get the "full" version of the almamater?

Does the Cornell Anaphoric (?) Society still do this?

Pretty sure a printed version hasn't been distributed in at least fifteen years.

[jtwcornell91]

Every year during the last regular season home game, the "full" almamater is passed out and sung.  Does anyone know a link online, or where I can get the "full" version of the almamater?

Does the Cornell Anaphoric (?) Society still do this?

Pretty sure a printed version hasn't been distributed in at least fifteen years.

As it turns out, the lyrics were displayed on the giant video scoreboard, which was practical, even if it took away some of the challenge.