University of Virginia Library

---

99

Ode on a Remote Perspective View of Princeton College

The expanse above no cloud deforms,
No mists obscure the day;
So, mounting to this hill of storms,
We take our social way.
Amanda shall partake the Glass
To observe the seniors as they pass,
Who toiling for the first degree
The time is come that sets them free,
Dispersive of the class.

Where Millstone's stream, in swampy Groves
Collects its limpid rills,
And where the infant current roves
Amidst its parent hills,
The Hill of pines exalts its head,
And towering near the River's bed,
Gives many a distant sky-topt view
In coloured heights of misty blue
In wild disorder spread.

Among the rest, but far remote,
We Princeton's summit scan,
And verdent plains which there denote
The energies of man:
By aid of art's Perspective Glass
O'er many a woody vale we pass;
The glass attracts, and brings more near
What first, to naked vision here,
Seem'd a chaotic mass.

And there we trace, from far displayed,
The muses favorite seat,
And groves, within whose bowery shade
The Sons of science meet.

---

100

Devotion to her altars calls
In plainly decorated halls—
Those walls engage the Athenian muse
Where Science, still, her course pursues—
Those venerated walls!

In Galen's art, who took the lead,
That Pile was seen to rear,
And some who preach and some who plead,
First courted Science there—
To meliorate the human soul,
The fiercest passions to control,
Is the great purpose there designed,
Where Merit never failed to find
The diplomatic Roll.

Departed days shall we recall
Or cancel half an age
When governed, once, at Nassau Hall
The Caledonian Sage
His words still vibrate on my ear
His precepts, solemn and severe,
Alarmed the vicious, and the base,
To virtue gave the loveliest face
That human-kind can wear.

From distant soils, and towns remote,
Attracted by his name,
And some by land, and some afloat,
The eager Students came.
Each swarming hive was on the wing
To taste his deep Pierian spring,
And round the LAMP, that near it hung,
While sense and reason yet were young
They strove to merit fame.

What years on years have stole away
Since, mirthful, there were seen

---

101

The Students of a former day
Diverting on the Green!—
Before Columbia struck the blow
That humbled Britain's legions low;
When Washington was scarcely named,
Nor Independence, yet, proclaimed
To mark her for a foe.

When Christmas came, and floods congeal
And keen northwesters blew,
Adown the ice on springs of steel
The sprightly Juniors flew:
They left the page of Grecian lore,
Ceased Nature's wonders to explore,
And gliding on the glassy plain,
At Morven's grove they paused—again
Lost vigour to restore.

Ah, years elapsed, and seasons gone;
And days forever fled,
When hymns were sung at early dawn,
And sacred Lectures read!
Still Fancy hears the midnight prayer,
Monitions mild—when, free from care,
When smit with awe, the attentive train
Renounced the world, or owned it vain
With penitential tear.

With pensive step, amidst those hills
Who, now, are seen to stray,
Where Stony Brook or Scudder's Mills
Engaged some vacant day?
What favourite Laura trips the lawn,
Enamoured of the classic gown,
Now claims acquaintance with the Muse,
And half avoids, or half pursues
Some Petrarch from the town?

---

102

Farewell ye shades, farewell ye streams
That will for ages flow,
Where other minds plan other schemes
For consequence below!
This tube displays where, with the rest,
On Euclid's page not over blest,
We closed our Books, forgot our cares,
To stray where Rocky Mountain rears
His weather-beaten crest.