Vault Early Papers of the University Box 2 Document 10

STANZAS Written on the occasion of laying the Corner-stone of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.

Joy, shout for joy, ye everlasting hills! That travel down the long Isthmean way. 'Till Ande's giant bosom inly thrills With all the gladness yours have felt to-day; Ye Muses Nine, Oh, wheresoe'er you stray, By Isis, or Illysus sacred stream, Or where the Cam's or Rhine's bright waters play, Or Seine's or Tiber's ever darkly gleam: Haste, hither haste, O, haste! on morning's earliest beam.

And you, ye spirits of the great and good, Who still have raised the beacon lights of time, And built those noble arks which stemmed the flood Of ignorance and wrong in every clime Be with us at this holy hour of prime Hear love's impassioned, grateful, filial call, You left to us a heritage sublime; Tis all we have and 'tis a glorious all, The "Scala Sacra", we ascend (up) the eternal hall.

Divinest Plato, of the immortal thought. Winging the circuit of celestial mind, At Truth's eternal fount, hast thou forgot Thy own Athena? Not alone enshrined In the Parthenon now, but unconfined, Freely her flight she takes to every shore, And here to-day her helmet hath resigned, Where erst the Indian Chief his war-plume wore, To plant the olive-branch to bloom forever more.

On this bright continent dissevered far, From thy lov'd Hellas, by immeasured seas, Oh, Stagirite, recall thy mundane star, A lovelier Attica, a fairer Greece, Arcadias deeper, richer in sweet peace, Invite thy mighty genuis to their shades: Better Crotonas and Eleas these, Than those thy glorious memory pervades, Their sons as brave, as free, as beautiful their maids.

Oh let the genius that informed the past, Inspired a Phidias and Lysippus come. - Come on the sunbeam, or the stormy blast, Ye that have raised the palace or the dome, To point to Heaven a London or a Rome. Anthemius, Wren, Angelo, Medici, Wykham and Jones that built the scholar's home, And Royalty's beneath the self-same sky, The Guild, the Abbey and the solemn Minster nigh.

Sewanee, echo of the red-man's voice, Magical foot-print of the Cherokee, From which Columbia's Oxford soon shall rise, Crowning the flowery Alps of Tennessee: The Propyleum of the Century, Learning's Byzantium and her sunny rest, The Eton and Cordova yet to be, Built 'mid her empires flight towards the West Where Vandel never more shall rob her eagle nest.

Enclosed by hills like glacier billows prank'd, In all fantastic undulations thrown: As ramparts round enfranchised cities flank'd, With comlier battlements than those of stone, Huge trees which here for centuries have grown, The graceful guardians of the sheltered vale, Oak, chestnut, ash and maple form a zone, Of leafy watchers dryads clad in mail To break the heavy blast, when wintry winds assail.

O, scene of peace far in the dark green woods, Alone with Nature and all forms of love; Thy rille and fountains, forests and deep moods, Have more of bliss than rapture seeks to give, From scenes around and brighter ones Above Drinking all transport at the hands of Spring, Here, shall the student thread the leafy grove, And cavern'd dingle, while the echoes bring, Songs from the mountain breezes and the birds that sing.

These mighty mountains so sublimely grand, Shall soon assume the mould of classic thought: These glorious sculptures of the Creator's hand, Association's charm will soon have caught; The bright inflatus with all things inwrought. Wherever learning builds herself a shrine, Is soon to shine around this sacred spot, (Favonias proud Escuvial) and entwine The immortal wreath that weds the human and Divine

Soon will these heights Hymettian aspects wear, To him that reads his Phoedrus in the glade; These villages Venusiums appear, To the Horacian student in the shade, The Anglo-Saxon here, by Fancy's aid, Can climb his Cambria often as he will, And Youths who saw with tears their Jura fade, Can see another and a loftier still, Another Arthur's seat, another Campden Hill.

See here, the priesthood of the chivalrous South, Behold them kneel, those white-robed hierarchs, Leaving Kusebius, Hooker, Horne and South, They seem like orient princes on St. Marks, The Sacrifice has caught the altar's sparks, The flame of prayer ascends to heaven above, And Faith and Hope upon the blaze embarks, Bringing back answers of celestial love, More than the heart dare ask and all that Heaven may give.

Oh, not till Time his latest sand-glass runs, The seed that's sown to-day shall cease to flower: And not till then, Columbia's grateful sons, Cease for to celebrate this day and hour, Did I say Time, Eternity will shower, The rich, ripe vintage-golden ears around, The fruits of peace, of piety and power, Then in her countless millions to be found With intellectual worth and moral goodness crowned.

Laid is the basis whence the mighty pile, Is to ascend for every future age, Its halls of Grecian, or of Gothic style, Or Tuscan soon will entertain the sage, The learned professor and the classic page; Its arches soon will ring with music's peal, And youth its thirst of knowledge soon assuage, From the vast fountains Heaven will hear unseal, Columbia for thy wealth, for every nations weal.

Soon will the landscape heave the lofty towers, In bold relief against the sunny ski, Soon the huge horologe repeat the hours, From minaret and cupola on high. The startled echoes merrily reply, Through pillar'd aisle and Columnar facade, The impassioned winds through endless galleries sigh, The Halls and Lyceums echoe to the tread, Of countless bright immortals, studying in the shade.

I. Mowbray, Greenville, Tenn., Sept. 27th, 1860.