Sidney Lanier's Ode to Johns Hopkins Read by the Author
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P, , VOL. XXVI. No. 28 BALTIMORE, MD., JANUARY 31, 1922 PRICE 5 CENTS BIRTHDAY OF "HOPKINS' SIDNEY LANIER'S ODE TO JOHNS HOPKINS JOHNS HOPKINS SCIENTISTS OWN POET" THIS FRIDAY LEAD ALL OTHERS Sidney Lanier Was Lecturer of Uni- READ BY THE AUTHOR AT THE FOURTH COMMEMORATION DAY EXERCISES. Leads Other Universities With 243 Out versity During Years 1879-81. of the 1000 Leading Scientists. Wrote Ode to Hopkins. How tall among her sisters, and how The astronomer heliotrope, Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth fair,— That watches heaven with a con- her hands "Although during the past 20 February 3, 1922, marks the How grave beyond her youth, yet stant eye,— Spread wide with invitation to all debonair years the Johns Hopkins Univer- eightieth anniversary of the birth The daring crocus, unafraid to lands,— As dawn,'mid wrinkled Matres of old try Where now the eager people yearn sity has supplied more leading sci- of Sidney Lanier, the poet of the lands (When Nature calls) the Febru- to find Our youngest Alma Mater modest ary snows,— The organizing hand that fast may entists than any other university, Johns Hopkins University, a 'mem- stands. And patience' perfect rose. bind In four brief cycles round the punc- Thus she is today passing through a pe- ber of the faculty as lecturer on sped with helps of love and toil Loose straws of aimless aspiration tual sun and thought, fain riod of gravest travail," is the gen- English Literature during the years Has she, old Learning's latest daugh- Thus forwarded of faith, with hope In sheaves of serviceable grain,— ter won thus fraught, Here old and new in one. eral theme of an article in the 1879-80 and 1880-81. Although This grace, this stature, and the fruit- In four brief cycles round the strin- Through nobler cycles round a richer ful fame, gent sun sun, Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine Edgar Allan Poe was a Baltimore Howbeit she was born This youngest sister bath her stature O'er-rule our modern ways. Unnoised as any stealing summer for January by Dr. Charles Keyes. Poet, he lived long before Hopkins won. 0 blest, Minerva, of these larger days morn. Nay, why regard Call here thy congress of the great "When that eccentric German From far the sages saw, from came into existence. James Russell far they The passing of the years? Nor made the wise, philosopher came nor marr'd The hearing ears, the seeing eyes,— Nietzsche once de- Lowell once gave a series of lec- And ministered to her, By help or hindrance of slow Time Enrich us out of every farthest cime clared that the university should Led by the soaring genius'd Sylvester was she: Yea, make all ages native to our time, be mainly tures at this university, but he was That, earlier, loosed the knot great O'er this fair growth Time had no Till thou the freedom of the city shaped for the excep- a Newton tied, mastery; grant tional mind many of his compat- guest and not a member of the And flung the door of Fame's locked So quick she bloomed, she seemed to To each most antique habitant. riots were inclined to faculty. Lanier is the only recog- temple wide. bloom at birth, 0 Fame. denounce As favorable, fairies thronged of old As Eve from Adam, or as he from Bring Shakespeare back, a man and him as a visionary; and few edu- nized American poet to whom and blessed earth. not a name,— The cradled princess with their sev- cators on this side of the Atlantic Johns Superb o'er slow increase of day on Let every player that shall mimic us Hopkins can lay claim. eral best, day In audience see old godlike Aeschy- dared to give him serious consid- So; gifts and dowers meet And Hopkins is the only college Complete as Pallas she began her lus,— eration. With the profound To lay at Wisdom's feet, way; Bring large Lucretius, with unman!- leav- now in existence that cart rightfully These liberal masters largely brought Yet not from Jove's unwrinkled fore- ac mind,— ening of the World War and a ma- Dear diamonds of .their long-com- head sprung, Bring Virgil from the visionary seas terial loss of our own claim Lanier. He was a student at pressed thought, But long-time dreamed, and out of Of old romance,—Bring Milton, no national pro- Rich stones from out the labyrinthic trouble wrung, more blind,— vincialism," the article continues, Oglethorpe College and after grad- cave Fore-seen, wise-planned, pure child of Bring all gold hearts and high re- "we may well give serious heed uating became a tutor there, but Of research, pearls from Time's pro- thought and pain, solved wills foundest wave Leapt our Minerva from a mortal To be with us about these happy hills, to this savant's warning and sub- And many a jewel brave, of brilliant that college closed its doors soon brain. Bring old Renown ject his declaration to careful scru- ray, And here, 0 finer Pallas, long re- To walk familiar citizen of the town— after the Civil War, and although Dug in the far obscure Cathay main,— Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and tiny." Of meditation deep— Oglethorpe University has recently Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix disagree,— Gauging of intellectuality is no With flowers, of such as keep thy reign, Bring Virtue, Honor, Truth and Loy- been created Their fragrant tissues and their heav- And frame a fairer Athens than of alty,— longer a mere guess, but is ca- to carry on the name enly hues, yore Bring Faith that sees with undissem- pable of quantative mathematical it is an entirely new and different Fresh bathed forever in eternal. dews In these blest bounds of Balti bling eyes,— The violet with her low-drooped more,— expression. The redistribution of institution Bring all large Loves and heavenly from the one that har- eye Here where the climates meet Charities,— the one For learned modesty,— thousand leading scientific bored Lanier. It is interesting to That each may make the other's lack Till man seems less a riddle unto man The student snow-drop, that doth complete,— And fair Utopia less Utopian, minds, determined by the authori- note that the Lanier Professorship hang and pore And many peoples call from shore to ties of the Upon the earth, like Science, ever- Where Florida's soft Favonian airs twelve main branches beguile shore, of American Literature at the pres- more, The world has bloomed again, at Bal- of science, "bids us to weigh anew And underneath the clod doth grope The nipping North,—where Nature's ent timore, the claims of Nietzsche." Oglethorpe is held by Profes- and grope,— powers smile,— Baltimore, 1880. Ten years ago sor James C. Routh, who received at the end of the Johns Hopkins' second generation both his A. B. and his Ph. D. from SIDNEY LANIER IVY TO BE the nation was immensely im- MARKED BY JUNIOR CLASS Johns Hopkins. pressed by the fact that this uni- Lanier's lectures at this Univer- Ivy Originally Planted by Class of 1915. versity furnished twenty-five per sity became the basis of Only Living Monument at cent. of the leading scientific his Homewood. "Science of English Verse," per- minds, 245 "starred" men of the When Sidney Lanier was in- 1000 being Hopkins haps his most important contribu- men. Now, at terred in the Turnbull lot in the beginning of our third genera- tion to scholarship, a fresh and ad- tion, there has "apparently Greenmount Cemetery his friends devel- mirable discussion of the relations oped no material abatement of our of music and poetry._ They also planted at the foot of the grave a creative productivity." resulted in his .'English, Novel,- a stalk of ivy, a token to the mem- Eighty per cent. of the 1000 "starred" men are closely less valuable but stimulating and ory of that noble writer still alive identi- fied with six interesting piece of literary criti- institutions. "As if in the hearts of the millions of still farther to emphasize this fea- cism. He was quite capable of dis- people who have read his works. ture of excessive concentration al- cussing the relations of music and most one-half of the leading Through all these winters and minds Poetry, for he had won fame as a belong to only two institutions— summers this ivy has lived as has musician as well as a poet. He was the Johns Hopkins and Harvard. the memory of Sidney Lanier. connected with the Peabody Con- Of the new alignment of "starred" men servatory of Music as master of the Upon the completion of the of science there were produced by first flute. buildings at Homewood the class Pct. Sidney gave the last and of 1915 secured a cutting from the Lanier 1910 1920 Inc. ivy at the foot of the grave and the best of his strength to the Johns Yale University 37 75 100 Ilopkins University. In spite of planted it beside the west wall of Cornell Univ. 44 79 80 his bad health, which often necessi- Gilman Hall. No mark of any kind Columbia Univ 63 100 60 Chicago tated his lecturing from his chair, was'placed beside it and when the Univ. 80 113 40 Harvard Univ 79 190 140 he was a hard and diligent scholar gardner planted several other Johns Hopkins U 245 243 0 and story told stalks near it many were unable teacher.