Charles Graves ’53

1 Month Ago

Reminiscences of Princeton

(Verses in response to “A Tragic Candidate in the Princeton ‘Conclave’ for University President” by Harrison Blackman ’17)

E. Harris Harbison excelled with Renaissance and Reformation
While Walter P. Hall did industrialization —
And Professor Mommsen spread humanization 
Most excellent introduction to European civilization

Robert Goheen was a politician
What better way to achieve his mission

Philip Hitti brought us Princeton Arabization
While Walter Stace spread rationalization
And Harold Dodds meant stabilization

Ralph Adam Cram’s Princeton Chapel
Headed by Chaplain Aldrich most affable
What a taste such delicacies from his wife’s buffet
With many chapel deacons dressed extraordinarily

Carlos Baker — what a beautiful man
Firestone Library — what élan!
James Thorpe what grandeur!
We had for Nassau Hall such amour

Prospect Street each building so remarkable
No comparison either at Harvard or Yale
On weekends it was peppered with male and female

But when we walked from Brown Hall to Cannon Green
Princeton was a dream never since seen.

— Charles Graves ’53

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