Today's the first time that many of Harvard's graduands will hear the little-known final verse of "Fair Harvard". So it seems as good a time as any to muse on the administration's decision to change that verse's final lyric.

It would be pretty natural to be outraged at the prospect, but after trying to start that blog post and failing for a while, I realized that I'm actually in favor of the change.

(1a)

"Fair Harvard", as far as almae matres go, is actually quite good. Here are a few others for comparison:

Notre Dame, our Mother
tender, strong, and true,
proudly in the heavens,
gleams thy gold and blue.
Glory’s mantle cloaks thee;
golden is thy fame
and our hearts forever
praise thee Notre Dame.

MSU, we love thy shadows
When twilight silence falls,
glushing deep and softly paling
o’er ivy covered halls;
beneath the pines we'll gather
to give our faith so true,
sing our love for Alma Mater
and thy praises, MSU.
When from these scenes we wander

and twilight shadows fade,

our mem’ry still will linger

where light and shadows played;

in the evening oft we’ll gather

and pledge our faith anew,

sing our love for Alma Mater

and thy praise, MSU.

Where the rolling foothills rise

up t’wards mountains higher,

where at eve the Coast Range lies,

in the sunset fire,

flushing deep and paling;

here we raise our voices hailing

thee, our Alma Mater.

Tender vistas ever new

thru’the arches meet the eyes,

where the red roofs rim the blue

of the sun-steeped skies,

This semester, I'm taking a creative-writing workshop on devotional poetry. I've worked with the instructor, Josh Bell, before, and I'm incredibly excited to be working with him again.

Assignment zero for the workshop was "For fun, start thinking about songs (I'm of course talking pop songs, but interpret this how you'd like) which are in the devotional mode. Then send me links to those songs. And I'll start sending those songs around to this list."

I had a lot of fun exploring several of the possible dimensions of "devotional" with this exercise, especially when I asked my friend Leah for suggestions and she introduced me to several incredible songs that I'd never heard (of) before. And when I was done, I figured that I'd share the ten that I ended up submitting here, just in case any of my readers were interested.

To be clear, I compiled this list for a very specific purpose, and plenty of songs I like a lot got cut in late stages because I felt they fit insufficiently well with the assignment specification. But I still think that the ones that made it all explore (distinct) modes of imagining oneself in relation to some divine entity, which I believe is a useful exercise, whether or not you believe that any such exist.

(Hat-tip to Leah Libresco for recommending "How Glory Goes", "Lot's Wife", and "Stronger". I also first found "The Summons" in one of her old blog posts.)

If you've got other suggestions to add to the list, drop them in the comments below, or mention them