- Alma Mater
Scottish Poetry Selection
- Alma Mater
Alma Mater
Arch and pillar as I pass
Find a tongue;
And the green quadrangle grass
Makes me young;
While the four-repeated chime
Of the hour,
And the solemn voice of time
From the tower
Plunge me in the wave that flowed
When the "Senior Greek" would ebb
From the classic grace of Jebb
To the human laugh of Ramsay through his Ode!In the wind my scarlet gown
Round me whirls,
And I press my trencher down
On my curls,
As I race my fifty-yard
'Cross the way
And the blizzard smites me hard
While it may:
Till the semi-circled tiers
In a peace serene and high
Hear a Roman lover sigh
Above the storms of twice a thousand years!Alma Mater! From your eyes
I was blest,
When I battled for the prize
With your best;
Now his name-that eager boy-
Must be set
With the noteless Hoi Polloi
You forget.
Ah! his dreams were gilded then:
And to-day within your walls,
Where the man the boy recalls,
He almost dares to dream them once again!
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
