Song of 500 Gallons
[Why Not Turn Nose Paint intoReal Paint?]
Oh give me some paint and a wall-space that ain't All covered up yet by Oroz* Oh give me the hues that an artist would use And a brush to apply them, because I've got some idears—have had them for years- That belong to the Hanover scene; And I have a hunch they'd appeal to the bunch That boasts a real love for the Green. I'll never go "Mex," I'll picture no necks Ground down 'neath a rebel's rough shoe; My forms aboriginous will all be indigenous To the haunts that as students we knew. I'll do a design that will never malign All learning as skeletal dust; I'd picture our founder in flesh that grows rounder And rounder till buttons he'll bust. No, nothing satiric,—just let me grow lyric With the poet who pictured the brain And the brawn and the guts that dragged through the ruts A barrel of rum to our plain. "The big chief who met him"—we'll never forget him, Nor could Eleazar forget The cords of the weed—still more would he heed The red-skinned harem he met. His first trepidation gives way to elation At the wealth of the welcoming chief. For I'll picture with Hovey the beautiful covey Of squaws in a costume quite brief,—All cute little Nannies, their fronts and their fannies Exposed to the rays of the sun. (I hope, folks of virtue, the result will not hurt you When this classical passage is done.) Then right there between 'em, where either may glean 'em, The five hundred courses I'll stand. O auspicious founding! O wisdom astounding! Was e'er a curric'lum so grand! Yea, beat in the bung! Never better was sung The song of a college's start! The story to tell in pictures as well Is the thing that lies next to my heart. So—give me some paint and a wall-space that ain't All done on the Mexican plan, And I'll make it sing with the verses that ring In the heart of each true Dartmouth man!
"Fill the bowl up! Fill the bowl up!Drink to Eleazar, and his primitive Alcazar,Where he mixed drinks for the heathenIn the goodness of his soul."
"Oh, Eleazar Wheelock wasavery pious man; he went into the wilderness to teach the Indian,With a Gradus ad Parnassum, a Bible and a drum, and five hundred gallons of New England rum."
"The big chief that met him was the Sachem of the Wah-hoo-wahs, If he was not a big chief, there was never one you saw who was;He had tobacco by the cord, ten squaws and more to come, But he never yet had tasted of New England Rum."
"Eleazar was the faculty, and the whole curriculumWas five hundred gallons of New England rum."
* Just familiarity amongst us artists; SenorJose Clemente Orozco, famous Mexican muralist, to you.
