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- What are those stars by rugged pathway gained?
And what the road by which they are attained?
Those stars are the rewards, the crowns, the goals,
The final dwellings of heroic souls;
Of those who life-long toil of hand and mind
Was freely given to uplift mankind,
To gather knowledge and develop arts,
To build up nations and make happy hearts;
Increasing comfort, lightening human toil,
From conquered nature winning richest spoil;
Guarding the weak from encroaching strong,
Rewarding virtue and preventing wrong.
On such as these are starry crowns bestowed,
For such as these the stars are fit abode.
Of the rough paths which lead to such rewards
Examples every noble life affords.
The Martyr gives his life, the Hero bleeds,
The Patriot strives with noble words and deeds.
The moral teachers and reformers give
Their lives of labor that the truth may live.
Students of nature work to age from youth
To bring to light some hidden gem of truth.
And countless laborers suffer, strive, refrain,
That from their work their fellow men may gain.
Nor need we travel far to other climes,
Or instance heroes of the classic times,
To find examples fitted to inspire
Loving respect and emulous desire.
The name of Stevens calls at once to mind
Three lives of willing labor, which, combined
Or singly, illustrate the upward road
Which straight ascends to that star-decked abode.
To affluence born, and tempted thus to give
First thought to self, and but for self to live,
Each one in turn, and all, this test withstood,
And gave their means and thought to general good.
The rapid steamer joining strand to strand,
The yet more rapid train across the land,
The iron rail on which the swift trains run,
The shell adapted to the long-range gun,
The iron-clad steamer ramming down the foe
With monster cannon loaded from below,
Those links which bind the world with bands of peace,
Those arms which in the end will make wars cease;
All these and many others, which have lent
So largely to the world's development,
Grew from Stevens lives, so richly fraught
With liberal outlay and ingenious thought.
And at the last what can we fitly say
Of him whose latest work we hail to-day?
Who, as a closing act of such career
As we have painted, sowed the seed which here
We see developed into fields of grain,
Loading with harvests many a distant plain.
Our Founder planted that which year by year
Has sent its fruitage far and near,
Till now there is no region where the sun
Uprising does not shine at least on one
Of Stevens' graduates doing useful work
In turning to good ends the powers which lurk
In force and matter, carrying far and near
The fair fame of the Stevens engineer,
And adding always to that special art
Which our good Founder had so much at heart.
For him the crowning stars long since were won,
For us they still are to be gazed upon.
Before us still stands the rugged road
Which must be climbed to reach the blessed abode.
On his example let us fix our eyes,
And, following in his footsteps, ever rise;
Scale each obstruction which our pathway bars,
And win at last a home among the stars. (en)
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