The Corps! Bareheaded salute it,

With eyes up, thanking our God

That we of the Corps are treading

Where they of the Corps have trod —

They are here in ghostly assemblage,

The men of the Corps long dead,

And our hearts are standing attention

While we wait for their passing tread.

We, sons of today, salute you —

You, sons of an earlier day;

We follow, close order, behind you,

Where you have pointed the way;

The long gray line of us stretches

Through the years of a century told,

And the last man feels to his marrow

The grip of your far-off hold.

Grip hands with us now, though we see not,

Grip hands with us, strengthen our hearts

As the long gray line stiffens and straightens

With the thrill that your presence imparts.

Grip hands — though it be from the shadows —

While we swear, as you did of yore,

Or living, or dying, to honor

The Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps!

Here, where resistlessly the river runs

Between majestic mountains to the sea,

The Patriots' watch fires burned: Their constancy

Won Freedom as an heritage for their sons.

To keep that Freedom pure, inviolate,

Here are the Nation's children schooled in arts

Of Peace, in disciplines of War; their hearts

Made resolute, their wills subordinate

To do their utmost duty at the call

Of this, their Country, whatsoe'er befall.

Broadcast upon our History's ample page

The records of their valiant deeds are strown.

Proudly their Alma Mater claims her own.

May she have sons like these from age to age!