Torchbearers

It is little noted, but there is another Pomona College song with its figurative head on the chopping block. The song is Torchbearers, music by A.D. Bissell, words written in 1930 by Ramsay L. Harris.

If Pomona College cannot keep this song on its own merits, it is a College that has a more cramped vision of itself, its history, and its community than we want to believe it has.

Listen:

Drum-beats roll’d o’er the silence profound
Far above Pomona, above Pomona.
Chanting braves making echoes resound
Far above Pomona, above Pomona.
Garb’d all in feathers, each ghostly frame
Loom’d ‘gainst the embers while soft there came
Borne through the gloom like a feather of flame:
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”

Southland slopes in their sunlit repose
Lie around Pomona, around Pomona.
Soft winds breathing of poppy and rose
Sigh around Pomona, around Pomona.
Stern was the promise our fathers knew,
Pine-clad ranges of misted blue,
Scent of the sagebrush and yucca that grew
High around Pomona, around Pomona.
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”

Ours be the faith of the builders whose dreams
Rais’d our fair Pomona, our fair Pomona.
Bear we the torch of their honor whose gleam
Blaz’d o’er fair Pomona, o’er fair Pomona.
Where bleak and barren the sagebrush roll’d
Rise green orchards of fruited gold,
Glory to those who, with vision of old
Gaz’d o’er fair Pomona, o’er fair Pomona.
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”