Old Nassau

Old Nassau has been Princeton's anthem since 1859. Its words were written that year by a freshman, Harlan Page Peck 1862, and published in the March issue of the Nassau Literary Magazine. When an effort to sing it to the tune of ``Auld Lang Syne'' proved unsuccessful, Karl A. Langlotz, who taught German in the college and directed a choral group, was persuaded to write music for it. Langlotz had studied music in Weimar under Liszt and had once played the violin in an orchestra conducted by Wagner. He wrote the music for Old Nassau on the porch of his house at 160 Mercer Street one fine spring afternoon.

The words and music appeared together for the first time in Songs of Old Nassau, published in April 1859. A few days after this collection appeared, a group of students gathered near the Bulletin Elm at the northeast corner of Nassau Hall, after evening prayers, to try some of the songs. Most of the college had assembled to hear the singing; when the group had finished their singing of Old Nassau, the listeners responded with an enthusiastic skyrocket cheer, which forecast the devotion with which succeeding generations of Princetonians would sing ``in praise of old Nassau.''

There has been some change in the words over the years. The opening line, originally ``Tune every harp and every voice,'' became ``Tune every heart and every voice'' early in the 1890s. Peck wrote seven verses, but thre~e -- those about ``virtue's amaranthine wreath,'' ``a zeal beyond compare,'' ``a flowery chaplet'' -- had dropped out of use by 1914.

The words and music of the first verse and chorus are displayed below. The words of the other three verses are as follows:

Let music rule the fleeting hour,
Her mantle round us draw
And thrill each heart with all her power,
In praise of Old Nassau.''