Part of the advice I received for this piece was to write the article you've always wanted to write, but a column in the senior issue has never been something I have looked forward to. Like most things happening to me as my college years wind to a close, this has a distinct air of surrealism. Final articles have always been something for the older, other kids at Dartmouth, the ones on the way out. I can't quite believe that now I am one of those older, other kids. I only hope that I seem as cool to the underclassmen as the 10s, 11s, and 12s did to me.
However, what little coolness and street cred I have are likely to be lost after reading this article, because this is going to be as sappy as it gets. But please allow this washed-up senior his due, and let me spill some ink about how I feel about this place, even if no one reads this except my mom.
Dear old Dartmouth: how I love you so. When Dwight D. Eisenhower said this is what a college should look like, he was so right. When I die I hope they bury my heart in Hanover, so that it can be returned it to its rightful owner. The majestic tower of Baker Library gets me every time. I can't walk past Webster Hall without admiring the artistry of its Corinthian columns, or pass through Sanborn Library without pausing to gaze at Eleazar Wheelock's old Italian wallpaper in the Poetry Room.
In these final days at Dartmouth I have fallen more deeply in love with this place than ever. Now I find beauty in the details, the smell of spring coming from the crab apple blossoms, glorious in their ivory bloom, the Vermont hills rising above the river, the gorgeous stonework on McNutt Hall. I am trying to soak it all in, painfully aware that in a few short weeks this will all be taken away from me.
For what is a college but a transitory way station, an ephemeral experience that can only be had once? The beauty of this time in our lives is that it is so fleeting and precious, but we don't usually appreciate it that way. In carelessness is joy, in ignorance bliss. I'd like to believe that these will not be the greatest years of my life, and that the best is yet to come, but I don't know how I could possibly have more fun.
I've watched meteors burn across the universe on the golf course, shivering in a blanket with friends. I've basked in the waters of the Connecticut at sunset, and watched the remains of the day bleed out into the treetops. I've gotten lost on the trails along the Connecticut River, wandering deep into the streambeds beneath the whispering pines. I've seen black moose gallop through the snow up north and watched deer walk silent as ghosts across Rip Road late at night.
I've started to notice things about you, Dartmouth. How quiet you are in the early mornings before dawn has painted you with the colors of the day. How eerie you are on weekday nights during the witching hour, when mist wreathes your streets and magic seems to walk abroad. How serene the campus seems in the dark of a winter's afternoon, buildings and grounds all draped in snow, woodsmoke perfuming the sky. I love how cozy this place feels, all tucked in, safe and sound and warm, even though the wolf-wind maybe be wailing at the doorways, and the snow drifts deep along the road,
I'll miss Observatory Hill, where Robert Frost sits, forever composing, watched over by Bartlett Tower and the Lone Pine stump. I'll miss the sign placed up there on a piece of New Hampshire granite by the Class of 1923 on the eve of their 50th reunion, which reads "Who doth not answer to the rudder shall answer to the rock." I'll miss Nathan's Garden and how verdant and vibrant it is in the summertime. I'll miss Mount Moosilauke and its rugged peak, up in alpine zone where forests starve. I'll miss the little path through the graveyard to Thayer, a stark but beautiful memento mori before my 10A.
In closing, I'd like to share a poem written by Edwin Frost '30 that captured, at least in his mind, what his four years at Dartmouth meant. A friend introduced it to me after writing a paper on Bruce Nickerson '64, the first son of Dartmouth to give his life in Vietnam. Bruce closed his speech on Dartmouth Night in October 1963 with this poem, and I can think of no better ending than its beautiful and haunting words.
**"This highland plain of snows, these hills
This garden of winter, these arctic stars,This spring of knowing, bound in peace,This granite purpose raised in men for useAround the girdled earth is wisdom,End of smallness, this deepening horizonThis jewel of all the northern lightsWhich leaves no darkened sea unchartedOr hope against the future dead;An anchor for the misty dream of living,This hour, this standard, this religion,This Dartmouth.*
