West Point Songs

Click on the title of the song to listen to the music.

Alma Mater		The Corps

Hail, Alma Mater dear, To us be ever near, Help us thy motto bear Through all the years. Let Duty be well performed, Honor be e'er untarned, Country be ever armed, West Point, by thee. Guide us, thine own, aright, Teach us by day, by night, To keep thine honor bright, For thee to fight. When we depart from thee, Serving on land or sea, May we still loyal be, West Point, to thee. And when our work is done, Our course on earth is run, May it be said, "Well Done; Be Thou At Peace." E'er may that line of gray Increase from day to day, Live, serve, and die, we pray, West Point, for thee.		The Corps, The Corps, The Corps 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 ranks of the corps long dead And our hearts are standing attention While we wait for their passing tread The Corps of today, we salute you The Corps of an earlier day We follow close order behind you Where you have pointed the way The long gray line of us stretches Thro' the years of a century told And the last one feels to the 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 line stiffens and straightens With the thrill that your presence imparts Grip hands, tho' 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

"Alma Mater," most beloved of all West Point songs, had its beginning in a very inauspicious manner. In the fall of 1908, Colonel, then Cadet, Paul Reinecke was walking the area as a result of a bit of frivolity in Yearling Camp the preceding summer. Attempting to pass some time he tried to compose a furlough song (it was the custom at that time for Yearlings to congregate at Battle Monument to "bay at the moon" and to sing furlough songs when Firsties were away from the Academy). Finally he began to tramp to the tune of "Treueliebe," an old favorite composed by Friedrich Kuecken in 1827. Gradually he developed the words to what we know today as the "Alma Mater." Although it was sung at the Class of 1909 Graduation Hop, the song briefly died the death of all furlough songs. However, it was sung in the Cadet Chapel before the Army-Navy Game of 1911 and, one year after the graduation of Reinekcke's class in 1911, "Alma Mater" was sung at the Baccalaureate Service of the Class of 1912 and took its place as a musical expression of the feelings of every West Pointer toward his Alma Mater.

Companion piece to the "Alma Mater" and equally beloved in the hearts of all graduates is the inspirational and poetically great hymn "The Corps." The words were written by the late Bishop H. S. Shipman, then chaplain, sometime around the West Point Centennial in 1902. The music, not composed until 1910, was written by W. Franke Harling, Chapel Organist and Choirmaster. This music was especially composed for the services of the closing of the old Cadet Chapel, held on June 12, 1910. In 2008, to acknowledge our female cadets and graduates, one line in the "Alma Mater" was updated from "Guide us, thy sons aright" to "Guide us thine own aright." In "The Corps," four words were updated.