Student poem composed by Jacob Abbot Cummings, 1799 September 16

Items in this Collection

About this Collection

Catalog Record

About this Collection

Creator: Cummings, J. A. (Jacob Abbot) , 1772-1820

Type: Pastoral poetry.Harvard students' poems.Poems-1799.

Collection Title: Student poem composed by Jacob Abbot Cummings, 1799 September 16

Language: English

Origin: Massachusetts

Description: .03 cubic feet (1 folder)|4 p. ; 23 cm.

Date: 1799

Repository: Harvard University Archives

Identifier: colonialnorthamerica.library.harvard.edu/990097088710203941

To cite this material, use the information provided in the "Cite" tab in the top menu of the viewer with the digitized image. Please also add Colonial North America at Harvard Library to each citation.

Subjects

Harvard University--Curricula

Harvard College (1780- ).

Conduct of life--Early works to 1800

Pastoral poetry, American

Content Notes

Handwritten poem composed by Jacob Abbot Cummings when he was an undergraduate at Harvard College. The rhyming poem celebrates morning (as a metaphor for life) and describes the farmer, industrious milk maid, and market man. It begins, “Loud speaks the clarion of approaching day..." The poem is labeled "16 September 1799 Cummings" and is headed with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost: "Sweet in the breath of morn, her rising sweet, with song of earliest bird."

Biographical Notes

Jacob Abbot Cummings (1772-1820), a Boston teacher and textbook author and publisher, was born on November 2, 1772 in New Hampshire. He received an AB from Harvard in 1801 and an AM in 1804. Cummings was a school teacher, school textbook author, and a partner in the Boston publishing house Cumming and Hilliard. Cummings died on February 24, 1820.