The "Commemoration Ode" (also known as the "Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration")[1] is an 1865 poem by James Russell Lowell. It was written for Harvard's Commemoration Day. Though the Ode received a lackluster reception when Lowell first delivered it on July 21, 1865, after it was republished later that year it gained a more positive reputation. By the 1870s the poem was very highly thought of, an opinion which gradually shifted in the mid-20th century, and it has since been less popular or praised.