Alma Mater

Click here to listen to the CHS Alma Mater

Guarded by encircling mountains

Beautiful and blue,

Stands our noble Alma Mater

Glorious to view.

 

Lift the chorus, speed it onward

Ne’er let praises fail.

Hail to thee, our Alma Mater

Covington High, all hail!

 

C. H. S. – our Alma Mater

Beautiful and free,

Second home to all thy children

Where they joy to be.

 

Lift the chorus, speed it onward

Ne’er let praises fail.

Hail to thee, our Alma Mater

Covington High, all hail!

 

"Annie Lisle" is the name of an 1857 ballad by Boston , Massachusetts songwriter H. S. Thompson and published by Oliver Ditson & Co. It is about the death of a young maiden, by what some have speculated to be tuberculosis, although the lyric does not explicitly mention tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was called then. The song might have slipped into obscurity had the tune not been adopted by countless colleges, universities, and high schools worldwide as their respective alma mater songs.

The first college to have used the tune in a spirit song seems to have been Cornell University . In 1870, students Archibald Weeks and Wilmot Smith wrote "Far Above Cayuga's Waters" and used an adaptation of Thompson's melody. Many other colleges, almost certainly influenced by Cornell's version, have since created their own renditions. 

They include:

      

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