"Far Above Cayuga's Waters" is Cornell University's alma mater. The lyrics were written circa 1870 by roommates Archibald Croswell Weeks (Class of 1872), and Wilmot Moses Smith (Class of 1874), and set to the tune of "Annie Lisle", a popular 1857 ballad by H. S. Thompson about a heroine dying of tuberculosis. History This song is one of the better-known alma maters in the United States. It is the only alma mater song included in Ronald Herder's 500 Best-Loved Song Lyrics. In a novel, Betty Smith called it "the saddest and oldest of all college songs". Edward Abbey, in One Life at a Time, Please, mentions a campfire sing in which he contributed "the first line of the only Ivy League song that occurred to me: 'Far above Cayuga's waters . . .. The tune has been used since by dozens of universities, colleges, high schools, and camps worldwide. For example, George Penny, a professor at the University of Kansas, wrote his school's alma mater by changing a few words from Cornell's song ("Far above the golden valley..."). Other colleges and universities that have used the same tune include Centenary College of Louisiana, Michigan State College, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, the College of William and Mary, the Colorado State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Florida A&M University, Syracuse University, the University of Missouri, the University of Georgia, the University of Alabama, Indiana University, Wofford College, Spartanburg Methodist College, Ripon College, Birmingham-Southern College, Emory University, University of Akron, Erskine College, Lehigh University, Lewis & Clark College, Moravian College, Xavier University, Acadia University, Salem College, Swarthmore College, Vanderbilt University, Howard Payne University, the American University of Beirut, Chung Chi College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University, Lingnan (University) College of China's Sun Yat-sen University, Hwa Chong Institution, Chung Ling High School, Winona State University (Minnesota) and even the hoax Plainfield Teacher's College. It is the tune of the alma mater of New York Military Academy, and the camp song of Boy Scout Camp Tesomas near Rhinelander, Wisconsin; Boy Scout Camp Napowan in Waushara County, Wisconsin; Camp Minsi in Pocono Summit, Pennsylvania; The Depot Christian School in Greenville, Texas, and Camp Becket in the Berkshires. The song traditionally concludes campus performances by the Cornell University Chorus and Cornell University Glee Club. It is also heard between the second and third periods of men's ice hockey games, halftime