Graduation: a History
  (from the OED)
 

First, consider that to live is to grow.
“So manie graduations your wisedome
must attaine.” Second, the definition for today,

“holding a University degree:”
“Chosin be the hayl graduattis
of the vniuersitie.” You, then, are

chosen. But you have been makers of your
own destiny in this choice: “His ambition
is, that he either is or shall be

a graduate.” A smell, there, of sweat and lamp.
There are implications. Have we mastered
our craft? “As if the very tearms of

Architraues, and Frizes, and Cornices
were enough to graduate a Master
of this Art...” You may meet, then, cynicism.

Overcome such through action: “To graduate
the first side of your staff, you must lay the
Ruler to the Centre.” Arrived in a

working world, you will touch the eyes of
patrons by design: “To make lights graduate
as they ought.” And it helps to remember:

you have friends. “Our affections graduate
according to a truer scale than that
of hereditary rank.” Look around

you. Commit to your heart these. They already
know your unfolding story, and know that you
will graduate the heaven-vaulting stars.
 

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Commencement poem; cited from the Oxford English Dictionary in the order of their appearance: Norton (1477), Buchanan (1563), Overbury (1615), Wotton (1624), Blundevil (1624), Gilpin (1786), Martineau (1832).