University of Virginia Library


27

FOUNDER'S DAY AT HARROW

October 8, 1903

SONNET

School towering grandly on the green-leafed Hill
And Chapel whence so many prayers have flown
Heavenward, your calm, your hopes were once my own:
Once I was with you, safe from pain and ill,
Young, ardent, happy, pure in soul and will.
Now I steer onward, evermore alone,
See sweetest memories vanish with a moan
But feel your power, a holiest influence, still.
O Harrow, if my heart in those bright days
Had known life's meaning better than I knew,
What heights half-climbed a conqueror's steps had trod!
Still would the everlasting skies be blue,
The sinless nights divine with starry rays,
And all the living world aflame with God.