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Poems

by William Ernest Henley

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VIII
BLUECOAT BOY

So went our boys when Edward Sixth, the King,
Chartered Christ's Hospital, and died. And so
Full fifteen generations in a string
Of heirs to his bequest have had to go.

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Thus Camden showed, and Barnes, and Stilling-fleet,
And Richardson, that bade our Lovelace be;
The little Elia thus in Newgate Street;
Thus to his Genevieve young S. T. C.
With thousands else that, wandering up and down,
Quaint, privileged, liked and reputed well,
Made the great School a part of London Town
Patent as Paul's and vital as Bow Bell:
The old School nearing exile, day by day,
To certain clay-lands somewhere Horsham way.