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The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

including Poems and Versions of Poems now Published for the First Time: Edited with Textual and Bibliographical Notes by Ernest Hartley Coleridge

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29

SONNET ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR COLLEGE

Farewell parental scenes! a sad farewell!
To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,
Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings
Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell.
Adieu, adieu! ye much-lov'd cloisters pale!
Ah! would those happy days return again,
When 'neath your arches, free from every stain,
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale!
Dear haunts! where oft my simple lays I sang,
Listening meanwhile the echoings of my feet,
Lingering I quit you, with as great a pang,
As when erewhile, my weeping childhood, torn
By early sorrow from my native seat,
Mingled its tears with hers—my widow'd Parent lorn.
1791.