University of Virginia Library

To the dearest!

Ah, to thee!
Hast thou not in all to me
Mother, more than mother, been?
Well toward thee may Mary Queen
Bend her with a mother's mien;
Who so rarely dost express
An inspiring tenderness,
Woven with thy sterner strain,
Prelude of the world's true pain.
But two years, and still my feet
Found thy very stones more sweet,
Than the richest fields elsewhere:
Two years, and thy sacred air
Still poured balm upon me, when
Nearer drew the world of men;
When the passions, one by one,
All sprang upward to the sun:
Two years have I lived, still thine;
Lost, thy presence! gone, that shrine,
Where six years, what years! were mine.
Music is the thought of thee;
Fragrance, all thy memory.
Those thy rugged Chambers old,
In their gloom and rudeness, hold
Dear remembrances of gold.
Some first blossoming of flowers
Made delight of all the hours;
Greatness, beauty, all things fair
Made the spirit of thine air:
Old years live with thee; thy sons
Walk with high companions.
Then, the natural joy of earth,
Joy of very health and birth!
Hills, upon a summer noon:
Water Meads, on eves of June:
Chamber Court, beneath the moon:
Days of spring, on Twyford Down,
Or when autumn woods grew brown;
As they looked, when here came Keats
Chaunting of autumnal sweets;
Through this city of old haunts,
Murmuring immortal chaunts;
As when Pope, art's earlier king,
Here, a child, did nought but sing;
Sang, a child, by nature's rule,
Round the trees of Twyford School:
Hours of sun beside Meads' Wall,
Ere the may began to fall;
Watching the rooks rise and soar,
High from lime and sycamore:
Wanderings by old-world ways,
Walks and streets of ancient days;
Closes, churches, arches, halls,
Vanished men's memorials.
There was beauty, there was grace,
Each place was an holy place:
There the kindly fates allowed
Me too room; and made me proud,
Prouder name I have not wist!
With the name of Wykehamist.
These thy joys: and more than these:
Ah, to watch beneath thy trees,
Through long twilights linden-scented,
Sunsets, lingering, lamented,
In the purple west; prevented,
Ere they fell, by evening star!
Ah, long nights of Winter! far
Leaps and roars the faggot fire;
Ruddy smoke rolls higher, higher,
Broken through by flame's desire;
Circling faces glow, all eyes
Take the light; deep radiance flies,
Merrily flushing overhead
Names of brothers, long since fled;
And fresh clusters, in their stead,
Jubilant round fierce forest flame.
Friendship too must make her claim:
But what songs, what memories end,
When they tell of friend on friend?
And for them, I thank thy name.