On a Distant View of The Village And
School of Harrow On The Hill
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
(composed: 1806)
(From Hours of Idleness - 1807)
1
- Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov’d recollection
- Embitters the present, compar’d with the past;
- Where science first dawn’d on the powers of reflection,
- And friendships were form’d, too romantic to last;
2
- Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
- Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
- How welcome to me your ne’er fading remembrance,
- Which rests in the bosom, though hope is deny’d!
3
- Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
- The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought;
- The school where, loud warn’d by the bell, we resorted,
- To pore o’er the precepts by Pedagogues taught.
4
- Again I behold where for hours I have ponder’d,
- As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;
- Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander’d,
- To catch the last gleam of the sun’s setting ray.
5
- I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
- Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o’erthrown;
- While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
- I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.
6
- Or, as Lear, I pour’d forth the deep imprecation,
- By my daughters, of kingdom and reason depriv’d;
- Till, fir’d by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
- I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv’d.
7
- Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
- Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
- Though sad and deserted, I ne’er can forget you:
- Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.
8
- To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,
- While Fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
- Since Darkness o’ershadows the prospect before me,
- More dear is the beam of the past to my soul!
9
- But if, through the course of the years which await me,
- Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
- I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
- “Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew.”
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