Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Winchester
Dulce Domum
Anonymous Translation
About two hundred and thirty years ago, a scholar of St. Mary’s College, Winchester, was, for some offence committed, confined by order of the master, and it being just previous to the Whitsuntide vacation, was not permitted to visit his friends, but remained a prisoner at the college, as report says, tied to a pillar. During this period he composed [in Latin] the well-known “Dulce Domum,” being the recollections of the pleasures he was wont to join in at that season of the year. Grief at the disgrace and the disappointment he endured so heavily affected him that he did not live to witness the return of his companions, at the end of their holidays.
In commemoration of the above, annually on the evening preceding the Whitsun holidays, the master, scholars, and choristers of the above college, attended by a band of music, walk in procession round the court of the college and the pillar to which it is alleged the unfortunate youth was tied, and chant the verses which he composed in his affliction.—Hone’s Every-Day Book, II. 710.
