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TO the fairest!
Then to thee | |
| Consecrate and bounden be, | |
| Winchester! this verse of mine. | |
| Ah, that loveliness of thine! | |
| To have lived enchaunted years | 5 |
| Free from sorrows, free from fears, | |
| Where thy Tower’s great shadow falls | |
| Over those proud buttress’d walls; | |
| Whence a purpling glory pours | |
| From high heaven’s inheritors, | 10 |
| Throned within the arching stone! | |
| To have wander’d, hush’d, alone, | |
| Gently round thy fair, fern-grown | |
| Chauntry of the Lilies, lying | |
| Where the soft night winds go sighing | 15 |
| Round thy Cloisters, in moonlight | |
| Branching dark, or touch’d with white: | |
| Round old, chill aisles, where moon-smitten | |
| Blanches the Orate, written | |
| Under each worn old-world face | 20 |
| Graven on Death’s holy place! | |
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To the noblest!
None but thee. | |
| Blest our living eyes, that see | |
| Half a thousand years fulfill’d | |
| Of that age, which Wykeham will’d | 25 |
| Thee to win; yet all unworn, | |
| As upon that first March morn, | |
| When thine honour’d city saw | |
| Thy young beauty without flaw, | |
| Born within her water-flowing | 30 |
| Ancient hollows, by wind-blowing | |
| Hills enfolded evermore. | |
| Thee, that lord of splendid lore, | |
| Orient from old Hellas’ shore, | |
| Grocyn, had to mother: thee, | 35 |
| Monumental majesty | |
| Of most high philosophy | |
| Honours, in thy wizard Browne: | |
| Tender Otway’s dear renown, | |
| Mover of a perfect pity, | 40 |
| Victim of the iron city, | |
| Thine to cherish is: and thee, | |
| Laureate of Liberty; | |
| Harper of the Highland faith, | |
| Elf, and faëry, and wan wraith; | 45 |
| Chaunting softly, chaunting slowly, | |
| Minstrel of all melancholy; | |
| Master of all melody, | |
| Made to cling round memory; | |
| Passion’s poet, Evening’s voice, | 50 |
| Collins glorified. Rejoice, | |
| Mother! in thy sons: for all | |
| Love thine immemorial | |
| Name, august and musical. | |
| Not least he, who left thy side, | 55 |
| For his sire’s, thine earlier pride, | |
| Arnold: whom we mourn to-day, | |
| Prince of song, and gone away | |
| To his brothers of the bay: | |
| Thine the love of all his years; | 60 |
| His be now thy praising tears. | |
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| To the dearest! | |
Ah, to thee! | |
| Hast thou not in all to me | |
| Mother, more than mother, been? | 65 |
| Well t’ward thee may Mary Queen | |
| Bend her with a mother’s mien; | |
| Who so rarely dost express | |
| An inspiring tenderness, | |
| Woven with thy sterner strain, | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| Still pour’d 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: | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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 | 90 |
| 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! | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| As they look’d when here came Keats, | |
| Chaunting of autumnal sweets; | |
| Through this city of old haunts, | |
| Murmuring immortal chaunts; | |
| As when Pope, art’s earlier king, | 105 |
| 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; | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| Vanish’d men’s memorials. | |
| There was beauty, there was grace, | |
| Each place was an holy place: | |
| There the kindly fates allow’d | |
| Me too room; and made me proud | 120 |
| (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, | 125 |
| 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; | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| When they tell of friend on friend? | |
| And for them I thank thy name. | |
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| Love alone of gifts, no shame | |
| Lessens, and I love thee: yet | |
| Sound it but of echoes, let | 145 |
| This my maiden music be | |
| Of the love I bear to thee, | |
| Witness and interpreter, | |
| Mother mine: loved Winchester! | |
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