Poem by Richard Monckton Milnes

On Revisiting Trinity College, Cambridge

I HAVE a debt of my heart’s own to thee,
School of my soul! old lime and cloister shade!
Which I, strange suitor, should lament to see
Fully acquitted and exactly paid.
The first ripe taste of manhood’s best delights,
Knowledge imbibed, while mind and heart agree,
In sweet belated talk on winter nights,
With friends whom growing time keeps dear to me;—
Such things I owe thee, and not only these:
I owe thee the far-beaconing memories
Of the young dead, who, having crossed the tide
Of Life where it was narrow, deep, and clear,
Now cast their brightness from the farther side
On the dark-flowing hours I breast in fear.

1. Cannae
2. Corfu
3. Switzerland and Italy
4. One Moment More before That Fatal Leap!
5. London Churches

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