John Bruce Norton

Harrow

IF some good fairy granted me to play
A chosen portion of my life again,
I would not ask an Oxford hour. The vain
Attempt to ape the follies of the day,
How soon it palls; while ever fresh and gay
Riseth the vision of the school-boy train
Who shouted, thoughtless, on dear Harrow’s plain,
And clomb the hill when eve was growing gray.
O for the careless days, the dreamless nights;
The broken bounds, the plunge into the pool;
The elastic feet that ne’er the leap refuse;
The summer games, the winter’s mimicked fights:
O for the guileless friendships formed at school,
The first shy whispers of the natural muse!