Classic Poem

OR, " PRÆTERITOS ANNOS. "

School that, in Burford's honour'd time,
Rear'd me to youth's elastic prime
From childhood's airy slumbers —
School at whose antique shrine I bow,
Sexagenarian pilgrim now,
Accept a poet's numbers.

Those yew-trees never seem to grow:
The village stands in statu quo ,
Without a single new house.
But, heav'ns, how shrunk! how very small!
'Tis a mere step from Urmstone's wall,
" Up town, " to Morgan's brewhouse.

There, in yon rough-cast mansion, dwelt
Sage Denham, Galen's son, who dealt
In squills and cream of tartar;
Fronting the room where now I dine,
Beneath thy undulating sign,
Peak-bearded Charles the Martyr!

Pent in by beams of mouldering wood
The parish stocks stand where they stood —
Did ever drunkard rue 'em?
I dive not in parochial law,
Yet this I know — I never saw
Two legs protruded through 'em.

Here, to the right, rose hissing proofs
Of skill to solder horses' hoofs,
Form'd in the forge of Radley;
And there, the almshouses beyond,
Half-way before you gain the Pond,
Lived wry-mouthed Martin Hadley.

Does Philby still exist? Where now
Are Willis, Wilcox, Green, and Howe?
Ann Wright, the smart and handy?
Hillman alone a respite steals
From Fate; and — vice Hadley — deals
In tea and sugar-candy.

Can I my school-friend Belson track?
Where hides him Chamberlaine? where Black,
Intended for the altar?
Does life-blood circulate in Bates?
Where are Jack Cumberlege and Yates?
The Burrells, Charles and Walter.

There, at your ink-bespatter'd shrine,
Cornelius Nepos first was mine;
Here fagg'd I hard at Plutarch:
Found Ovid's mighty pleasant ways,
While Plato's metaphysic maze
Appear'd like Pluto — too dark.

Here usher Ireland sat — and there
Stood Bolton, Cowel, Parker, Ware,
Medley, the pert and witty,
And here — crack station, near the fire —
Sat Roberts, whose Haymarket sire
Sold oil and spermaceti.

Yon pew, the gallery below,
Held Nancy, pride of Chigwell Row,
Who set all hearts a dancing:
In bonnet white, divine brunette,
O'er Burnet's field I see thee yet,
To Sunday church advancing.

Seek we the churchyard; there the yew
Shades many a swain whom once I knew,
Now nameless and forgotten;
Here towers Sir Edward's marble bier,
Here lies stern Vickery, and here,
My father's friend, Tom Cotton.

The common herd serenely sleep,
Turf-bound, " in many a mouldering heap "
Pent in by bands of ozier;
While at the altar's feet is laid
The founder of the school, array'd
In mitre and in crosier.

'Tis nature's law: wave urges wave:
The coffin'd grandsire seeks the grave,
The babe that feeds by suction,
Finds with his ancestor repose:
Life ebbs, and dissolution sows
The seeds of reproduction.

World, in thy ever busy mart,
I've acted no unnoticed part —
Would I resume it? oh no!
Four acts are done, the jest grows stale;
The waning lamps burn dim and pale,
And reason asks — Cui bono?

I've met with no " affliction sore; "
But hold! methinks, " long time I bore; "
Here ends my lucubration —
Content, with David's son, to know,
That all is vanity below,
Tho' not quite all vexation.