Harrow
John Bruce Norton
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!
Ah, takes you back, doesn't it...
John Bruce Norton was educated at Harrow School but spent most of his life in India.
The great Romantic Poet, Lord Byron, another old boy of the school also wrote about Harrow, looking back with nostalgia at his time there.
