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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  On Leaving Winchester School

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Winchester

On Leaving Winchester School

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

THE SPRING shall visit thee again,

Itchin! and yonder ancient fane,

That casts its shadow on thy breast,

As if, by many winters beat,

The blooming season it would greet,

With many a straggling wild-flower shall be dressed.

But I amid the youthful train

That stray at evening by thy side,

No longer shall a guest remain

To mark the spring’s reviving pride.

I go not unrejoicing; but who knows

When I have shared, O world! thy common woes,

Returning I may drop some natural tears;

As these same fields I look around,

And hear from yonder dome the slow bell sound,

And think upon the joys that crowned my stripling years!