y thy blooming sons thy name revere,
Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear,--
That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow
O'er their last scene of happiness below.
Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along,
The feeble veterans of some former throng,
Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd,
Are swept forever from this busy world;
Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth,
While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth;
Say if remembrance days like these endears
Beyond the rapture of succeeding years?
Say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestow
So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe?
Can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son,
Can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won,
Can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys
(For glittering bawbles are not left to boys),
Recall one scene so much beloved to view
As those where Youth her garland twined for you?
Ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of age
You turn with faltering hand life's varied page;
Peruse the record of your days on earth,
Unsullied only where it marks your birth;
Still lingering pause above each checker'd leaf,
And blot with tears the sable lines of grief;
When Passion o'er the theme her mantle threw,
Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu;
But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn,
Traced by the rosy finger of the morn;
When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of Truth,
And Love, without his pinion, smiled on youth."

On leaving Harrow and his best friends, Byron felt that he was saying
adieu to youth and to its pleasures, and he was as yet unable to replace
these by the feasts of the mind. This filled his heart with regret in
addition to the sorrows which he experienced by those reflections upon
existence which are common to all poetical natures. The cold discipline
of Cambridge fell like ice upon his warm nature. He fell ill, and, by
way of seeking a relief to the oppression of his mind, he wrote the
above transcribed poem.

Harrow is called Ida, as his friends are denominated by fictitious
names. To the college itself, and to the recollections which it brought
back to his memory of physical and mental suffering, he addresses
himself:--

"Ida! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,
How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train!
Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,
Again I mingle with thy playful quire.
* * * * * * *
My wonted