XLI
Cambridge
This poem is written in pencil on the fly-leaf of a copy of Poems 1833 in the Dyce Collection in South Kensington Museum. Reprinted with many alterations in Life, vol. I, p. 67 |
THEREFORE your halls, your ancient colleges, Your portals statued with old kings and queens, Your bridges and your busted libraries, Wax-lighted chapels and rich carved screens, Your doctors and your proctors and your deans Shall not avail you when the day-beam sports New-risen o’er awakened Albion—No, Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow Melodious thunders through your vacant courts At morn and even; for your manner sorts Not with this age, nor with the thoughts that roll, Because the words of little children preach Against you,—ye that did profess to teach And have taught nothing, feeding on the soul. |