I

The British bard who looked on Eton's walls, Endeared by distance in the pearly gray And soft aerial blue that ever falls On English landscape with the dying day, Beheld in thought his boyhood far away, Its random raptures and its festivals Of noisy mirth, The brief illusion of its idle joys, And mourned that none of these can stay With men, whom life inexorably calls To face the grim realities of earth. His pensive fancy pictured there at play From year to year the careless bands of boys, Unconscious victims kept in golden state, While haply they await The dark approach of disenchanting Fate, To hale them to the sacrifice Of Pain and Penury and Grief and Care, Slow-withering Age, or Failure's swift despair. Half-pity and half-envy dimmed the eyes Of that old poet, gazing on the scene Where long ago his youth had flowed serene, And all the burden of his ode was this: "Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise."