TO ETON

Posted by Admin on 17 January 2008, 12:00 am

Tranquil Eton, midst thy lasting calm;
thou home of Erudition, Learning’s palm
must forever deck thy cloister’s shade,
and with the deathless laurels be displayed.
Freely given were thy finest sons
as Wisdom’s sacrifice to soulless guns.
Flourish Eton, and produce a man,
be he a Colleger or Oppidan:
on thy panelled walls inscribe his name,
one destined to acquire a greater fame
than by many gained whose names reveal
a craftsman’s art or schoolboy’s hasty zeal.
Send a statesman, prescient and wise,
who can with expeditious thought devise
schemes to cheer the founder’s heart of bronze,
and benefit those taught not by the Dons;
plans to give our youth more useful toil,
than soccer contests waged on muddy soil;
dreams Utopian to render void,
by forming now an England well employed.