JAMAICA COLLEGE REVISITED (1948)

Say! Do the griffins yet bestride the Tower?
And do they yet retain their ancient power?
Is work still burning on the plains below,
Spreading far and wide its cheery glow?
Ah, yes! Still stands the College, still I see
Each hedge, each shrubbery and each verdant tree.
No signs of ruin here, no bald decay,
Though scores, nay, thousands all have passed this way.
Unchanged the old school stands the test of age,
Of Nature and her elementary rage.
Here still good Virgil may a refuge find,
And all who share with him the classic mind.

Here dwell the spirits of the poet-bards
Of whose great fame we are the jealous guards.
A Chaucer or a Spenser yet may rise
From this fair place. Mayhap there dormant lies
A mighty talent in some teeming mind,
And though unrecognized by this unkind
And vulgar world, yet may there come a time
In some bright sphere or some ethereal clime
Wherein that soul may claim a place among
A classic-minded and immortal throng.

The good years treasure up each memory sweet
Kept safe from cruel Time's relentless feet.
Each aging wall recalls old sights and scenes
Forever lost to human eyes. Still leans
The restless ficus boughs against the Tower,
Where shaded by the dark and leafy bower
The old grey ghosts of younger days still rove.
At dusk they flitter forth and silent move
Through all the long and gloomy passages
Like listless souls of long-departed sages;
There, ghostly laughter of an older set
And whispers through the darkness echo yet.
The murmuring breezes waft them here and there
Complaining softly in the haunted air.
All grey and stark the silent buildings stand
While up above them, like some giant hand,
Hover the sombre clouds whose threatening mein
Lend sterner aspect to the solemn scene.
Beyond, Blue Mountain's mighty ranges rise
Outlined against the darkening evening
skies.
There the first symbols of the dawn appear
-
From thence Apollo, leaping from his lair,
First rears his hoary head above the clouds
When day once more draws back the night's dark shrouds:
Fresh hopes and aspirations spring anew
To cheer us on, perchance, or make us rue
...
Meanwhile the west grows grey, a shadow falls,
And idly plays upon the scarred walls;
The shapes and phantoms flitter all about
And romp within the classrooms and without,
Where lately cut and swept the grass grows green,
Unheeded, umolested and unseen.
The term is out: now one and all have gone,
And only I am left to brood alone;
Alone, save for these spirits of the past,
And with them now my lot I gladly cast.

Here stands the Hall whose honoured walls display
The names of those who will, long after they
Have run their earthly course, remain to be
An inspiration to posterity -
To those who otherwise might be like some
Who thought their tasks too trying and tiresome,
And frittered by the few (now precious) years
While those achievements which might have been theirs
Go to the credit of more studious friends.
Alas! They missed the road which upward wends
Its way to dizzy heights of knowledge bright,
Where spring the streams of learning and of light.

The sound of speech and laughter all else drowns,
And from his frame the old Archdeacon frowns.
Succeeding generations here have shared
The joys of those on noble Virgil reared.
Have not our minds, to flights of fancy fled,
Recalled the souls of heroes from the dead
And shared with them the doughty deeds of fame
Which with untainted glory crowned each name? -
Great Trojan Aeneas, and the brave Nisus,
Companion to the fair Euryalus;
Aletes, "ripe in judgement, bowed with years",
Moved by the daring of the two to tears,
Himself an able warrior and skilled;
Latin Volcens by Hertacides killed -
Or those who their delight in Horace found,
And Cicero with loudest praise have crowned;
Here too has Shakespeare's genius lived again,
And gems from the immortal Keats's pen
Have wasted been on youthful Philistines -
Save when some errant ray an aesthete
finds.

Re-echo still familiar voices here,
Of those whose once dread mein we now hold dear,
Which often in correction they would raise,
Though sometimes softening they might lower to praise;
Their stinging satire passed unheeded by
Our undiscerning mind's ingenuous eye,
Until, maturing, we ourselves one day
The cynic's role endeavoured to portray;
Men of great wisdom, awesome dominies,
Who introduced us to the mysteries
Of Euclid's learned science; and he too,
Who tried our unromantic hearts to woo
Unto his own dear passions - Byron, Keats,
Wordsworth and Shelley, Tennyson and Yeats;
He whose stern visage chilled each trembling heart
E'en as we vainly strove to learn the art
Of conjugating French irregulars,
Or how to round our "o"s and roll our "r"s.
The rod which once belaboured our behinds
Have left their mark now only on our minds:
The tempered steel of character is made -
Forgotten now the fire and furnace fade.

Hardby the Chapel stands:
Its hallowed walls retain each fervent prayer,
And every voice in praise uplifted there.
At eve the air is filled with soothing strains,
Harmonious and sad, sweet soft refrains.
Hushed are the voices of the vulgar crowd,
And stilled the rude sounds of the day, whose loud
Notes have, as fades with setting sun day's light,
Merged with the sweeter noises of the night.
Within, a human choir its vespers sings,
Without, a nightingale with folded wings,
Perched high upon the eucalyptus tree
Pours forth his happy evening melody,
In joyful hymns and psalms of adoration
Unto the Lord and Master of creation.
Here learned we all the tenets of our creed,
Here came to know the life that's life indeed.
About, a garden grows - ah! blessed plot!
For here secluded and remote may not
The vagrant or uneasy mind find rest
And soothing balm to salve an aching breast?
Here sitting quiet on the pleasant sod,
Away from mundane things, alone with God,
A sweet respite the burdened soul may share,
And breathe a quickening breath of rarer air.

The aged ficusberry trees remain,
Their thick grey trunks unscathed by wind or rain,
Two mighty emblems of the grand old school

Continued on page 2

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