Collegia – Ode 82: My Days, My thoughts, My Hopes

(Apologies to Robert Southey)

My days upon the Isle are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er my jaundiced eyes are cast,
The College buildings old;
My never-failing prison they
In which I languish day by day.

In them I make delight of weal
And seek relief from woe;
And while I tell myself to feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been a mess
With tears of maudlin loneliness.

My thoughts are in the Isle, with them
I passed my careless years;
Their faces love, their ways remem-
ber, and our boyish cheers.
And from their memory turn, to find
Instruction with divided mind.

My hopes are in the Isle; anon
My place therein will be,
And I will mete instruction
To Mona’s infancy.
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
Traced with my finger in the dust.

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