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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

I. On Leaving School

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

(Written at Eighteen)

FAREWELL, parental scenes! a sad farewell!

To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,

Though fluttering round on Fancy’s burnished wings,

Her tale of future joy Hope loves to tell.

Adieu, adieu! ye much-loved cloisters pale!

Ah! would those happy days return again,

When ’neath your arches, free from every stain,

I heard of guilt, and wondered at the tale!

Dear haunts! where oft my simple lays I sang,

Listening meanwhile the echoing of my feet:

Lingering I quit you with as great a pang

As when, erewhile, my weeping childhood, torn

By early sorrow from my native seat,

Mingled its tears with hers, my widowed parent lorn.