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CHIGWELL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: School that, in burford's honoured time
Last Line: Tho' not quite all vexation.
Subject(s): Fate; Life; Nature; Schools; Writing & Writers; Destiny; Students


SCHOOL that, in Burford's honoured time,
Reared me to youth's elastic prime
From childhood's airy slumbers --
School at whose antique shrine I bow,
Sexagenarian pilgrim now,
Accept a poet's numbers.

Those yew-trees never seem to grow:
The village stands in statu quo,
Without a single new house.
But, heavens, how shrunk! how very small!
'Tis a mere step from Urmstone's wall,
"Up town," to Morgan's brewhouse.

There, in you rough-cast mansion, dwelt
Sage Denham, Galen's son, who dealt
In squills and cream of tartar;
Fronting the room where now I dine,
Beneath thy undulating sign,
Peak-bearded Charles the Martyr!

Pent in by beams of mouldering wood
The parish stocks stand where they stood --
Did ever drunkard rue'em?
I dive not in parochial law,
Yet this I know -- I never saw
Two legs protruded through'em.

Here, to the right, rose hissing proofs
Of skill to solder horses' hoofs,
Formed in the forge of Radley;
And there, the almshouses beyond,
Half-way before you gain the Pond,
Lived wry-mouthed Martin Hadley.

Does Philby still exist? Where now
Are Willis, Wilcox, Green, and Howe?
Ann Wright, the smart and handy?
Hillman alone a respite steals
From Fate; and -- vice Hadley -- deals
In tea and sugar-candy.

Can I my school-friend Belson track?
Where hides him Chamberlaine? where Black,
Intended for the altar?
Does life-blood circulate in Bates?
Where are Jack Cumberlege and Yates?
The Burrells, Charles and Walter?

There, at your ink-bespattered shrine,
Cornelius Nepos first was mine;
Here fagged I hard at Plutarch:
Found Ovid's mighty pleasant ways,
While Plato's metaphysic maze
Appeared like Pluto -- too dark.

Here usher Ireland sat -- and there
Stood Bolton, Cowal, Parker, Ware,
Medley, the pert and witty,
And here -- crack station, near the fire --
Sat Roberts, whose Haymarket sire
Sold oil and spermaceti.

Yon pew, the gallery below,
Held Nancy, pride of Chigwell Row,
Who set all hearts a dancing:
In bonnet white, divine brunette,
O'er Burnet's field I see thee yet,
To Sunday church advancing.

Seek we the churchyard; there the yew
Shades many a swain whom once I knew,
Now nameless and forgotten;
Here towers Sir Edward's marble bier,
Here lies stern Vickery, and here,
My father's friend Tom Cotton.

The common herd serenely sleep,
Turf-bound, "in many a mouldering heap"
Pent in by bands of osier;
While at the altar's feet is laid
The founder of the school, arrayed
In mitre and in crosier.

'Tis nature's law: wave urges wave:
The coffined grandsire seeks the grave,
The babe that feeds by suction,
Finds with his ancestor repose:
Life ebbs, and dissolution sows
The seeds of reproduction.

World, in thy ever busy mart,
I've acted no unnoticed part --
Would I resume it? oh no!
Four acts are done, the jest grows stale;
The waning lamps burn dim and pale,
And reason asks -- Cui bono?

I've met with no "affliction sore;"
But hold! methinks, "long time I bore;"
Here ends my lucubration --
Content, with David's son, to know,
That all is vanity below,
Tho' not quite all vexation.





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