On the plain steeples of our English Church,
  Whose worship, ’mid remotest village trees, 420
  Suffers for this.  Even Science, too, at hand
  In daily sight of this irreverence,
  Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,
  Loses her just authority, falls beneath
  Collateral suspicion, else unknown. 425
  This truth escaped me not, and I confess,
  That having ’mid my native hills given loose
  To a schoolboy’s vision, I had raised a pile
  Upon the basis of the coming time,
  That fell in ruins round me.  Oh, what joy 430
  To see a sanctuary for our country’s youth
  Informed with such a spirit as might be
  Its own protection; a primeval grove,
  Where, though the shades with cheerfulness were filled,
  Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds 435
  In under-coverts, yet the countenance
  Of the whole place should bear a stamp of awe;
  A habitation sober and demure
  For ruminating creatures; a domain
  For quiet things to wander in; a haunt 440
  In which the heron should delight to feed
  By the shy rivers, and the pelican
  Upon the cypress spire in lonely thought
  Might sit and sun himself.—­Alas!  Alas! 
  In vain for such solemnity I looked; 445
  Mine eyes were crossed by butterflies, ears vexed
  By chattering popinjays; the inner heart
  Seemed trivial, and the impresses without
  Of a too gaudy region. 
                            Different sight
  Those venerable Doctors saw of old, 450
  When all who dwelt within these famous walls
  Led in abstemiousness a studious life;
  When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped
  And crowded, o’er the ponderous books they hung
  Like caterpillars eating out their way 455
  In silence, or with keen devouring noise
  Not to be tracked or fathered.  Princes then
  At matins froze, and couched at curfew-time,
  Trained up through piety and zeal to prize
  Spare diet, patient labour, and plain weeds. 460
  O seat of Arts! renowned throughout the world! 
  Far different service in those homely days
  The Muses’ modest nurslings underwent
  From their first childhood:  in that glorious time
  When Learning, like a stranger come from far, 465
  Sounding through Christian lands her trumpet, roused
  Peasant and king; when boys and youths, the growth
  Of ragged villages and crazy huts,
  Forsook their homes, and, errant in the quest
  Of Patron, famous school or friendly nook, 470
  Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down,
  From town to town and through wide scattered realms
  Journeyed with ponderous folios in their