{To the right of a drawing/map showing the school buildings:}
Farewell parental scenes! A sad farewell!
To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,
Tho’ fluttering round on fancy’s burnish’d wings
Her tales of future joy hope loves to tell.
Adieu, adieu! Ye much-lov’d cloisters pale!
Ah! would those happy days return again,
When ‘neath your arches, Free from every stain,
I heard of guilt and wonder’d at the tale!
Dear haunts! Where oft my simple lays I sang,
Listening meanwhile the echoings 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 widow’d parent lorn.
On Leaving School
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"On Quitting School" (sometimes "On Leaving School") is a sonnet by Coleridge, aged 18, dedicated to saying goodbye to Christ's Hospital and his childhood home at Ottery St Mary in Devon.
The drawing/map to the left of the text is based on the Agas map, c.1561.
Site: Christ’s Hospital School - sculpture (2 memorials)
EC1, Newgate Street
This sculpture marks the 350 years of Christ’s Hospital School in the City of London (1552-1902) but the year of installation, 2017, seems random. The School was originally close to this location.
