IDA! still o'er thy hills in joy preside, And proudly steer through Time's eventful tide: 380 Still may thy blooming Sons thy name revere, Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear;-- That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow, O'er their last scene of happiness below: Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along, The feeble Veterans of some former throng, Whose friends, like Autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd, Are swept for ever from this busy world; Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth, While Care has yet withheld her venom'd tooth; [xvii] 390 Say, if Remembrance days like these endears, Beyond the rapture of succeeding years? Say, can Ambition's fever'd dream bestow So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe? Can Treasures hoarded for some thankless Son, Can Royal Smiles, or Wreaths by slaughter won, Can Stars or Ermine, Man's maturer Toys, (For glittering baubles are not left to Boys,) Recall one scene so much belov'd to view, As those where Youth her garland twin'd for you? 400 Ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of age You turn with faltering hand life's varied page, Peruse the record of your days on earth, Unsullied only where it marks your birth; Still, lingering, pause above each chequer'd leaf, And blot with Tears the sable lines of Grief; Where Passion o'er the theme her mantle threw, Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu; But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn, Trac'd by the rosy finger of the Morn; 410 When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of truth, And Love, without his pinion, [20] smil'd on Youth. [Footnote 1: The words, "that schoolboy thing," etc. (see letter to H. Drury, Jan. 8, 1808), evidently apply, not as Moore intimates, to this period, but to the lines "On a Change of Masters," etc., July, 1805 (see letter to W. Bankes, March 6, 1807).] [Footnote 2: The motto was prefixed in 'Hours of Idleness'.] [Footnote 3: Lines 43-98 were added in 'Hours of Idleness'] [Footnote 4: Newton Hanson relates that on one occasion he accompanied his father to Harrow on Speech Day to see his brother Hargreaves Hanson and Byron. "On our arrival at Harrow, we set out in search of Hargreaves and Byron, but the latter was not at his tutor's. Three or four lads, hearing my father's inquiries, set off at full speed to find him. They soon discovered him, and, laughing most heartily, called out, 'Hallo, Byron! here's a gentleman wants you.' And what do you think? He had got on Drury's hat. I can still remember the arch cock of Byron's eye at the hat and then at my father, and the fun and merriment it caused him and all of us whilst, during the day, he was perambulating the highways and byeways of Ida with the hat on. 'Harrow Speech Day and the Governor's Hat' was one of the standing rallying-points for Lord Byron ever after."