for two years, because we lost two of the best Wardens that “New” and “Winton” ever saw, and in whose memory we are about to rebuild Thurburn’s great tower. But this year let your readers, and especially the ladies, come and visit the dear old place, and we will promise them such a treat that they will often long to repeat it.
We have all heard the old story of the boy pining away while he composed Domum; we have been shown the labyrinth on hills which he trod while he was composing it, and have been directed to the tree on the bark of which he carved the words when he had composed it. But we do not believe it, we will not believe it, for we could not believe it. The labyrinth on St. Catherine’s is a mizemaze, like many others known as Julian’s bowers. Internal evidence is against the fable of a sorrowing captive detained during the holidays; and as for the tree it is called “Domum” Tree because the song was sung under the branches of a former tree which grew upon the same spot. Only hear it sung in Hall on the six last Saturdays in the Long-Half before Evening Hills, and then determine whether it has a sad tune and doleful words. There is not a note of sorrow in the whole of it; it is a good honest schoolboy’s chant of joy at escaping from tasks and vulgusses, books and toys—books meaning the forms on which the scholar sits, and toys the bureaus at which he prepares his work; having misnomers as many other things in the wide world beyond those grey College walls have. So lately as 1796 the masters, scholars, choristers, and chaplains, with a band of music, walked in procession round the courts before the Whitsun holidays, and then round “Domum” tree, when Dr. Joseph Warton, mounted on his little grey pony, formed a conspicuous object in the procession. Twenty years before, “Domum” was sung at the Wharf, round the tree, and at the College gates, on the evening before the Whitsuntide holidays. In 1804, Huddesford wrote the following lines “on a threat to destroy the tree at Winchester round which the scholars at breaking-up sing the celebrated song called ‘Dulce Domum:’”
Then hail! fair Virgin Liberty!
All around thy sacred tree
Yearly, when returning May
The green sod decks with herbage gay,
Freshest spring flowers will we strew
And cowslips dropping bathed with dew.
Nay, the song itself fixes the time for its use as much as the pretty chant to the returning swallow at Stockholm, for does it not say—
Jam repetit domum
Daulias advena,
Nosque domum repetamus.
[Homeward flies the swallow now, and homeward let us go.]
Did ever weeping schoolboy, “creeping like snail unwillingly to school,” much less one confined during “leave out,” and therefore—yet much less—in confinement during the holidays, have the heart to sing—
Musa, libros mitte fessa,
Mitte pensa dura;
Jam datur otium,
Mitte negotium,
Me mea mittite cura.
[Leave weary muse books; leave hard tasks; now rest is given, away with labour: care of mine leave me.]
How blithely, too, does the lad sing—
Appropinquat ecce felix
Hora gaudiorum,
Post grave tædium
Advenit omnium
Meta petita laborum.
Ridet annus, prata rident,
Nosque rideamus.
[See, the happy hour of joys approaches; after long weariness the long desired goal of labour arrives. Laughs the year, the meadows laugh, and we should laugh.]
How joyously he looks for home—
Limen amabile,
Matris et oscula,
Suaviter nunc repetamus,
[The beloved threshold, a mother’s kiss, sweetly now we seek again,]
and shouts for faithful Roger to bring up the horses that he may be off and away—
Heus! Rogere fer caballos,
Eja nunc eamus.
[Ho! Roger! bring out the horses quickly, come, we would be going.]
How querulously he chides the morning star for its slow appearance—
Phosphore! quid jubar
Segnius emicans
Gaudia nostra moratur?
[Morning star, why does thy ray so late beaming delay our joys?]
Happy, happy boy! he calls to his mates to sing to his dear household gods—
Concinamus oh Sodales,
Concinamus ad Penates,
Vox et audiatur!
[Sing we, oh my mates, sing we of home, and let our voice be heard.]
It is only within the present decade we have sung at Winton “Domum dulce Domum” with the heartiest, to the old, old tune which John Reading re-set in the days of Charles II., soon after the Restoration. We have sung it in Willis’ Rooms in London, as we have sung it in hospitable New College, at the “gaudy,” in years gone by, not-to-be-repeated, and we never could detect a strain of sadness, except that, from time to time, some well-remembered voices were lacking, especially in the College meads; for on these—
Up springs at every step to claim a tear,
Some little friendship found and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems,
With golden visions and romantic dreams.
