Pifferari at Eton
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.”
The young mind loves to wander. Even though
It lives at Eton, it will fly to Rome,
The Rome of Christmastime. His fancies flow:
The boy would wonder at this spire, that dome,
And stranger things like bagpipes in the streets
Where rustics play when they arrive from farms.
The music, ancient skirling, swells and meets
Imagination’s ear. It has the charms
(In Eton where he conjures it) of far
Off music, sweeter since it is not heard.
Pianoforte notes are less bizarre
Than bagpipes. On his notebook page they stirred
The silence in his scribbling schoolboy brain.
His compositions had begun their reign.