There hasn't been an edition of the 'School Record' yet that hasn't included somebody's attempts at poetry.
Being something of a Philistine, I am in no position to judge the quality of what is there. When it comes to knowing what I like, I am very much with the mythical 'man in the street' and his appreciation of Rudyard Kipling's 'If'.
But some of the Aston poems have struck a chord with me, and leading the field are Joseph Manton, third Headmaster, and Frank Jones.
Joseph Manton wrote a poem to celebrate the school's Golden Jubilee in 1933, which he called 'Discipulus Ignotus'. It has eight verses, of which my favourite four are:
Out of a sombre Aston street
Of houses crowding row on row
I turn to precincts where my feet
First ventured fifty years ago;
A strange new world was opened then
Of joys and sorrows, hopes and fears;
And memory calls them back again
Across the mists of fifty years.
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A stranger now is in my place,
He greets me with a wondering air,
As if my unfamiliar face
Denied my right of being there;
His is the glamour now, the glow
Of life full-flowing to the brim
His looks were friendlier, could he know
How closely I am linked with him.
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A timid boy I entered here,
First trusted then to stand alone;
Amidst new faces, rougher cheer,
Constrained, though weak, to hold my own;
But friends soon gathered to my side,
And here I found more love than hate,
And with the years there came the pride
Of kinship in our little state.
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And if no memory remain
Of me and of my humble part,
Let "Unknown Pupil" be the plain
Memorial of one whose heart
Beat to a loyal tune with those
Who led the School in work and play,
And left it richer at their close
For pupils of another day. |
My eyes filled with tears as I typed this poem up. His may well have done when he wrote 'On Looking at the School War Memorial'.
In another war, Frank Jones famously wrote this in his fourth newsletter (he called them 'salvoes'!), of November 1940, to AOEs serving their country. He described it as 'an up-to-date version of Milton's sonnet beginning 'Captain or Colonel or Knight in arms':
Heinkel or Messerschmitt or Junkers crew
Let fall no rain of death upon my roof,
For I can furnish you with ample proof
That I have loved Germany as well as you.
HEINE and GOETHE have I read with joy,
Have been enslaved by SCHILLER'S mighty art,
Felt WAGNER'S music captivate my heart,
And waltzed to The Blue Danube like a boy.
I have drunk beer in Munich; end to end
Tramped the Black Forest; sailed the KONIG SEE;
Steamed down the Rhine; spent many a happy day
UNTER DEN LINDEN. Therefore spare a friend.
But must I die or share your slavery,
Then rain your bombs on me unerringly.