poem: Only Fifty Years Ago
Written in the morocco-bound notebook and dated March 6th 1886, this previously unpublished poem recalls the start of Eliza's relationship with William Aytoun in late Spring or early Summer 1838.
The ‘school girl platform set’ is Eliza’s graduation performance at Robertson’s Academy in Edinburgh, which she attended probably from 1834 when she was 12 and living with the Hunter family in Moray Place, to 1838 when she was 16. Three months later she and her sister Charlotte travelled to Calcutta. Eliza attended Robertson’s with both her sisters and other daughters of ex-patriate East and West India families like her own, or daughters of Scottish aristocrats and members of the wealthy industrial and merchant classes newly established in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The ‘dark-eyed stripling tall’ is William Edmondstoune Aytoun, author of Poland, Homer and Other Poems. The last stanza looks forwards to their break-up in September 1842, after Eliza’s return from India in May 1841. Soon after William ‘dropped’ Eliza he gained success as Professor of Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University and as a poet and critic at Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. The tragic end (‘Hector’s fate’) to William’s life came in 1865 after the death of his first wife, prolonged illness and declining influence.
Only Fifty Years Ago
Only Fifty Years Ago
You threw verses o’er the wall
And I picked them up and read
Tossed my saucy curly head
Not a name was signed at all
But the plaintive rise and fall
Of the boyish numbers led
Fancy with unerring tread
To the dark-eyed stripling tall
Only Fifty Years Ago!
Only Fifty Years Ago
On a blazing morn of June
Many a mile you walked together
Roses, pinks and mignonettes
All for me to wear at noon
As I played a concert Tune
On a school girl platform set
Roses fresh and dewy wet
Ah to think they died so soon
Only Fifty Years Ago!
Only Fifty Years Ago
Did that fragile sweet love token
Pass between the girl and boy
Followed swiftly life’s alloy
Parting words unconscious spoken
All the links of childhood broken
Thine was Hector’s fate in Troy
Battle’s onslaught, victor’s joy
And the death sleep ne’er awoken
Only Fifty Years Ago!
Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, with the author’s thanks.
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