Harrow

After successfully managing not to fall down the stairs at the best-themed party of the year (Lash N Tash/Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Guys in moustaches, girls in fake lashes, and the spanglier the sweater the better) at Camden Lock, I woke up too late to bake a cake, and rather scrambled over to Harrow-on-the-Hill to talk and laugh with old friends and new friends.

The divine Elise (whose commiseration is of the kind that floats clouds in coffee ) lives right near Harrow-on-the-Hill, and we tripped along a path that crested through a hill and we passed Harrow, where Byron went to school. While we didn't have time to hunt out the plaque (there was tea to be had. Tea and laughter), we were on those hills where Byron had sported.

On A Distant View Of Harrow

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd recollection
Embitters the present, compar'd with the past;
Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,
And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last;

Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is deny'd!

Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought;
The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted,
To pore o'er the precepts by Pedagogues taught.

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd,
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd,
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray.

I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown;
While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.

Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation,
By my daughters, of kingdom and reason depriv'd;
Till, fir'd by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv'd.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you:
Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,
While Fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
Since Darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me,
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul!

But if, through the course of the years which await me,
Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew. 

Lord Byron

ENGLAND you steal my heart, again and again and again.