Classic Poem

So you will see what I can see no more;
The old black stone, all round the bright young grass;
The towers, panelled halls, and fair stained glass;
The sunlit turf through some old oaken door;

And that green river with the sedgy shore;
The motley barges, and the huddled mass
Of breathless cheerers, as the swift eights pass
In desperate race, with long bent feathering oar.

The years go by, and all is fading fast;
The crowd in cap and gown are mere ghosts now
And that bright river glides into the Past;

The colleges and elm-girt towers grow
Each year more unsubstantial than the last,
Like fair dissolving views that lose their glow.