Forty Years On!

FORTY YEARS ON (adapted from the famous song of Harrow School, written in 1872)

Forty years on, when afar and asunder,
Parted are those who are singing today,
When we look back and forgetfully wonder,
What we were like in our work and our play:
Brotherhood strong and our teachers devoted,
Assembly, Chapel, the House where we grew,
Posho, Githeri, the Founders’ Day dinner,
Talks in Baraza, the friendship we knew.

Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu!
Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu!
Give honour again and again,
To Starehe where we became men,
Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu!

O the great days in the distance enchanted,
Hours in the classroom and hours in the field,
In games and athletics we struggled and panted,
Learning to strive hard and never to yield,
Scouting, exploring, those long expeditions,
Fighting of fires, swimming and First Aid,
Playing of music, debating and drama,
Voluntary service – our first steps we made.

Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu! Etc.

Forty years on growing older and older,
Shorter in wind as in memory long,
Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help us that once we were strong?
God gives us duty for us to discharge it,
Problems to face, struggle with and overcome,
Service to render and glory to covet,
Twenty and thirty and forty years on!

Lenga Juu! Lenga Juu!

Dr. Geoffrey Griffin with the boys, Back in the Days.