Forty Years On (song)

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Forty Years On is a song written by Edward Bowen and John Farmer in 1872.

Forty Years On is a song about life at school and is meant to give pupils now an idea of what it will be like in forty years when they return to their old school, and to remind old boys about school life. It is the main school song of Harrow School, and is sung there at the end of any songs (this is an occasion when old boys of the school return to hear the schools songs being sung by current pupils, or an occasion within houses for singing the same songs at the end of each term), followed by Auld Lang Syne and the British National Anthem (God Save The Queen). Traditionally, verse three is sung by Old Harrovians in attendance at School Songs. The Churchill verse is only sung once a year at a special Churchill Songs. The penultimate Follow Up! in each chorus is sung unaccompanied by the School XII, which is made up of the best singers in the top year.

[edit] The Words:

Forty years on, when afar and asunder

Parted are those who are singing today,

When you look back, and forgetfully wonder

What you were like in your work and your play,

Then, it may be, there will often come o’er you,

Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song –

Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,

Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along,

Follow up! Follow up! Follow up

Follow up! Follow up

Till the field ring again and again,

With the tramp of the twenty-two men.

Follow up! Follow up!

Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies,

Bases attempted, and rescued, and won,

Strife without anger and art without malice, –

How will it seem to you, forty years on?

Then, you will say, not a feverish minute

Strained the weak heart and the wavering knee,

Never the battle raged hottest, but in it.

Neither the last nor the faintest, were we!

Follow up! etc.

Oh the great days. in the distance enchanted,

Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun,

How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted –

Hardly believable, forty years on!

How we discoursed of them, one with another,

Auguring triumph, or balancing fate,

Loved the ally with the heart of a brother,

Hated the foe with a playing at hate!

Follow up 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 you that once you were strong?

God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,

Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;

Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,

Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

Follow up etc.

Churchill Verse:

Blazoned in honour! For each generation

You kindled courage to stand and to stay;

You led our fathers to fight for the nation,

Called "Follow up" and yourself showed the way.

We who were born in the calm after thunder

Cherish our freedom to think and to do;

If in our turn we forgetfully wonder,

Yet we'll remember we owe it to you.

Follow up! etc.

[edit] Trivia:

Forty Years On is also sung at Melbourne High School's Speech Night (Graduation Night) as well as at the end of weekly assembly meetings by all the students. Only the first and last verses (excluding the Winston Churchill verse) are sung. Interestingly, rather than the "tramp of the twenty-two men", Melbourne High School replaces the line with the "tramp of the thirty-six men" - in reference to Australian rules football being the dominant football code in Australia.

As well as this it is also sung at Wellington College in Wellington, New Zealand. The "tramp of the twenty-two men" line is altered and instead is "the tramp of the thirty true men" - in reference to Rugby Union which is the national sport. Hamilton Boys' High School in NZ has also used it with the "thirty true men" since the 1950's.

In the United Kingdom: the school song of Woodford County High School in Essex, Beverley Grammar School in East Yorkshire and at Manchester Grammar School

In the United States: sung at the Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (excluding the Winston Churchill verse) at the commencement ceremony.

In South Africa: sung at all School Valedictions at Pretoria Boys High School, Pretoria