Imaginative escape

I’m currently re-visiting the poet and music critic, WJ Turner. I’ve collected his books over many years. Although his writings on music were highly esteemed (by the great pianist Artur Schnabel among others) and his poetry too (by Yeats, Aldous Huxley, Sassoon etc), he has more or less sunk without trace currently.

This is an early Turner poem that I learned by heart at school. It’s about recognising the need to escape imaginatively from childhood (in his case in Melbourne)…

Romance

WHEN I was but thirteen or so

I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too,

They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.

I dimly heard the master's voice

And boys far-off at play,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.

I walked in a great golden dream
To and fro from school--
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy,

And never a word I'd say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away:

I gazed entranced upon his face

Fairer than any flower--
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed

Thin fading dreams by day,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
They had stolen my soul away!

His father, a leading musician in the city, and his brother both did die (within a few months of each other in 1899/1900). The school he refers to is Scotch College in Melbourne.

You can listen to his voice reading the poem here (but you might prefer to look away from the ghastly “animation”): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7-Yf_I2P8

Does anyone still know it? Did many of us have this kind of moment?