m MORE ECHOES FROM THE OXFORD MAGAZINE HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY MORE ECHOES FROM THE OXFORD MAGAZINE BEING A SECOND SERIES REPRINTS OF SEVEN YEARS ): n6 |)ta LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER, E.G. 1896 The Poems in this volume have been selected from those which have appeared in the OXFORD MAGAZINE between Nov ember } 1889, and November, 1896. Six of the poems by A. G. (pp. 21, 25, 30, 81, 83, 102) , contributed originally to this journal, were reprinted in a volume, entitled " VERSES TO ORDER " ; and are published again here under arrangement with Messrs. Methuen $ Co. The following signatures may be interpreted: D. F. A. . D. F. ALDERSON, Magdalen College. R. L. B. . R. L. BINYON, Trinity College. B. . . . C. E. BROWNRIGG, Magdalen College. A. G. B. . A. G. BUTLER, Oriel College. C. S. A. . A. S. CRIPPS, Trinity College. W.J.F. . W.J. FERRAR, Keble College. A.G. . . A. D. GOD LEY, Magdalen College. S. T. . . H. W. GREENE, Magdalen College. D. G. H. . D. G. HOGARTH, Magdalen College. W. P. K. . W. P. KER, All Souls College. W. W. M. W. W. MERRY, Lincoln College. H. A. M. . H. A. MORRAH, St. John's College. J. S. P. . J. S. PHILLIMORE, Christ Church. Q. . . . A. T. QuiLLER-CoucH, Trinity College. J. O'R. . J. a REGAN, Balliol College. 2. ... A. SIDGWICK, Corpus Christi College. J. F. W. . J. FISCHER WILLIAMS, New College. CONTENTS PROLOGUE. ALMA MATER MUSA VENALIS .... MVTAT TERRA VICES . AD LECTIONEM SUAM . OUR MASTERS .... BLUES TERMINALLY .... MURRAY'S HANDBOOK TO HOMER OF CHAUCERS ROSAMOUNDE PROCTORS IN PROCESSION . NONSENSE VERSES . CAVENDISH .... LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND . A BOATING SONG DlALOGUS DE CONGREGATIONE . STUDY IN PATIENCE . SCHOOL OF FLIRTATION METEOROLOGIST TO HIS MISTRESS Aaiepvocv yeXaaas MEISTER WILHELM IN OXFORD . DER ALTMANN IN OXFORD WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ! NOCTURNE .... BALLADE OF BLUE B.A.s . VlRGINIBUS .... To A. G IN THE GARDEN ATALANTA ..... THE LATEST APPEAL . Nov. n, 1896 Q. May n, 1892 . J.O'R. . 5 Oct. 17, 1894 . A. G. . 7 Oct. 1 6, 1895 . A. G. . 9 Jan. 23, 1895 . X. Y. Z. ii June 19, 1895 . A. G. . *4 June n, 1890 . 2. . . 18 Nov. 4, 1891 . A. G. . 21 Apr. 29, 1891 . W. P.K. 23 May 6, 1891 . A. G. . 25 May 23, 1895 . X. Y. Z. 27 Nov. 25, 1891 . A. G. . 30 June 29, 1896 . A. G. . 33 Mar. 13, 1895 . 36 Feb. 8, 1893 . A. G. . 38 May 27, 1896 . A. G. . 40 May 14, 1891 . D. G. H. 43 May 17, 1894 . A. G. . 46 June 23, 1892 . S. T. . 48 Jan. 29, 1890 . T. R. . 50 Feb. 12, 1890 . S. T. . 53 Oct. 26, 1892 . D. G. H. 57 Mays, l8 93 . A. G. . 59 May 29, 1895 . 5. . . 62 Feb. 19, 1896 . A. G. . 64 Feb. 26, 1896 . B. . . 67 June 24, 1896 . D. G. H. 69 Nov. 20, 1889 72 Mar. n, 1896 . A. G. . 74 Vlll CONTENTS THE INFANT SCHOLAR PRAIS OF OXINFURDE AD GERMANOS .... TRUTH AT LAST MONTEZUMA . A BANQUET HALL DESERTED To HIS PIPE . AFTERNOON SERMONS UBIQUE? NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, AND WEST MEDITATION ON METRE VERBERIBUS ET TORMENTIS DATE OBOLUM BIBLIOTHECARIO EXTENSION IN PARTIBUS . HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE . BALLADE OF ETHICS . WINTER . LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION . "READING" . FIN DE SIECLE .... HAPPY NIGHT .... TITANIA ..... ERASMUS SENEX IN A MEADOW .... THE WAY OF THE WIND . LINES ON AN OLD THEME . LINES FOR THE PLOUGHMAN A WELCOME .... AT LLANSANTFRAED . LES BELLES ROSES . Two LONG VACATIONS HORA ADEST .... AN EDITOR'S GOOD-BYE PAGE Oct. 25, 1893 . A. G. . 76 Feb. 6, 1895 . W. P. K. 79 Feb. 18, 1891 . A. G. . 81 Mar. 5, 1890 A. G. . 83 May 15, 1895 . D. F. A. 86 Nov. n, 1896 . A. G. . 89 May 6, 1896 , . A. G. . 91 Nov. 12, 1890 . W.W. M. 93 Nov. 27, 1895 . A. G. . 97 Feb. i, 1893 H.A.M. 100 Mar. 1 6, 1892 . A. G. . 102 Feb. 12, 1890 . 104 Feb. 24, 1894 W.W.M. 106 Oct. 19, 1892 . A. G. . 108 May 3, 1893 A. G. . in Nov. 1 6, 1892 . W. J. F. 114 Feb. 6, 1895 A. G. . 116 Jan. 30, 1895 . T. R. . 118 Nov. 1 6, 1892 . 1 20 Feb. 17, 1892 J. O'R. 122 June 1 8, 1891 . R. L. B. 124 Feb. 5, 1890 C. S. A. 125 Feb. 13, 1895 . W. J. F. 127 May 9, 1894 J. S. P. 134 June 24, 1896 . S. T. . 137 Nov. 7, 1894 J. S. P. 139 May 24, 1893 . 141 May 23, 1895 . S. T. . 142 May 8, 1895 W.J.F. 144 Nov. 6, 1889 C. S. A. 148 Mar. 18, 1896 . A. G. B. 151 May 17, 1894 . H.A.M. 154 June 14, 1893 . J. F. W. 157 PROLOGUE ALMA MATER KNOW you her secret none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter ; Still by the gateway flits the gown ; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, Faces of stone look down. Faces of stone, and other faces. Some from library windows wan Forth on her gardens, her green spaces Peer, and turn to their books anon. Hence, my Muse, from the green oases Gather the tent, begone ! Nay, should she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise to fling her One poor sou for her serenade ? One poor laugh for the antic finger Thrumming a lute-string frayed ? ALMA MATER Once, my dear but the world was young then- Magdalen elms and Trinity limes Lissom the oars and backs that swung then, Eight good men in the good old times Careless we, and the chorus flung' then, Under St. Mary's chimes ! Reins lay loose and the ways led random Christ Church meadow and Iffley track " Idleness horrid and dogcart " (tandem) Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack Pleasant our lines, and, faith ! we scanned 'em: Having that artless knack. Come, old limmer, the times grow colder: Leaves of the creeper redden and fall. Was it a hand, then, clapped my shoulder? Only the wind by the chapel wall. Dead leaves drift on thy lute : so fold her Under thy faded shawl. ALMA MATER 3 Never we wince though none deplore us, We who go reaping that we sowed ; Cities at cock-crow wake before us Hey, for the lilt of the London road ! One look back, and a rousing chorus ! Never a palinode ! Still on her spire the pigeons hover ; Still by her gateway haunts the gown ; Ah, but her secret ? You, young lover, Drumming her old ones forth from town, Know you the secret none discover? Tell it when you go down. Yet if at length you seek her, prove her, Lean to her whispers never so nigh ; Yet if at last not less her lover You in your hansom leave the High ; Down from her towers a ray shall hover Touch you, a passer-by ! Q- MUSA VENALIS WHO will employ a doggrel bard? Come buy, come buy, come buy! Butter and poetry sold by the yard, Come buy, come buy, come buy! Don and tradesman, scholar and scout, Coach, smug, blood, professor and tout, All will be suited without any doubt; Come buy, come buy, come buy! I can praise your books, or perhaps your looks, And crack up your Licensed Halls; I can chant every wicket you scattered at cricket With those terrible back-break balls ; Or your tiny boots and your stylish suits, Or how you got your Blue, With your great flat back and your long thin legs, And the way you pulled it through. i 6 MUSA VENALI3 Here is the shop for forging rhyme All in the latest modes, Puffs supplied at a guinea a time, And Epinikian Odes. I'll prattle of sheep, and how hills are steep, And roads are sometimes long r Or lull you to slumbers with mystical numbers Of sweet Swinburnian song. Epic, heroic, lyric or blank, Nothing to me comes hard, For I am a bard at a penny a line, A Quadrantarian Bard ! J. O'R. MVTAT TERRA VICES Mtchaelmas Term, 1894. 'TIS Term again once more the studious boy Salutes his Dean with simulated joy: Th* aspiring Fresher, with impartial view, Reveres the Don, the Porter, and the Blue ; While Senior men to some admiring throng Recount th' achievements of 'the recent Long, And rusty students late from books remote Read the dark text and con the obscurer note. Golfers resume their caddies and their clubs, Greats men their Plato, History men their Stubbs ; Perspiring oarsmen ply the straining oar, And Learning smiles upon her sons once more! Yet ah! what sadness mars the festive scene? Why stalk the Proctors with dejected mien? Why falters History at the name of BOYD, Sheds a still tear, and mourns an aching void ? B a 8 MVTAT TERRA VICES Change rules the world : and e'en a VICE'S power Is but the creature of a fleeting hour. His state neglected and his pomp forgot (What boots his Bedel, and his Poker what?) In Sheldon's Theatre no more will he Calm the wild throng and grant the high degree : No more control the tedious dull debates Of Boards (himself more bored) and Delegates : Post-prandial sermons soothe his ears no more: Our Term begins, but his, alas! is o'er! My pensive Muse ! attempt a lighter strain ; Be more hilarious, and begin again. As fields grow green that erst were bare and brown ; As men come up, though other men go down ; As new-born flowrets deck the vernal meads; As Amurath to Amurath succeeds Nature benign her losses quick restores, And grants us still her new Vice- Chancellors ! What rays of light illume our darkest scenes. And gild with joy the pepper-box of Queen's? We hail the radiance of thy nascent star, VlR INSIGNISSIME, J. R. MAGRATH ! A. G. AD LECTIONEM SUAM WHEN Autumn's winds denude the grove, I seek my Lecture, where it lurks 'Mid the unpublished portion of My works, And ponder, while its sheets I scan, How many years away have slipt Since first I penned that ancient man- uscript. I know thee well nor can mistake The old accustomed pencil stroke Denoting where I mostly make A joke, Or where coy brackets signify Those echoes faint of ancient wit Which, if a lady J s present, I Omit. io AD LECTIONEM SUAM Though Truth enlarge her widening range, And Knowledge be with time increased, While thou 5 my Lecture ! dost not change The least, But fixed immutable amidst The advent of a newer lore, Maintainest calmly what thou didst Before : Though still malignity avows That unsuccessful candidates To thee ascribe their frequent ploughs In Greats Once more for intellectual food Thou 'It serve: an added phrase or two Will make thee really just as good As new: And listening crowds, that throng the spot, True Learning's cup intent to drain, Will cry, "The old familiar rot Again!" A. G. OUR MASTERS: AN ECLOGUE The endowment of Research is an old story : the endowment of the Extension Lectures is a modern demand and backed by a louder outcry. The resources of the University are insufficient for the needs of liberal studies ; but this is no answer, as is shown in the following dialogue, to the rapacity of the specialist and the sciolist. RESEARCHER. I AM not such as others are; My worth is hard to rate, And you must please to take at par My modest estimate. For how can you examine those Who only know what none else knows? Or if you choose to put it so What no one else would care to know? EXTENSION STUDENT. I'm very much as others are, Perhaps a little more so. I don't pursue my studies far, For then I find they bore so. 12 OUR MASTERS: AN ECLOGUE By each successive teacher shown Glimpses half-seen of things half-known^ I represent, throughout the land, The second-rate at second-hand. RESEARCHER. My learning's tree bears scanty fruits, For I 'm a true Researcher ; I find in Letto-Slavic roots My intellectual nurture. Of these I know, and I alone, The little that can e'er be known ; Content therewith I stand apart From science, literature, and art. EXTENSION STUDENT. I pass all knowledge in review. The subjects don't much matter ; I pick up quite enough to do For dinner-table chatter. A note-book, large and full, contains My substitutes for work and brains : And I believe with all my soul " The half is greater than the whole." OUR MASTERS : AN ECLOGUE 13 ENSEMBLE. In this at least we both concur, We somehow must be paid for ; Curators of the Chest demur. But we are what they're made for. Of Letters, once esteemed Humane, The day has sunk, nor dawns again Quick then endow us, for you must, Extensionist and Dryasdust. X. Y. Z. BLUES WHEN the bard selects a subject which is suitable to sing, Tisn't Love, or Convocation, but it 's quite another thing For the monumental records of elevens and of crews Are the only theme that 's proper for the academic Muse : 'Tis the sinews and the thews And the victories of Blues : They're the solitary subject which is likely to amuse Yes, the only dissertations that the public will peruse Are the chronicles relating the performances of Blues. When I move in gilded circles ('tis my habit now and then), I am voted dull and stupid, and I am not asked again, BLUES 15 If I cannot make a series of intelligent remarks In replying to their queries on the River and the Parks, Where they gather in a swarm When it's reasonably warm, And they watch the Blue at cricket and they prattle of his Form, Where they see him a-compiling of a century or two, Or applaud him from the Barges as he sits among his crew. When I read my weekly Isis (as I usually do), I peruse with veneration the achievements of the Blue: Where his catalogue of virtues is hebdomadally penned By the callow admiration of a sympathetic friend : He's the idol every week Of a sympathetic clique For his prowess on the River or his ignorance of Greek ; And the Freshman, while the record he assiduously cons, Sees a model and ensample for the guidance of his Dons! 16 BLUES In those old monastic cloisters where the learned meet to dine He's the theme of envious Tutors while they sit beside their wine : They neglect their ancient studies, and the books upon their shelves Are the latest works on cricket which they do not play themselves. Yes! the Don no more dilates On the facts and on the dates Which will benefit his pupils when he sends them in for Greats ; For the columns of the Sportsman are the only thing he knows, And he sets them to his scholars as a piece for Latin Prose. Ye magnificent young athletes ! whom we contem- plate with awe, Whose behaviour is our model and whose wishes are our law Who to honour your successes burn our chairs and tables, while E'en the owner acquiesces with a simulated smile, BLUES 17 Simply asking now and then If you're ordinary men, Or phenomena celestial who are granted to our ken: Take this humble little lay From a reverent M.A. As the only act of homage he is competent to pay For the truth J s as old as Pindar, that the only thing to do Is to court the approbation and indulgence of a Blue! A. G. TERMINALIA SALVE Termine summe Terminofum infinitaque Termini voluptas! salvete, hospitium recens, sorores, consobrinae, amitaeque, ceteraeque. consobrina placet domi forisque : dulces, si modo mutuae, sorores: placandasque amitas, puer, memento, si vis conloquio frui puellae. Aestas praeterit, imminetque Finis : i nunc, Subgraduate, pelle curas : Horti, Commemoratio, Choreae, Ludi, Prandia, Remigationes, quid non laetitiae reducit hora ? gaude, Subgraduate, nil agendo. Matutinus abi ; require Pratum laburni loca pendulo monili et ranunculeo nitentia auro, Maio castaneisque odora conis vestes exue : recreare fluctu : dulces Isideae lavationes. TERMINAL1A 19 collegi citius redi Penates: explorator adest : cibus paratur : bullit Mochius humor : ova, salmo, panis, cuncta vocant : eas, sodales expergefacias inertiores. dulces ante meridiem induenti navalis toga candidaeque braccae, braccae fmibus infimis retortae. lecturasque secare dulce : dulces post ientacula fumigationes. Tutores vacua querantur aula : Praeses dilaceret comas, genusque inritabile saeviant Decani: nullius miserere : temne libros : per quadrangula lentus ambulato, libans Acta Diurna seu Rubentem, cari non sine fistula vaporis. cum Phoebi medius peractus ardor, conto linter eat per Interamna ; dum sudant alii, iace supinus, fuma, perlege Gallicam novellam : aut tu rete super pilam remittas, aut spectaveris Undecim virorum plagas, Antipodesque praeliantes. quinta est hora, redi, revise amices; 20 TERMINAL1A fumant Serica pocla : carpe fessus plusquamsardanapaleam quietem. turn convivia, musicique coetus, serae vesperis ambulationes, ludi, charta, ioci, fragor, theatrum, Campani latices, vel unda Oporti, seu quern mitigat Usquebacchianum aut Sodae liquor aut Apollinaris ; dulce est desipere in loco studentis, praetextuque laboris otiari. Salve Termine summe Terminorum, O conferte gravisque inanitate, O dulcedine perlaboriose. Saturnalia dissipationis ! MURRA Y'S HANDBOOK TO HOMER "We regretted much to see PROFESSOR MURRAY of Glasgow lending the weight of his brilliant name to the statement that schoolboys ought not to read Homer, because it would corrupt their Greek." Note in the OXFORD MAGAZINE. " Poluphloisboisterous Homer of old Threw all his augments into the sea. Although he had often been courteously told That perfect imperfects begin with an e: But the poet replied with a dignified air ' What the Digamma does any one care ? ' ' Yes it is true that that singular man (Whether he's Homer, or somebody else) Often puts Kev where he should have put av, Seldom will construe and mostly misspells. And wholly ignores those grand old laws Which govern the Attic conditional clause. This is the author whom innocent boys Cram for Responsions and grind at for Mods, Possible Ithacas, mythical Troys, Scandalous stories of heroes and gods, C 22 MURRAY'S HANDBOOK TO HOMER Wholly deficient in morals and truth, That is the way that we educate Youth ! Even the great Alexandrian clique Never attempted to write him anew : Great Mr. Murray ; Professor of Greek ! Erudite person ! they left it to you. Now shall we have 'twas a manifest need Something that serious scholars can read. Parents and guardians may surely expect Books where the student orthography learns, Language grammatical, spelling correct, Not the vagaries of Chaucer or Burns, Syntax and idioms adapted to those Stated distinctly in Sidgw-ck's Greek Prose: None of the puzzles that puzzle us now, Nothing to hinder disciple or don, All of his genitives ending in ou, All of his anag Xeyo/xe^a gone Homer conforming to classical rule That is the Homer for College and School ! A. G. OF CHAUCERS ROSEMOUNDE BALADE TO THE MAKERES MAISTFES that in the goodly sees divyne the brighte Apolo with the laurer crounde, we thanken yow that of youre hye ingyne on erthe yit the crommes ben yfounde : loo Aristotle in Egipte under grounde that of Athenes wroot the governaunce, and Chaucer thy balade of Rosemounde of joye encresing oure inheritaunce. Youre loos schal nat apairen ne decline: sendeth us more of that wherin ye habounde (ne yit of Melibee the discipline reherseth nat for hit nis nat jocounde) loo with oblivioun was longe ywounde Granson the flour of hem that maken in Fraunce, and now he is unwrien and al unbounde, of joye encresing oure inheritaunce. C 3 24 OF CH AUGERS ROSEMOUNDE Thogh Troye be toscatered in ruine, and Thebes brent, and Ninive forgrounde, yit nis ther comen among us swiche a pine to jompre the olde musyk ne confounde the swete layes, ne the voys facounde, ne putte here mirthe oute of oure remembraunce : the Hous of Fame endureth yit a stounde, of joye encresing our inheritaunce. L' ENVOY. Goth, litel lewede rimes cercling rounde, loketh ye be nat blamed of bobaunce ther sotil lore is and the craft profounde, of joye encresing our inheritaunce. W. P. K. Kal. Mai, 1891. PROCTORS IN PROCESSION The Proctors asserted their right to precede M.A. Heads of Houses. Qui contemptu pressus est, ecce fit sublimis, quique summus fuerat mixtus est cum imis : anne vos iniurias perferetis tales, Guardian!, Praesides, atque Principales? olim in Ecclesiam Universitatis praecedebant maximae viri dignitatis : ibant cum Doctoribus Capita Domorum in Doctorum cathedras, sicut est decorum : primus venit omnium Bromi de sacello Vice Cancellarius, ductus a bedello : Procurator pone turn, Praeses ibat ante (tintinnabulario rite tintinnante). ordo nunc euntium notus exolescit, deprimuntur Capita, Procurator crescit, nunc (velut petorritis si trahantur equi) idem hie praegreditur qui solebat sequi! 26 PROCTORS IN PROCESSION Caput Domus quodlibet est permagnus homo, nihil potest propria exturbare domo : Procurator annua tantum habet iura, utque vere dixerim, servus est natura. alter fiet nihil est quare metuatis unus e Collegio Universitatis : neu collega terreat : brevi fiet iste mera pars Collegii Divi Jo. Baptistae. vivunt illi regulas persequendo stultas, propter parva crimina imponendo multas : sunt interdum utiles, verum plane pestis : vos cum illis nulla re comparand! estis. Sive vos in praelio trucidabit Freeman, sanguis certe Praesidum bonae legis semen,- morte contumelias peius ferre tales, Guardiani, Praesides, atque Principales ! A. G. NONSENSE VERSES After SWINBURNE, Poems and Ballads, i. 116. IF I were what the year is, And you the Summer Term ; Involved and yet unmated We might be correlated As pewter unto beer is. Or thrush to early worm : If I were what the year is, And you the Summer Term. If you were classic poet, And I the humble crib. Apart you'd be neglected, And I not much respected ; Plato without his Jowett, A pen without a nib : If you were classic poet, And I the humble crib. NONSENSE VERSES If you were a papyrus, And I a palimpsest, We'd lurk, assorted oddly, In nooks and holes of Bodley, Where trippers can't admire us And students daren't molest : If you were a papyrus, And I a palimpsest. If you were the Vice- Chancellor, And I the poker bore ; We 'd wend our walks diurnal, Half formal, half fraternal, Like Gretel and like Hansel, or The Heavenly Twins of yore : If you were the Vice-Chancellor, And I the poker bore. If you re-wrote the Digest, And I revised the Code, We 'd frolic with opinions That never were Justinian's, And dance, with quip and high jest, Down learning's royal road : If you re-wrote the Digest, And I revised the Code. NONSENSE VERSES 29 If I could be the whisky, And you the soda were, 'Mid shouts and glasses' jingle We'd sparkle, mix and mingle, With Undergraduates frisky, Nor here nor quite all there: If I could be the whisky, And you the soda were. If you, love, were the bonfire, And I the College chairs, In fire we'd seek sensation Of mutual, glad cremation, Fire, that seems sunk and gone fire That faintlier flickering flares : If you, love, were the bonfire, And I the College chairs. X. Y. Z. CA YEN DISH: AN ODE On the extinction of Cavendish College in the University of Cambridge. I. AND can it be? is Cambridge too To Ignorance a slave? Can dark Reaction's tide imbrue The Cam's progressive wave? I used to think that every fad, That every scheme and purpose mad In Education's sphere, A Kindergarten system, or A theory of Mr. St rr, Could find expansion here! II. As golfers, doomed by fortune harsh To seek the flats of Cowley Marsh, Still turn a wistful eye upon The verdant slopes of Headington, So Cavendish a pigmy race CAVENDISH: AN ODE 31 Laments th s obnoxious rule Which closes that peculiar place, The Cambridge Infant School. How oft when privileged to view Amid some rural scene Her freshmen, walking two and two, Escorted by the Dean How oft her halls I seemed to see, Where, dandled on the Master's knee, They learn their 6, f], TO, And little Tollmen lisp with glee About their Little-go ! Not there (I thought) the studious boy Is taught to fill, with lawless joy, The gay nocturnal cup : At half-past eight or so 'tis said The Tutor sends his men to bed, And comes to tuck them up ! No " gates " or fines pollute the air : No scholarships or prizes there Reward successful cram, But Vice is spanked (though not too hard) And Virtue finds its due reward In extra helps of jam. 32 CAVENDISH: AN ODE III. Such was the scene: but human bliss Is bound, alas I to pass^ away : And Cavendish no longer is, Because she did not pay. An exiled crew, her students wend Their corals lost, their rattles broke For Cavendish has found an end (As usual) in smoke : And once again on history's page Is chronicled the truth Youth cannot live with crabbed Age, Nor crabbed Age with Youth. A. G. LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND WHEN we're daily called to arms by continual alarms, And the journalist unceasingly dilates On the agitating fact that we 're soon to be attacked By the Germans, or the Russians, or the States : When the papers all are swelling with a patriotic rage, And are hurling a defiance or a threat, Then I cool my martial ardour with the pacifying page Of the Oxford University Gazette. When I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry (Being sated with sensation in excess, With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press), 34 LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND Then I turn me to the columns where there 's nothing to attract, Or the interest to waken and to whet, And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact In the Oxford University Gazette. When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree Puts his verses in the columns of the Times ; When the endless minor poet in an endless minor key Gives the public his unnecessary rhymes; When you're weary of the poems which they constantly compose, And endeavour their existence to forget, You may seek and find repose in the satisfying prose Of the Oxford University Gazette. In that soporific journal you may stupefy the mind With the influence narcotic which it draws From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined Or the contemplated changes in a clause: LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND 35 Place me somewhere that is far from the Standard and the Star^ From the fever and the literary fret, And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm Of the Oxford University Gazette ! A. G. A BOATING SONG Now the winter's fairly gone, Come, my trusty crew, Take your seats and paddle on : Touch her, bow and two ! Coach and College on you call : Now 's the time to show What you're made of: Forward all, Are you ready? Row! Chorus. Row, row, row ! Swinging out and all together, Steady, steady on the feather, Now then, make her go! Even keel and blades as true, Keep it long and pull it thro 1 , Buck up for the old Dark Blue, And row, row, row I A BOATING SONG 37 You who've gone to Putney's tide Heavy with our fate ; Try, as you have ever tried, Gallant Oxford Eight! And, whatever may befall, Put in all you know, When you hear the " Forward all, Are you ready ? Go ! " (Chorus, as before.) DIALOG US DE CONGREGATIONS TUTORIS ET MAGISTRI EXTRANEI On a proposal to deprive resident Masters of Arts, not endowed by their Colleges, of their vote in Congregation. Tutor. ABI, vir extraneus, in longinquas aedes ! obscurantistariis hie est nulla sedes : non hie suffragabere si monenti credes ; amovebo statim te, sponte ni concedes. rerum quid intellegis academicarum ? crede, non peritus es quaestionum harum : et, si causae ceterae suffecerunt parum, habes in Oxonia curam animarum. Magister Extraneus. Parce, precor, clericis: namque tali de re nihil est, quod videam, cur sic indignere : atqui velim scire cur si docebis vere nefas sit suffragium nobis exercere. sunt quae non intellegam : verum est quod mones : ubi tamen limites intellectus pones ? tune, cum Scientiae postulant ut dones, technicas intellegis disputationes ? DIALOGUS DE CONGREGATIONE 39 T. Non est ius suffragii largiendum cuivis (atque quam paucissimis e Conservativis) : si non in Collegio vel in Aula vivis nunquam potes sapere ; tu es merus civis. M. E. Quod sis in Collegio si videtur satis, sique nemo sapiens habitat in stratis, cum vos in Collegiis soli non vivatis, date suffragandi ius undergraduatis. T. Argumento breviter respondemus isti ego sum vir eminens, Tutor Aedis Christi : tuque, quamquam talibus non est fas resisti, semper hie suffragia contra me tulisti. M.E. Nihil euro quisnam sis : namque plane fabor suffragatum veni hue, atque suffragabor. si conaris pellere, vanus erit labor : namque iusto munere nunquam deprivabor. (Explicit Dialogus et intrant in Domum Convoca- tionis fugnantes.) A. G. D 2 A STUDY IN PATIENCE With apologies to MR. GILBERT. IF you 're anxious for to shine in the Philanthropic line, you should let yourself be seen Entertaining of a Mission which has made an expedition from the wilds of Bethnal Green : You should feel no idle scruples in postponing all your pupils, and in putting off the work they bring, For to act as educator to the lower social strata is a much more noble thing And all your guests will say, when youVe tramped the livelong day, " J E J s one of them good-for-nothing lazy Dons, as 'as got no work to do, So 'ow could J e be better employed than chaperon- ing me and you ? " You will traverse all the tangles of your cloisters and quadrangles with a bored and blase band, You will indicate the Garden and the Chapel and the Warden with a vague discursive hand, A STUDY IN PATIENCE 41 And your antiquarian knowledge while in every Hall and College you display with decent pride, They will check your observations with an ill- concealed impatience and an Alderis Oxford Guide. And every one will say, while they slowly, sadly stray, " This is all very well for uncultivated coves what 'asn't been here before, But a hintellectooal man like me why, 'e pines for something more ! " When aweary of discourses you have marshalled out your forces, and conduct your errant charge To the most convenient places for spectators of the races, on a raft, or bank, or barge, Your remarks upon the crews meant for instruc- tion and amusement with indifference blank they'll view, Or will stigmatize as drivel (which is possibly uncivil, but is broadly speaking true). And the serious ones will say "Why! they don't do nought but play ! 42 A STUDY IN PATIENCE If this kind of thing is the end and aim of a Universitee, They had better tike and confiscate the blooming place for the benefit of you and me ! " You will ask them (from an inner sense of recti- tude) to dinner, where your anxious soul you'll try By attempting as you revel to assume a lower level and abstain from subjects high : Condescension philanthropic will suggest the proper topic, and you'll think (delusion blind!) That the questions you have mooted are particu- larly suited to the average Cockney mind. So every one will say, when at last they go away, "That this young man is a hignorant chap it is perfectly plain to see, For the 'Igher Heducation is the only thing as reely interests me!" A. G. A SCHOOL OF FLIRTATION In the Eights Week, 1891, when the now established Final School of English Literature had first been mooted seriously. ONCE more but in vain we resist her. Our colours come fluttering down To the smile of the somebody's sister, To the eyes of the cousin from Town. By courtesy lords of creation, We follow a scampering skirt, And must still con the old conjugation "I flirted, I flirt, I shall flirt." Is this then a time for the faddist To broach a new serious School, While frivolity reigns at its maddest, When every one 's playing the fool ? If he " aims at a real relation Of studies to schools," as he states, Let him move for a School of Flirtation To be held in the week of the Eights ! 44 A SCHOOL OF FLIRTATION For desks, give the candidates pillows, Let punts take the place of the Schools, Let viva be held under willows, None near but the fish in the pools ; Let one give another suggestions, And chaperones slumber the while, And let the Examiner's questions Be framed in the following style: " If A be good-looking and 20 : If B be divine and 18: If C be well 50, with plenty Of wits preternaturally keen : Can you show by what use of quadratics The squaring of C may be done? And when by applied mathematics Will 1 8 and 20 be i ? " Express by the rule of proportion The value of * sisterly love/ And state what amount of precaution Is required to convert the above : Work the sum out in full, then express it In practice, and find the mistake: Is there any known way to redress it? And how many hearts will it break?" A SCHOOL OF FLIRTATION 45 What danger, with cousins for coaches, Of defeat or disgrace in this School ? What need of a tutor's reproaches To enforce such a monitor's rule? With such guides it may safely be reckoned That even the idlest and worst In a week would be sure of a second, In a fortnight could count on a first! D. G. H. THE METEOROLOGIST TO HIS MISTRESS HE. WAVES of caloric that warm and refresh are Spreading benignly o'er mountain and plain : Then while an area of limited pressure Causes a local cessation of rain Haste to the river ! where willows and sedges stir, Bowed by the breeze from the westering sun Zephyrs, whose force anemometers register Not in excess of 2-1 ! SHE. Study, O study the chart in the paper: Look at the glass and be guided by that! What 's a Solidified Stratum of Vapour ? Doesn't it mean I shall ruin my hat? Wet and despairing, the elements' gloom you'll eye, Doomed from the downpour to cower and to flinch, Watching the nebulous cirri and cumuli Add to the rainfall by more than an inch. THE METEOROLOGIST TO HIS MISTRESS 47 HE. Courage! nor deem that your Strephon's discretion Does not provide for potential mishaps : E'en the approach of a Shallow Depression Nothing demands but umbrellas and wraps. Come ! and at ease in my shallop reclining There I will whisper an amorous tale, While in the firmament cloudlessly shining Anticyclonic conditions prevail ! A. G. AAKPTOEN TEAA2A2 " Smiles that fade in tears." ONCE more our visitors arrive by dozens, " They come," is still the cry : Mothers and sisters and delightful cousins Parade the High. In turn they fill the old familiar places, Smile sweet and whisper low ; But some of us regret the vanished faces Loved long ago. In honour of her eyes his latest ballad The poet touches up: The host with care compounds the lobster salad, Or claret cup. So through the golden weather youth rejoices: But those whose spring is past Sit vainly listening for remembered voices Grown still at last. At night with pretty Dorothy and Daisy The man who goes to balls, Like Mr. Swiveller, essays "the mazy," And sometimes falls. AAKPTOEN TEAA2A2 49 For some such things have fled beyond recalling, Gone with the days that were; They hear no dainty footstep lightly falling Upon the stair. Flirtations, picnics, music, fetes, and laughter, With vows of endless truth, A happy Now, a happier Hereafter, The dreams of youth These turn to silence, solitude, and sorrow, And thoughts of yesterday, With those who look no longer for to-morrow, Whose heads are gray. ENVOI. Is this a jest or sober meditation ? Faith, who can tell? Not I, Who know not whether this Commemoration To laugh or cry. S. T. MEISTER WILHELM IN OXFORD In February, 1890, MR. GLADSTONE, of Christ Church and All Souls, came into residence. The following verses are republished with an apology to the shade of the " poor organist" who interviewed Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. HIST ! but a word ; beg your pardon ; Hear a poor Master of Arts Eager to learn of the wisdom of Ha warden : What do you mean by this " Union of hearts " ? See, we 're alone in the garden I, the poor lecturer here, You, sir, a statesman of note, Trusted and followed this many a year: Let's have a colloquy, something to quote. Mansfield will prick up its ear! Here 's your Bill, younger folks shelve : You dropped it so off-hand and runningly. See, here 's your masterpiece, clause number twelve : Why was it whisked into limbo so cunningly, Hatchet sent after the helve? Now you give nought but a phrase Nothing propound, that I see: MEISTER WILHELM IN OXFORD 51 Parnell might blame it, or Salisbury praise, Guarded, no less, where no safeguard needs be, Starting us all different ways. Morley his aid interposes; Harcourt is eager to help ; Ripon and Rosebery thrust in their noses : So the cry 's open, the kennel 's a-yelp : Childers confusedly proses. Morley is dreadfully candid ; Asquith discepts, has distinguished ; Harcourt votes solid, if ever yet man did ; Freeman protests ; says it isn't the thing wished : Back to You comes the case bandied. Parnell is curt and corrosive ; Sexton grows nettled and crepitant ; Billy O'Brien's expansive, explosive; Tanner outdoes them all, strident and strepitant ; Davitt O Danaids, O Sieve ! Now 'tis evictions and crowbars. Now 'tis a logical tissue Fine as a web of the casuist Escobar's Worked on this bone of a bill to what issue ? "Freedom," you cry are there no bars? 52 MEISTER WILHELM IN OXFORD I for your effort am zealous: Prove we were wrong when we doubted : Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous, Hopes 'twas for something the caucuses shouted, Cheering those Parnellite fellows? Over our heads Truth and Nature Smile on these zigzags and dodges : Ins and Outs plans for a new Legislature, Is there a point where the sense of it lodges, Safe from mere talk's ustirpature? My notion I know that I J m right here . . . The gate, sir ! he 's going to lock it. Hallo you, Simon, just show us a light here ! Down dips his light like a rocket ! He's a Tory, old Simon: he'd like, unawares To keep the place locked up till next morning prayers, To find two Home Rulers had ended their cares At the foot of these rotten old moss-moulded stairs : Have you got half-a-crown in your pocket? T. R. ' DER ALTMANN IN OXFORD DER Altmann vent to Oxford, He drafel fast und far, He rided shoost for sixdy miles All in von rail-roat car. "I knows foost rate how far I'fe goed, I J fe gounted carefully, Dere vas shoost von shbeech each vifdeen miles," Said Altemann, said he. Als bei de Keating bladform A shtop de Schnellzug makes, Dere coomed a poy und offered him Soom Banburische cakes. " I Ye svallowed all mein brincibles, Dot's nur ein Scherz for me, Boot I ton't dink I can svallow dese," Said Altemann, said he. E 54 DER ALTMANN IN OXFORD He vent to Chichele's College Ash dreimals honoured guest, Und trinked de Alle-Spooken peer At tinner mit de best. " Dere ish no Vilfrid Lawson roundt, No Andrew Clark I see, I dinks I shmiles shoost vonce acain," Said Altemann, said he. Ach ! hell erglanzt der Mondschein De parrels all amoong Vhere shtood der Altmann axe in hand A-knocking out de boong. Dey sings de Schvoppingmallartlied. Dey hafe a pully shpree, "Ve ton't care nix for demprance here/' Said Altemann, said he. Dere coomed a debutation From de Modern Hishdory School, Und deird him lods of quesdions On de soobyect of Home Rule. II Dere 's no man knows shoost vot id means, Egceptin' only me, Und I ton't quite oondershtand meinselbst," Said Altemann, said he. DER ALTMANN IN OXFORD 55 He vent brofessor's legdures, De brofessors shtay away, Mitvhiles he hear de Tutorbund Dot legdures efery day. " Brofessors get six hoonderd pounds, A tutor gets boot dree. Id's petter to brofess ash do," Said Altemann, said he. He vent bolidigal meedins Vhere de Freiheitgesellschaft rail, De shbeaker vas an Irishman Shoost bardoned out of jail. He hobed dot py de Borduguese Dis landt gesmasht vouldt pe; " Dot ish de union of hearts/' Said Altemann, said he. He vent von bleasant afdernoons To valk along de rifer, De eighds vas here de eighds vas dere, Und captains coached forefer. " Py shinks, vot dime dose vellers keep ! Py tarn, how shtill dey pe! I vish mein barty tid the same," Said Altemann, said he. E 2, 56 DER ALTMANN IN OXFORD He shtayed around t a vortnight, Und dere he shtill might pe, Boot he saw de crate Brofessor of Bolidigal Helodry. " Gottsdonnerkreuzschockschwerenoth ! He cooms to dalk mit me, Dot leds dis ding gombletely out," Said Altemann, said he. He vent avay a-wafing his Oomprella in his handt, A-vorking his life's mission oudt Soobyectifly und grandt. Soom beoblesh runs de Golfenkunst, Soom vorks philologie ; " I blays de Grandtoldmannerspiel," Said Altemann, said he. S. T WHAT MIGHT HA VE BEEN! On October 24, 1892, the Premier delivered in the Sheldonian a brilliant lecture on Mediaeval Universities, and especially Oxford in the time of the Schoolmen. It was currently reported that his colleagues in the Cabinet had experienced of late the greatest diffi- culty in distracting his attention to any of the questions in home and foreign politics which were pressing for solution. THEY talk of their Bills and their Ireland, and I tell them to go away! They speak of Uganda and Egypt, but I don't hear half they say. Why should I bother with H-rc-rt, or a nineteenth century scene ? Salamanca, Bologna, Salerno ! what might ah ! what might have been! I J m all for the Schools and the Schoolmen ! for the battle of word and phrase, For the grandiose disputation, and the fog of the ancient days ! From Naples to Paris I 'd triumphed, a Champion Churchman I, Over thirteenth-century L-bbies, advocates Diaboli. 58 WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN f "The Nature of Universals," "the Real and the Nominal " fool That ever I gave up myself to Eight Hours Bills and Home Rule! When I heckled that Deputation l you remember ? six months ago, Could the Doctor Subtilis himself have done better ? Not he> no, no ! How the black-robed crowds had applauded as my argument coiled and grew, Till what in the world my meaning not even my own self knew ! Not three, but a hundred courses I 'd pointed in that or in this, And been known to all time as the Doctor Perinexplicabilis \ " D. G. H. 1 A certain Deputation from the Unemployed. The Premier treated it according to his own definition of a Deputation as " a noun of multitude signifying many but not signifying much." NOCTURNE (1893) IN the cool and fragrant night, When the dews are softly shed, And the moon is shining bright Overhead, Only sound to stir the hush is Philomela, o'er and o'er Trilling, trilling in the bushes Her familiar reper- toire : Nothing else is to be heard Save the cavatine trite Of that overrated bird In the night. As the evening's growing late There are acclamations loud Where the orators orate To the crowd, 60 NOCTURNE And the gentlemen and ladies In the steamy, stuffy hall. Find it quite as hot as Hades As they 're jammed against the wall, While, the speaker's voice submerging, Rises still the frequent shout, 'Mid the swaying crowd and surging, "Chuck 'em out!" I am quite prepared to war For my country, as I hope, 'Gainst the Kaiser, or the Czar, Or the Pope : Should society require it, Most unquestionably I With a self-denying spirit Could persuade myself to die: But to choke upon a platform Needs devotion more than mine: To be done to death in that form I decline. Through the dark and fragrant night Comes a muffled kind of tread (While the moon is shining bright, As I said), NOCTURNE 61 There's a sound, a sound of drumming, And a tramp of many feet, There are politicians coming Down the dimly lighted street, With a song dissimilar To the nightingale her lay, And I hear it echo far 'Neath the vespertinal star, 'Tis the strain of Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ayl A. G. BALLAD OF BLUE B.A.s Air: " Jock o* Hazeldean." "WHY weep ye in your home, ladye, Why weep ye in your home? I '11 gie ye Firsts in my new Schools, An' ye shall ha' Diplom' ; An' ye shall ha' Diplom,' ladye, An' comely fees to pay " : But aye she loot the tears doun fa' Sair greetin' for B.A. "A stamp o' wax ye shall not lack, Nor parchment rich and rare; Nor arms in front, nor broidered back, Nor signatures sae fair ; That ye 're the foremost of them a' Vice-Chancellor shall say " : But aye she loot the tears doun fa' For love of that B.A. BALLAD OF BLUE B.A.s 63 The House was decked at morning-light, The papers glimmered fair; The Proctors waited a' the night, The Bulldogs baith were there; They sought in College and in Ha 1 , The ladye wadna stay; She's o'er the border and awa' To win a Scots M.A. VIRGIN I BUS YE Somervillian students, Ye ladies of St. Hugh's, Whose rashness and imprudence Provokes my warning Muse, Receive not with impatience, But calmly, as you should, These simple observations I make them for your good. Why seek for mere diplomas And commonplace degrees, When now unfettered roamers You study what you please, While Man in like conditions Is forced to stick like gum Unto the requisitions Of a curriculum^ As far o'er field and fallow In flood-time spreads the Cher, So wide (yet not so shallow) Your ample studies are; VIRGINIBUS 65 As Cherwell's wave returning Flows from a scantier source, So Man's restricted learning Is narrowed to a Course. As when the sphere is fleeting Across th' extended net, And Somerville's competing With Lady Margaret, As players at lawn tennis Return alternate balls, E'en such the lot of men is Who read for Greats and Smalls ! We bid them try poor suitors Yet still to fail condemn : Examiners and tutors Make shuttlecocks of them : Would you, as some of them are, Be constantly betwixt The horns of a dilemma Uncomfortably fixt ? When Proctors fine and gate you, If walking thro' the town In pupillari statu Without a cap and gown : When gauds that now delight you Away you have to throw, And sadly go vestitu In academico : 66 VIRGINIBUS When your untried impatience Is tested every day By rules and regulations : When academic sway Your study's sphere belittles, You '11 find that life, I fear, Is not completely skittles, Nor altogether beer. What boots that countless letters Unto your name you add? And strive to gild the fetters That cramp the undergrad ? Doomed to a course that 's narrow Your reck- lessness you 11 rue : The toad beneath a harrow Will happier be than you ! A. G. TO A. G. A retort from the Ladies' Colleges. You horrid A. G. ! You unnatural man ! I don't like your verses a bit\ Our JUST ASPIRATIONS you ruthlessly ban, And this, Sir, you fancy is wit! I'm sure you are cross, morose yes, and old, If to vote for our hoods you refuse ; I'm positive too you would not be so cold If you dropped in to tea at St. Hugh's. I had an idea for my Bachelor Frock, Tailor-cut not too full in the skirt Which has brightened my study of Hume* and of Locke, But you think I 'm fit only to flirt. I had carefully planned, when I got the M.A. For / don't think the B.A.'s enough Not like you poor men, to throw old hoods away, But to trim such a dote of a muff. 68 TO A. G. I scorn your contempt, and disdain your advice ; I don't see your logical ergo ; And though I could be most uncommonly nice, I am now most indignantly VIRGO. B. IN THE GARDEN Commemoration after the Battle of the B.A. had been lost. SHE. So ! you Ve remembered ! Come, for half an hour. Here where the cedar's shadows fleck the green, Man, monarch Man, monopolist of power, Watch how the Woman dominates the scene ! HE. Yes ! what a lesson ! You with such dominion, You beg diplomas, sue for a degree ! Lift but a finger, Man becomes your minion, Cringing, confessing Vicistis Dominae ! SHE. Here, yes ! we win : but what J s the worth of winning Always the one game from a willing foe, Gaining no jot on Eve at the beginning, Merely because our Maker made us so? F 7 o IN THE GARDEN HE. Stop ! not so fast ! You 'd recreate creation, Tossing up heads you win and tails we lose, Claiming in all our rights participation, Keeping no less your Empire ? We refuse ! SHE. Empire ! what Empire ? Look ! that pair of gabies, Mark how his boots shift, see his fingers twitch. She ? there 3 s an Empress ! veriest of babies ! Lord ! with how little wit one can bewitch ! HE. He ? you don't know ! In Europe at this hour No town so hidden but it knows his name. Power to wield o'er those that have the power Is that not Empire, quintessence of Fame ? SHE. Bah ! who would have it ? Give me, give the pitied Sex, I am born to, a decade's equal chance Subtler of speech, light handed, quicker witted Ten years ! I warrant you '11 not lead the dance ! IN THE GARDEN 71 HE. Dance ? that reminds me ! Keep me six and seven. If you 've an extra to-night Ah ! stand as now ! " Great Here's angry eyes " in highest heaven Never flashed queenlier than those, I vow ! SHE. Sir !! and you 're laughing ? Know our Cause is stronger Than yott and such as you. We will be heard ! Dance o'er the slumbering fires a little longer Jack!! you 're not going? Don't be so absurd ! D. G. H. F 2 AT AL ANT A ATALANTA'S swift and sure, Atalanta would secure A scholarship. Atalanta 's rather "blue/' And to fame she speeds, 'tis true, With hop and skip. Atalanta's heart is light, Still the future grows more bright With every day: Atalanta hurries on, Now another race is won, She takes B.A. ! Atalanta, this is bliss ! Atalanta, after this For much we look ; Will you teach true wisdom's ways ? Fools from depths of folly raise ? Or write a book? ATALANTA 73 Atalanta, here we wait, Well we know your powers are great, Pray what comes next? Strange ! Unwonted ! Now we find Atalanta lags behind ! We stand perplexed. Atalanta ! Would you fail ? Atalanta! Why so pale? Explain it, please. Atalanta smiles and sighs, Atalanta low replies, " Hippomenes ! " THE LATEST APPEAL After the war of words and pamphlets provoked by the ' ' Women's Degree " proposal. Vox auditur flebilis atque clamor tristis "viri docti, parcite! satis effecistis: enecamur chartulis ; temperetur istis lucubrationibus diu quas scripsistis ! " ex quo primum coeperat muliebre bellum, sive sit Responsio, sive sit Flagellum aliquem quotidie iaciunt libellum Gardner, Anson, Bellamy, Grose, Macan, et Pelham. tot insignes homines tanta cum scripsissent, propter haec si ceteri loqui destitissent Sanctae Theologiae Scholam cum adissent certe tamen aliquid scripta profecissent : sed Magistros ante se videns assidere nemo turn facundiam potest cohibere, quin exsurgant invicem, eademque fere eloquendo repetant ante quae scripsere! THE LATEST APPEAL 75 atqui sumus homines constitutae mentis, nee movemur temere doctrinarum ventis : iustus et propositi tenax non sescentis cuiuscumque generis paret documentis. magni viri, parcite! iam scripsistis satis: taedet eloquentiae perpetuitatis : comburendo chartas nos valde fatigatis: ipsi quin comburitis antequam mittatis? A. G. THE INFANT SCHOLAR What Intercollegiate Competition is coming to. Respectfully dedicated to Trinity College, Cambridge. IT was a College Tutor who resided by the Cam: With a pocketful of dollars He went out to purchase Scholars, And he came upon an Infant who was riding in a pram. Said the Tutor to the Infant (and the nursemaid stopped the pram), " Can you say your ABC? Are you good at Rule of Three ? " Said the Infant to the Tutor, " Most undoubtedly I am." " In that case/' said the Tutor, " I 'm empowered for to state That the College will supply you With a sum in short, will buy you, If you'll patronize that College as an under- graduate ; THE INFANT SCHOLAR 77 " And of course we shall expect you, as a simple quid pro quo (Latin Prose and Latin Verse You can study with your nurse), In your Little-go and Tripos some proficiency to show." " Oh ! glorious things are Colleges with money to disburse! I'm a Scholar but I think" Said the Infant with a wink, " That I see myself a-doing Latin Prose and Latin Verse ! " So this promising young student, having got a Scholarship, Went completely "on the scoop" With his marbles and his hoop, Neglected quite his alphabet in fact, became a Rip; And when he came to Cambridge, in his very first exam., Disappointing 'twas to find The condition of his mind Was not at all suggestive of ignition of the Cam. 7 8 THE INFANT SCHOLAR He was wholly inaccessible to study and to cram, And he showed no kind of con- sideration for the Don Who had bought him with a Scholarship when riding in a pram ; He could not pass his Little-go : he seldom wore a gown : Drained the far too festive pewter Quite regardless of his Tutor : Till the College wouldn't stand it, and they took and sent him down. There's a moral to this story, for the Isis and the Cam (Which the motive of these rhymes You '11 discover in the Times) : 'Tis to teach you to be prudent In the purchase of a student That I tell you of the Tutor and the Infant in a pram. A. G. PRAIS OF OXINFURDE i. OXINFURDE, thou art A per se, In Art Logyke especiall ; Of Bretane burghis thou beiris the gre, Be virtewis hyperbolical! : In thee the lemand lychtis all Ar gatherit of the sageis cleir ; Thy craft is kene and curiall, Thy Law is luifly for to leir. II. Thy musike and thy mistery Of dulce poetis rethoricall, With plesand stevin singand on hie, Ar blasit throu the warld ouiral : Thy maisteris philologicall, Illuminat persounis smgulere, Rehersis verbis potentiall : Thy Law is luifly for to leir. 8o PRAIS OF OXINFURDE III. Besyd thy watteris flowand fre, Thy pinnaclis brycht as beriall Conteinis treasouris of grit deinte That langis to science ethicall ; Likwys the methaphysicall, That wes contemnit mony a yeir, Is buskit into Baliall : Thy Law is luifly for to leir. Some tynis their patrimoniall At cairtis, at gowff^ and wantoun geir, With brokin bainis at the futball: Thy Law is luifly for to leir. Quod W. P. K. AD GERMANOS YE Germans, whose daring conjectures, Whose questionings darkly abstruse, Provide our Professors with lectures, Our Dons with original views, I strive to express what we owe you With wholly inadequate pen : Too late and too x little we know you, Remarkable men ! Had you lived but two thousand years sooner Poor Plato had ne'er been perplexed, No frequent and fatal lacuna Had marred a Thucydides' text: E'en Pindar would need no explainer, And ne'er had the public misled, Had he asked a Professor from Jena To write him instead. Though the facts that you foist on historians To the regions of fancy belong, And your dreams of the dates of the Dorians Are often demonstrably wrong, 82 AD GERMANOS Though your best emendations be " putid " When viewed through a critical lens, Your axioms completely confuted By grammar and sense, Yet O! till the Pedagogues' Diet (Determined distinctly to speak) Prohibits with terrible fiat The teaching of Latin and Greek, Till then we will humbly respect your Contempt for the Probably True, And climb to the heights of Conjecture Great Germans, with you ! A. G. TRUTH AT LAST LITERARY compositions (thus I heard a Tutor say) Have, as mediums of instruction, altogether had their day : Be not like our rude forefathers, who their pupils' minds perplexed With their futile speculations on the meaning of the text. In their critical editions we completely fail to trace That contempt of ancient authors which is Learning's surest base ; Any lies of any writers Homer, Plutarch, Livy, Dem- -osthenes or Aristotle all were good enough for them. Mere exactitude linguistic simply serves to hide the truth: Grammar's but a dull convention meant to vex the soul of youth : If you want to Make an Epoch, as a scholar ought to do, Try the methods advocated in the Classical Review. 84 TRUTH AT LAST There they teach how quite misleading is Thucy- dides' narration Save perhaps when illustrated by a recent ex- cavation, Prove Herodotus a liar show conclusively that one Square half-inch of ancient potsherd J s worth the whole of Xenophon. If you should consult the classics (and at times I think you must, Just to show they're persons whom it's quite impossible to trust), Do not seek the verbal meaning and the literal sense to render : Read them (like the late Macaulay) " with your feet upon the fender." This be then your chief endeavour, not to con- strue, parse, or scan, Not to have the least conception what the aorist means with av But by study of the relics disinterred in various spots Pans Arcadian to distinguish clearly from Corin- thian pots : TRUTH AT LAST 85 Thus the purest stream of knowledge from the fountainhead you '11 sip : Thus you'll do a genuine service to the cause of Scholarship : For by Fact and not by language now the ancient world we view Which was what our rude forefathers altogether failed to do. A. G. LINES ON MONTEZUMA BY A PASSMAN. An inspiration which he found it impossible to utilize for the Newdigate. MONTEZUMA Met a puma Coming through the rye ; Montezuma Made the puma Into apple-pie. Invitation To the nation Every one to come. Montezuma And the puma Give a kettle-drum. Acceptation Of the nation, One and all invited. Montezuma And the puma Equally delighted. LINES ON MONTEZUMA 87 Preparation, Ostentation, Dresses rich prepared : Feathers j ewels Work in crewels No expense is spared. Congregation Of the nation Round the palace wall. Awful rumour That the puma Won't be served to all. Deputation From the nation, Audience they gain. " What 's this rumour ? Montezuma, If you please, explain/' Montezuma (Playful humour Very well sustained) Answers "Pie-dish, As it J s my dish, Is for me retained." G 3 88 LINES ON MONTEZUMA Exclamation ! Indignation ! Feeling running high. Montezuma Joins the puma In the apple-pie. D. F. A. A BANQUET HALL DESERTED The undergraduate members of a certain College refused to dine in Hall, alleging that the refreshment provided was only good enough for Dons. PRAESIDENS et Socii laetis cum convivis epulantur dapibus plane tempestivis : sed carentes epulis, fame cruciati, errant in quadrangulis undergraduati. Compellavi iuvenes, et rogavi 6f Quare dira vos inedia vultis enecare ? cur in Aula solus vir assidente nullo unus secum vescitur, similis Lucullo?" Dixit quidam pallidus vixque valens loqui, " crimen est in carnibus quas ministrant coqui. assuefactus cenae sum delicatiori : cruditatem metuo, fame malo mori. Dura iactat ilia fatigatus messor, multo duriora sunt iactat quae Professor, quidvis possunt edere Praelectores docti : nobis cibi displicent nisi bene cocti." go A BANQUET HALL DESERTED Respondebam puero: "Vera si fateris, quin placentas epulas aliunde quaeris ? nonne sunt in oppido variae popinae, Mitre, Grid, et Clarendon, necnon et Reginae?' "Eheu!" dixit juvenis "admones nequiquam : nostra clausast janua, nee patebit cuiquam. graves nobis Socii minitantur poenas nisi statutorias consumamus cenas ! " Praesidens et Socii more vespertino post finitas epulas oblectantur vino: verum anteposita fame cruditati universi pereunt undergraduati. A. G. TO HIS PIPE, IN ABSENCE FAITHFUL companion of my wanderings By river, road, and mountain : quickener Of contemplation : comrade, who with me Hast seen on Alpine pinnacles the dawn Rubescent, and in lucubration late Outwatched Orion : fare thee well, my Pipe Neglectfully beside the dusty road Abandoned ! where the weary wayfarer Halting, from Chiltern's beech-immantled height Sees through a waving tracery of leaves The misty plain Oxonian : there thou liest . . . Blame not thy heedless master : rather blame The star and black malevolence of Fate Which all that day hung o'er me, till at eve Some jagged flint my swift -revolving tire, Transpiercing, crippled : yet e'en that mishap I bore more lightly than the loss of thee. Perchance some tramp thy black but comely form Hath ravished, and among his beery mates Exhibits in a wayside public-house 92 TO HIS PIPE, IN ABSENCE A godsend : where thy sad reluctant maw, Thy sheeny bowl wherein I took delight, With horrid shag or villainous returns He gorges all unworthy of his prize, And knowing not the academic care Wherewith thou once wert tended : now, alas ! Remembering oft thy comfortable home And studious lair 'mid miscellaneous books, Thou must associate with common clays, Old broken clays, and beastly pots of beer. Perish the thought ! but with the advancing spring May thickening grass and fronds of spreading fern Protect thee from the spoiler : till perchance Returning thither on a luckier day I find thee 'neath the covert, and restore Thy interrupted honours : once again To deck my room, a patriarch of pipes. A. G. AFTERNOON SERMONS AT ST. MARTS "If you attempt to abolish the afternoon University sermons, you will deprive the country clergy of a great privilege, to which they look forward for years, and which is often their sole inducement for keeping their name on the books of their College or Hall" See Proceedings in Congregation, T. T., 1890. I. " RING, men of Pedlington, your chimes uproarious, Our parson can't and shan't and won't refuse : He 's had his call to Oxford ; that is glorious News ! " " Yes, it came just six weeks ago last Monday, And I am ready, with discourse and text, To meet the University on Sunday Next. " I feel how very serious the affair is A safety-valve for all my long research As I shall show, when preaching in St. Mary's Church. 94 AFTERNOON SERMONS AT ST. MARY'S " Long have I waited : now I am invited The proudest moment in my patient life So grand for me and my still more delighted Wife! ovv A BALLADE OF ETHICS 115 Here is a scroll for finished rime, For baled wares that merchants vend, For delved glebe, for vaunted mime, Yea for devoutest sighs that rend Man's heart : say ye, whose backs do bend 'Neath weight of public grief and joy, Ere right is done, and manners mend : L' ENVOY. Sage, since our life all shades doth blend, The want unfilled, the promise coy, We cry the more we comprehend " Aeycojuiez> ovv ap^d^voi." W. J. F. WINTER WHILE Cumnor's hill was crowned with snow, And winter's icy gripe Congealed the necessary flow Of each domestic pipe, When niveous loads with candid weight Depressed the silvan bough, And skaters roamed where pastured late The meditative cow, I marked, upon a College stair, A solitary man, Who darkly scanned a portal where This proclamation ran : " No lecture will be given to-day : The Dean regrets to state Engagements summon him away " In fact, he's gone to skate. WINTER 117 I passed to Convocation's doors With lonely steps and sad, Where legislators come by scores Whene'er the weather 's bad : No object met my vacant gaze But benches grim and bare : No Doctors high, no proud M.A.s Because they were riot there! "And has," I asked, "the slothful Don Forgot -those sixty-three Amendments to the Statute on The new Research Degree? Where is the R-g-str-r," I cried, "The Proctors, and the Vice?" And Echo mournfully replied "They're all upon the ice!" A. G. LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION BY AN UNDERGRADUATE POET WHERE'ER I go, whate'er I see, I seldom fail to seek and find Some look, some tone, that feeds in me The sadness of the cultured mind. In weary moods, that please me best, I feel like one who wanders down A misty autumn garden, drest In watery green and faded brown. And when I take my lute and sing, How simply sad the numbers flow, Languorously meandering Through quaint cacophonies of woe ! But still one impulse proves me true To hearts of less unworldly mould ; My heart leaps up whene'er I view The simple pleasures of the old. LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION 119 I have an aunt of fifty odd, Who chirps and chatters like a bird; Her beaming face, her happy nod, Are quite too charmingly absurd. She finds delight in nonsense rhymes, In Toots, and Gamp, and Swiveller Weird shows of mirth ! and yet sometimes I wish that I could laugh like her. When Christmas calls them to be gay, My aged kinsfolk all convene ; With them I feast, with them I play, Silent amid the bustling scene. They {C turn to mirth all things of earth," They pass their annual jest on me; They crown the bowl ; my pensive soul Floats on the current of their glee. Not all in vain the changing moon Strives onward in the vacuous blue; Not all in vain the rose of June Shall drop her gem-wrought veil of dew. Soon the chill wisdom of the Schools On us too shall relax its hold ; And when "life's fitful fever" cools We shall be happy, being old. T. R. I 2 "READING" Master. SCHOLAR, thy books were all untouched to-day, The night, no candle in thy rooms was burning : I fear thou treadest sluggishly the way That leads to learning. Scholar. Master, the sun is shining in the skies, My books, forgive me, how can I be heeding? Upon the woods the autumn glory lies Yet I was reading. Master. Scholar, above us I can see no sun : I see no glory where the leaves are falling : Scholar, thy reading waits thee to be done ; The Schools are calling. " READING " I2i Scholar. Master, a way there is thou hast not guessed ; All wandering from books is not receding ; For now I live, leave thou to me the rest ,1 have been reading. Of Life not Aristotle holds the keys ; Kant cannot heal the heart that lies a-bleeding ; Nature hath spread her book beneath the trees I have been reading. Love walked beside me prate thou not of books- One fairer far than any sage was leading My footsteps, master mine, and in her looks I have been reading. FIN DE SINGLE LIFE is a gift that most of us hold dear : I never asked the spiteful gods to grant it ; Held it a bore in short ; and now it 's here, I do not want it. Thrust into life, I eat, smoke, drink, and sleep, My mind 's a blank I seldom care to question ; The only faculty I active keep Is my digestion. Like oyster on his rock, I sit and jest At. others' dreams of love or fame or pelf, Discovering but a languid interest Even in myself. An oyster : ah ! beneath the quiet sea To know no care, no change, no joy, no pain, The warm salt water gurgling into me And out again. FIN DE SIECLE 123 While some in life's old roadside inns at ease Sit careless, all unthinking of the score Mine host chalks up in swift unseen increase Behind the door ; Bound like Ixion on life's torture-wheel, I whirl inert in pitiless gyration, Loathing it all ; the one desire I feel, Annihilation 1 J. O'R. HAPPY NIGHT As in the dusty lane, to fern or flower Whose freshness in the noon is dried and dead, Sweet comes the dark with a full-falling shower, And again breathes the new- washed, happy head ; So when the thronged world round my spirit hums, And soils my purer sense, and dims my eyes, So grateful to my heart the evening comes, Unburdening its still rain of memories. Then in the deep and solitary night I feel the freshness of your absent grace Sweetening the air, and know again the light Of your loved presence, musing on your face, Until I see its image clear and whole Shining above me, and sleep takes my soul. R. L. B. TITANIA "YoN sun red-dipping see! So sets our sway," said she, " Yet think of me ! " There in the glooming wood, Like a child's dream she stood, Dream only good. " And oh," she sighed, " those mad midsummer nights, With birds to sing sweet measures, stars for lights, And joys as many as our fancies' flights; Yet all alike must go, God wills it so!" " Yon moon a-waning, see ! So wane my spells," said she, " Yet think of me ! " There in my dreams, she strayed, Thro 5 wood and dew-fresh glade, Moonlight and shade. 126 TITANIA " And oh!" she said, " those nights when I might glide To poets' pillows, and their fancies guide Out of the paths of human lust and pride ! Now no men's dreams I fill, such is God's will ! " Yet when stars a-shining be, Lost queen of fantasy ! Soft cometh she, Rose-tired her golden head, Starlight about her shed, Sighs o'er my bed. For she, fair lady, hath my love, and so May to my sleep her dainty splendours show, And when that longer sleep ensues, I know, Where all the ages meet we two shall greet, at God's own feet! C. S. A. ERASMUS SENEX * Quumque schedas epistolarum, quas annis superioribus a diversis amitis 'acceperat, sigillatim evolveret [ERASMUS], novae nescio cuius aeditionis gratia, ac plurimae eorum, qui a rebus humanis excesserant, in manus venirent, subinde aiebat, ' Et hie mortuus est,' ac tandem, i Nee ego diutius vivere cupto, si CHRISTO Domino placeat.' " Beati Rhenani Selestadiensis Epistola ad Carolum Caesarem praef. ad Opera Des. ERASMI. (Basileae MDXL.) I. OLD letters, yellow as the hand That turns you over page by page; Once hot in haste o'er sea and land From the prime spirits of the age On eager mission were you sent : Now cold you lie, but eloquent ! Poor crumpled mandates of the great, Shrewd reasonings of the buried wise, Dear balm of love, keen strokes of hate, Now but an old man's memories. 128 ERASMUS SENEX II. See these from Luther how in this Stammered the good monk's reverence: Yet now an autocrat he is Divorced from gentleness and sense, Who, when he launched on waters dark Would have Erasmus share his bark, And, since Erasmus dare not trust Such crazy guidance through the shoals, He flings his clouds of native dust To blind the eyes of kindly souls. III. See this from Colet, early here Pressing our life-work's purpose on To make the pure Word's meaning clear To simple spirits he is gone! So 'mid the glow of papal seals, And wordy monarch's shrewd appeals To help their plots with learned praise, I come upon a richer ore, Bright words too true for sinuous days The honest wit of Thomas More : ERASMUS SENEX 129 IV. Ah ! More the Heavens have oped to thee And thy true faith their portals wide, As unto martyrs painfully, Since we praised folly side by side. Here Hutton's words of venom flow Here runs the love of Capnio In streams obscure and neither now May stir slow monks to wrath again, No more hot head or learned brow Shall sow the truth or harvest pain. V. Dead Colet More ! so many dead ! The graceful wit, the learning fine ; As o'er their words I bow my head, Their souls seem beckoning to mine To join them, where the scholars meet At Socrates' and Plato's feet. The world, how empty is it grown Of face of friend and face of foe ! They leave me on the scene alone Surely 'tis time for me to go ! I 3 o ERASMUS SENEX VI. To leave the stage, where I was brought For some wise end that's half-fulfilled In patient years of toil and thought, Half lost by that I wrongly willed That end God's end was it to hold The balance fair 'twixt new and old, To stablish all the best in each, Denying each her baseless claim, And still the ancient faith to teach, Purged of the lies and craft and shame? VII. Was it to sow good learning's seed Unseared by dull scholastic din, And trust what is God's Word indeed To work as He works from within Not, not to leave the future age A cold dogmatic heritage For sure those years with grander powers Such close-linked fetters would defy Say! say! lived to plant the flowers Whose roots live, when the blossoms die. ERASMUS SENEX ] VIII. May men hope nothing? whence our haste To build Perfection in a day? Were it not prodigal to waste The ordered past? to do away The Temples where the martyrs knelt, The holy pages that they spelt? They tell me that the court 's defiled, On loathly things they bid me gaze ; But I have loved it from a child, And yearn to cleanse it, not to raze. IX. Nay let it stand, as stand it will, And let fair Learning's spirit rise, And Faith's large aisles with incense fill To lift men's hearts, and clear their eyes : And all we give her shall she spread Eternally when we are dead Till some great day, when down will fall From temple courts self-purified, From ancient arch and mouldering wall The superstition and the pride. 132 ERASMUS SENEX X. I knew it scholarlike the while At text and comment, making clear His Word, I felt a Father's smile That said He saw my labour here, Lost in the vastness of an end To. which both Faith and Knowledge tend- No petty gibe of formal spite, No ecstasies of wild Reform At fault could quench that inner light I knew my beacon thro' the storm. XI. And His, not theirs the voice will be That shall arouse me, when I wake, Who as He had a place for me Here in His earth, shall surely take My spirit to the spirit-home Of Paul and Plato and Jerome, Soon soon but not too soon the day : This spirit's fragile tenement By many a toil hath wooed decay, By many a cureless ill is rent. ERASMUS SENEX 133 XII. Ah, letters of old dear ones dead, How swift your writers pass away : And now where spirits bright are led They sup with Cicero to-day! They clung to life with too slack hold To have a fear of growing old Two gifts Athene gave them Life, A thing of Light and Grace and Truth, And Death that early stayed the strife They waged with men and left them youth. XIII. But I have tarried long beset On either hand with acrid hate Of bitter minds, whose meshy net Is spread more cunningly of late : " His work is finished, crafty foes : " So seem to say yon massy rows From Froben's press, my children all, That bless me smiling on my face Basel not long delays the call Give me a quiet resting-place. W. J. F. K IN A MEADOW THIS is the place Where far from the unholy populace The daughter of Philosophy and Sleep Her court doth keep, Sweet Contemplation. To her service bound Hover around The little amiable summer airs, Her courtiers. The deep black soil Makes mute her palace-floors with thick trefoil ; The grasses sagely nodding overhead Curtain her bed ; And lest the feet of strangers overpass Her walls of grass. Gravely a little river goes his rounds To beat the bounds. IN A MEADOW 135 No bustling flood To make a tumult in her neighbourhood, But such a stream as knows to go and come Discreetly dumb. Therein are chambers tapestried with weeds And screened with reeds; For roof the waterlily-leaves serene Spread tiles of green. The sun's large eye Falls soberly upon me where I lie; For delicate webs of immaterial haze Refine his rays. The air is full of music none knows what, Or half-forgot; The living echo of dead voices fills The unseen hills. I hear the song Of cuckoo answering cuckoo all day long ; And know not if it be my inward sprite For my delight Making remembered poetry appear As sound in the ear : Like a salt savour poignant in the breeze From distant seas. K 2 136 IN A MEADOW Dreams without sleep, And sleep too clear for dreaming and too deep ; And Quiet very large and manifold About me rolled ; Satiety, that momentary flower, Stretched to an hour : These are her gifts which all mankind may use, And all refuse. J. S. P. THE WAY OF THE WIND E paion si al vento esser leggieri. "WHAT do you bring to us, wind blowing in from the east, Sweeping across the Chilterns from far away ? Oxford has made her ready, prepared the feast, Now June's glow is fulfilling the promise of May, Now that the nightingales sing; Herald of health and hope from the rising sun, Now that our work is done, What is the gift you bear for our week of play, Flying with eager wing?" " Beauty I bring you, and better than beauty, love, Love to transfigure your life with its magic light: As in the dawn while stars still shimmer above, Wakens the sun to brighten the dark of night. Welcome the wonderful thing! 138 THE WAY OF THE WIND Now it calls you, let not the calling be vain, Think not it comes again ; Swift is the coming hither, more swift the flight Hence, of the gift I bring." " What do you take from us, wind blowing on to the night, Out by winding river, by field and flat, Bearing away with no pity the day's delight, Leaving the places empty, where late there sat All that we loved the best? Herald of sorrow and sadness, hurrying chill Down from the darkening hill, Love was ours and beauty, but this and that Pass like a careless guest." "Onward we wander, beauty and love and I, Yet we are not lost, we have gone before; Doth the sun stand still in the orient sky? Doth he not speed, as we, to the further shore Set in the golden west? All things follow, why should ye wait behind? Follow ye too and find What was yours, and shall be for evermore, There in the land of rest." S. T. LINES ON AN OLD THEME As in a dream I heard all humankind Singing together: for a whole day long Troop caught from troop the antiphon of song Where none outran and none was left behind. First rose the song of Youth with the rising sun, The slow hours of the morn with music winging ; And Joy was all the burden of his singing, The Joy of all things to be thought and done. So Pleasure broadened in the breadth of light, A thousand rivers flooding one great sea, Until his large diffusion rolling free Touch'd the eternal verges of delight. And so Youth pass'd, but with the perfect noon Came graver quires of men in life's mid span, Who set the latter excellence of man To a more sober and advised tune 140 LINES ON AN OLD THEME Chanting how action ripening 'neath the eye Of him who plann'd, and high hopes full achieved (Mature strength proving all young faith be- lieved) Made the bud blossom and the fledgeling fly. These also pass'd as eventide drew near, And with twilight appeared a new succession, Old men, who sang how peace excels possession, Age rounds to the full Youth's sunny hemisphere ; How looking back they saw that life was well, Nor mourn'd their inactivity who lay Sheaves reap'd and garner'd for the threshing day. An hour they sang, then ceas'd, and darkness fell. J. S. P. LINES FOR THE PLOUGHMAN IN HOLBEIN'S "DANCE OF DEATH" I. ONE furrow more; and thy bare feet shall rest, And thy tired hand be still : There is thy church upon the low hill's crest, And the sun behind the hill. II. Set thy dim eyes on these ; God brings thee sleep Within the toilsome field ; Turn to thy home once more, where they will weep, Seeing all thy troubles healed. III. God bring thee sleep, but these are very dear, Home and the setting sun: Look on them once again, then have no fear; Thy long rest is well won. A WELCOME SUMMER again is with us, and, crowning the summer, my queen Summer for which we waited, and you that tarried so long Now that the flowers have blossomed, now that your beauty is seen, Where is our loyal greeting, where is the song? Once there was treasure of singing, once, in the golden time Ah ! the wonderful days that are not, the songs that of old we sung ! Careless and quick they came, rhyme hasting to mate with rhyme, When the strings were fresh for playing, when I was young. Squandered is now the treasure, the rhymes are scanty to-day; The fingers have lost their cunning, the heart of the singer is cold : A WELCOME 143 How shall I honour my queen, or the excellent beauty of May, Now that the strings are failing, now I am old? Nay, but I must, for you will it, bidding me welcome again Blossom and bird of summer, and one who is fairer than all : Nay, but a song must be sung since of singing my lady is fain I hear and obey her summons, answer her call. Therefore we bid you welcome, fairest of months and of maids, Now that the frosts of winter have vanished and fled away, Greeting with service of song, and with music of flashing blades, The coming of her we longed for, the coming of May. S. T. AT LLANSANTFRAED Henry Vaughan died 1695. I. OLD Silurist thou lov'st the name Dear to fables, dear to fame How slow the heavy years have crept While Llansantfraed her watch hath kept Here where thou sleepest lone Beneath that ancient mossy stone That still to pitying God doth say its apigmre (Blon'a. But no : thou hast not slept, but rather wed In ripe communion, wit well-seasoned With holy Herbert and his gentle peers Hast joyous hailed the years. II. " fe>rtiu0 fnutflfjS, peccator majfmugf ! " Are all thy graces reckoned thus? AT LLANSANTFRAED 145 Nay: here the Angel with glad eye Big with eternity Shall light, and knock with friendly hand, For ever 'mid the Angels didst thou stand, Passing from care of painful men Back to the Temple gates again, Where, through the whirl of chance and time, Ran over linking rime to rime, In seasons, dawnings, sunsets, nights and days, God and His praise. III. Poet: who taught thee so to strain Those healthful draughts for pain That with them still we cozen death Drinking God's mountain-breath, Stored in thy curious simples from the hills Of native Brecon, while our ills We lose, assured that earth for all her gloom Is Heaven's ante-room ; Where heralds wait, and sure anticipations And prophecies of new creations, And old loves glorified? So surely wert thou fittest guide 146 AT LLANSANTFRAED To him, who truly-born interpreter Of Nature's voice as thou, revered in her God's emblem yea, and looked behind With the same longing of his wistful mind On shadowy glories brought from otherwhere, That children with them bear. IV. Poet-physician thou didst see Heaven in earth, in man eternity : Thy " watery wealth" of cataracts Leapt from God's lake, thy upland tracts Reached to the bounds of Paradise, Where two worlds mated for thine eyes Both near to thee, though one be far, Beneath one morning-star: No sunshine-ray, no April shower But fed thy placid spirit's flower; No mountain blossom didst thou press. But spake to thee of holiness I ween that thou, whose earthly eye Saw Heaven so nigh, There seest things of mortal birth Clear as was Heaven to thee on earth, AT LLANSANTFRAED 147 And better lov'st in that celestial air Sights that e'en here were fair? Still binding in sweet union God's Heaven and earth in one. v. For us in earth and air sound on The myriad voices' mingled tone : But who can read as thou that unknown tongue, Or tell us what is sung? Who brings again our apathy to melt The spirit-sculpture of the Celt ? Ah! yet 'neath Nature's pomp the soul he knew The constant vision still is true, And there man's soul made clear and bright Greets its own features with delight, As wondering truth all-new in water lies For down-gazing childish eyes. W. J. F. "LES BELLES ROSES SANS MERCIE" A. D. 1460. " O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity! Wither one rose, and let the other flourish ! If you contend, a thousand lives must wither!" KING HENRY VI, PART III, Act ii, Sc. 5. HEIGH ! brother mine, art a-waking or a-sleeping ? Mind'st that merry moon of roses a many sum- mers fled? Mind'st thou the green and the dancing and the leaping ? Mind'st thou the haycocks and the moon above them creeping? Mind'st thou how soft were the pillows of our heaping ? Mind'st thou our dole when the merry day was sped? I do mind how every night Thou would' st pull me roses white, Ancient sign of our proud line, argent rose on verdant bough! "LES BELLES ROSES SANS MERCIE JJ 149 Heigh ! sweetheart mine, art a-waking or a-sleep- ing? Seest again the roses that blossomed long ago? Seest again the garden with its paths so still and shady ? Seest again the dew lie as beads for night's white lady? Seest thou aught else but the blue eyne of thy maidie ? Seest thou their brimming in their pity of thy woe? Sweet, I see thee offer up Roses red as wine in cup, Such befit (thou sayest it) golden head and lily brow! Heigh ho ! ye twain, that should wake in lieu of sleeping ! Rue ye that rose- time when the roses all were reft ? Ruest thou, sweet heart, that the favour red thou worest ? Ruest thou, my brother, that the badge of snow thou borest? Rue ye that noon when the fight flashed thro' the forest? L 150 " LES BELLES ROSES SANS MERCIE " Rue ye the maid's tears so life-long lonely left? Rose of white, and rose of red, That did each one claim her dead, Twining be at amity round about my window now ! C. S. A. TWO LONG VACATIONS Grasmere. SEVEN we were, and two are gone: Two! What are those remaining? Ghosts of the Past, with cloud o'ercast. Cloud that is always raining! Ah me! Last year, when I came back, Like faithful hound returning For old sake's sake to each loved track, With heart and memory burning ; There was the knoll, there was the road, There was our humble dwelling; There o'er the Raise of Dunmail showed The shoulder of Helvellyn ; And there the great heights black with cloud, Whence flowed the white stream under ; And glens with echoing torrent loud, And cataracts' distant thunder; L a 152 TWO LONG VACATIONS And seven men's eyes looked dimly out Beneath our old house rafter; And seven men's forms crept round about With peals of ghostly laughter ; And sad yews dripped on the mossy stone ; And fuchsia and rose grew rank ; And the woodbine wept as the rain poured on ; And ferns spread over the bank; And trees o'ergrown shut out the light Of Easedale's cascade falling ; And hearing, after-born of sight, No longer heard it calling. And no one cared : save only there Where flowers make silence sweet, By pilgrims worn, that rocky stair ! Look up! It is Wordsworth's seat. Where glassed in those far-reaching eyes He read all nature plain ; And saw more things in earth and skies Than will ever be seen again. There found he wealth, to others dearth, And peace, from a world's wild din ; And, would we know the soul of earth, He bade us look within. TWO LONG VACATIONS 153 All else is changed. Yet rain may pour, Weeds spread, and all grow rotten; But something lives from days of yore. Still fresh, still unforgotten: The lamp of truth we lit in youth, The dreams of life's young morning: In that dark hour I found their power Still in the embers burning. O vows, I cried, so oft denied, And you resolves forsaken, Befriend me still! A new-born will Trusts in you newly taken. But, how to live, oh, tell me friend, In age still wisdom gaining? The clouds descend; ah, bid them blend With fires of youth remaining ! A. G. B. HORA ADEST IT is late ; the sun is setting ; it is time for us to go: The shadow-light is creeping down the sky: There 's a melancholy music through the branches soft and low For the passing of the breezes as they die. But now above, and now below, a passionate refrain Is throbbing to a paean loud and long: For us the tones and tremors of a melody of pain, For you the chime and cadence of a song. We have lived ; but you are living : we have twisted ropes of sand, For you the web of tapestry is meet ; You shall weave the varied blossoms of this long-enchanted land With the tender grass that grew beneath our feet : HORA ADEST 155 And we shall watch, and smile at you, and wondering if we Had half your verve and vigour, shall inquire, " If ever to grow older, and to leave it all, could be The course of any decent mans desire ? " Well, we know our days are over: and we really wouldn't stay ; Besides we have an antiquated air: We simply cannot swagger in the very latest way. Nor imitate the fashions that you wear. Our work is done ; and poorly done : but if we could begin And start afresh, and take another load ; The chances are that native ineradicable sin Would meet us and ups^t us on the road. Meanwhile the cultivation of a captivating smile, A savoir-faire, a cynical disdain, Will win us to the world within a very little while, And bring us all to love of life again : The world that lives, the world that moves, will claim us for its own, The ancient order yielding to the new; 156 HORA ADEST And our lips will breathe an ether that would warm a heart of stone But still we shall not cease to envy you. For when some of us are clerics, and when some of us are not ; And when most of us have drifted to the Bar; When a few of us have ruled the roast in some too-torrid spot, And we absolutely don't know where we are : A sign a dream an echo from these conse- crated towers, A message, or a murmur, or a breath, Shall move to life the measure of the fervour that was ours, And must be ours and yours for life or death. H. A. M. AN EDITOR'S GOOD-BYE THE year's two dozen numbers all are past, Proofs and Corrections gone beyond recover; I too must go, yet turn me at the last And look things over. Some there be, so they tell me, who suppose An Editor's existence beer and skittles, They little know the toil he undergoes To earn his victuals. Some think him happy, sumptuous, witty, bland, Oft in the Parks magnificently dining, While happy damsels sit on either hand And watch him shining. Some think him scornful, donnish, stern, sedate, Holding all changes vile as revolutions, Burning the brilliant undergraduate His contributions. Vain dreams, alas, of happy souls ! the Parks Receive me coldly in their gilded mansions ; The Undergraduate who in verse embarks, Sinks in his scansions. 158 AN EDITOR'S GOOD-BYE Thoughts of next number wear me day and night. Both ends I burn a saddened lifetime's taper, I only wish my critics had to write A high-class paper. ****** So now farewell to thee, loved Magazine, Farewell to " notes," to verses and to " leaders/' Farewell to you who for a year have been Long-suffering readers. J. F. W. THE END OXFORD : HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO +> 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW AUG 1 3 1980 r\\j u ^ u ly^Jy IRVINE IK1TFRLIRRARY LQA H 11^1 1 CIxklUIVrMX 1 tm\^f ^5 iyg| | RFTD DEC 1 n 19S1 07! * r VbtV JL. W WWl UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 3/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720 19253 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY