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 University of California • Berkeley 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/congratulatoryodOOoxforich 
 
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 CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 A sound of triumph in the summer air, 
 
 A song 1 of welcome to a Lady fair ! 
 
 Two well-loved names ring through our time-worn halls, 
 
 And fling sweet echoes on the old gray walls : 
 
 O happy Prince, who such a bride hast won ! 
 
 O happy Princess, bride of England's Son ! 
 
 
 It needs not for your honour that we raise 
 Our shouts of greeting and our songs of praise ; 
 Yet take the well-meant gift, the welcome true, 
 The tithe of that great love we bear to you : 
 The day-long joy of these too fleeting hours, 
 And think with kindness of our town of towers. 
 
 O happy Prince, who such a bride hast won ! 
 
 O happy Princess, bride of England's Son ! 
 
CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 Men sing that Queens in robes of broidered gold 
 Would watch the fight roll up the lists of old ; 
 Their knights fought roundly for a simple prize — 
 A look of kindness in a lady's eyes : 
 The world has changed — no more in mimic strife 
 We play at righting in the war of life — 
 No more in steel we ride the listed fields — 
 No more the spears smite on the burnished shields. 
 But that old fervour lingers in our lives, — 
 The fire of honour, and the heart that strives, 
 And Alexandra's knights, a loyal band, 
 Shall ride the Quest of Honour through the land. 
 
 O happy Prince, who such a bride hast won ! 
 
 O happy Princess, bride of England's Son ! 
 
 Son of that sire whom England calls the Good ! 
 Son of the Crown of English womanhood ! 
 Prince ! when your youth fulfils the promised prime, 
 Forget not in the calm wise after-time, 
 The tokens of our joy, these faces bright, 
 Deep thundered cheers, and earnest-eyed delight ; 
 The crowd which cries, " God bless you on your way !** 
 And welcome to old Oxford's holiday. 
 
CONGE A TULA TOR Y ODE. 
 
 So welcome home, where once you bode so long, 
 At Learning's seat amidst an earnest throng. 
 Strange lands and sister homes of wisdom since, 
 Have paid their greeting to the Student-Prince : 
 But no new home can kindlier welcome pay 
 Than Oxford — first and dearest — gives to-day. 
 
 O hail, happy Princess, bride of England's Son ! 
 And hail, thrice happy Prince, who such a bride 
 hast won ! 
 
CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 M Instar veris enim vultus ubi tuus 
 
 Affulsit populo, gratior it dies, 
 
 Et soles melius nitent !" 
 
 Hor. Carm. IV. v. 6. 
 
 They told us all our chivalry had fled, 
 
 A hard age ours and cold, 
 Wherein the fervour of the heart was dead, 
 
 And beauty less than gold. 
 
 O idly babbling what ye little knew, 
 Cease ! for ve have but dreamed. 
 
 Still are our hearts to loyal impulse true — 
 We were not that we seemed. 
 
CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 Cease, eease your scorn ! 
 Heard ye not the shout joy-born ? 
 Shout of an empire wide as the world, 
 Shouted wherever our flag unfurled, 
 Rising .aloft to the startled sky, 
 From a thousand seas where the traders ply, 
 A nation's voice, 
 On the land and the sea, 
 Bidding toil's hard sons rejoice, 
 Let the looms be stilled and the fields untilled 
 For the city's festive glee — 
 And the sun-browned delver far away 
 Sought not the golden ore that day, 
 Yielding his soul to mirth and play, 
 On England's jubilee ! 
 
 Whence was the cry ? — 
 
 Told it of fierce delight, 
 
 The grim old Northern love of the fight, 
 
 That shouteth its pride on high, 
 
 When a people hath listened, and held their breath, 
 
 How sternly their squadrons have rushed to death, 
 
 Or thrilled with a wild amaze to the tale of an Alma's 
 height ? 
 
CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 Not hence it rose 
 O'er angry foes. 
 But love was binding peaceful nations here — 
 Here was nought of pain nor sorrow, 
 No faint fear of gloomy morrow, 
 Nor any lone-left mother's tear — 
 Told not that day 
 Of hostile fray 
 With its rolling cheers and its chiming towers, 
 But it told of love for a fair young face, 
 For a maiden, come from a kindred race 
 To be ours ! 
 
 O happy bridals, thus a people's care ! 
 O people, happy in such princely pair ! 
 O happy Albert, at thy side 
 So fair a bride ! 
 So fair a bride, with those sweet, trustful eyes, 
 So fair, so good — a royal prize ! 
 
 The gem of all the isle ! — 
 Who can see her and not love her ? — 
 Brighter seems the sky above her, 
 Less gloomy these old halls, illumined with her smile ! 
 
CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 O bliss without alloy ! — 
 For surely now we must away with grief, 
 
 Though he, our prince, our leader, be withdrawn, 
 Nor wear our hearts with weeping : life is brief : 
 Shade yields to sunlight : let us yield to joy : 
 Now hath dim sorrow waned for Hymen's rosy dawn. 
 
 So let us raise the strain, 
 With louder greetings and more loud again — 
 Welcomes, in our loyal duty, 
 Welcomes, for her tender beauty — 
 
 Greet her, bells within our towers, 
 Speak the fervour of the nation, 
 Pealing jubilant acclamation — 
 Rend the air with wild pulsation — 
 She is ours ! 
 
OXFORD r 
 
 BY T. COMBE, E. PICKARD HALL, AND H. LATHAMy 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.