WITH RESPECTFUL ADMIRATION TO THE
UNDERGRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD.
In that old spring when I was young,
At Oxford, many a song was sung,
And undergraduate friends were willing
To buy them printed for a shilling.
Our songs were all of Oxford's bliss,
Her spires, her streams, her mysteries ;
Of Love, and Death, and Change, and Fate,--
As known to th' Undergraduate.
Since then full twenty years are sped,
And most are married, some are dead;
Some sit as ministers of state,
And some as priests beg at their gate.
In all, the pulses fainter beat
And will not move in metric feet ;
Despatches, sermons,—whatso goes
Into their brain comes out as prose.
Yet still their ink will Aush to flame
If chance permits it Oxford's name ;
Still have they won the meed of wit,
If Oxford reads what they have writ.