Chapter 2

See the freshers one or two, Just a few, Now on view, Who are sensibly and innocently new; How they cluster, cluster, cluster Round the rugged walls of Worcester! See them stand, Book in hand, In the garden ground of John's! How they dote upon their Dons! See in every man a Blue! It is true They are lamentably few; But I spied Yesternight upon the staircase just a pair of boots outside Upon the floor, Just a little pair of boots upon the stairs where I reside, Lying there and nothing more; And I swore While these dainty twins continued sentry by the chamber door That the hope their presence planted should be with me evermore, Should desert me--nevermore.

THE SAIR STROKE.

_O waly, waly, my bonnie crew Gin ye maun bumpit be! And waly, waly, my Stroke sae true, Ye leuk unpleasauntlie!_

_O hae ye suppit the sad sherrie That gars the wind gae soon; Or hae ye pud o' the braw bird's-e'e, Ye be sae stricken doun?_

I hae na suppit the sad sherrie, For a' my heart is sair; For Keiller's still i' the bonnie Dundee, And his is halesome fare.

But I hae slain our gude Captain, That c'uld baith shout and sweer, And ither twain put out o' pain-- The Scribe and Treasurere.

There's ane lies stark by the meadow-gate, And twa by the black, black brig: And waefu', waefu', was the fate That gar'd them there to lig!

They waked us soon, they warked us lang, Wearily did we greet; '_Should he abrade_' was a' our sang, Our food but butcher's-meat.

We hadna train'd but ower a week, A week, but barely twa, Three sonsie steeds they fared to seek, That mightna gar them fa'.

They 've ta'en us ower the lang, lang coorse, And wow! but it was wark; And ilka coach he sware him hoorse, That ilka man s'uld hark.

Then upped and spake our pawkie bow, --O, but he wasna late! 'Now who shall gar them cry _Enow_, That gang this fearsome gate?'

Syne he has ta'en his boatin' cap, And cast the keevils in, And wha but me to gae (God hap!) And stay our Captain's din?

I stayed his din by the meadow-gate, His feres' by Nuneham brig, And waefu', waefu', was the fate That gar'd them there to lig!

O, waly to the welkin's top! And waly round the braes! And waly all about the shop (To use a Southron phrase).

Rede ither crews be debonair, But we 've a weird to dree, I wis we maun be bumpit sair By boaties two and three: Sing stretchers of yew for our Toggere, Sith we maun bumpit be!

THE DOOM OF THE ESQUIRE BEDELL.

Adown the torturing mile of street I mark him come and go, Thread in and out with tireless feet The crossings to and fro; A soul that treads without retreat A labyrinth of woe.

Palsied with awe of such despair, All living things give room, They flit before his sightless glare As horrid shapes, that loom And shriek the curse that bids him bear The symbol of his doom.

The very stones are coals that bake And scorch his fevered skin; A fire no hissing hail may slake Consumes his heart within. Still must he hasten on to rake The furnace of his sin.

Still forward! forward! For he feels Fierce claws that pluck his breast, And blindly beckon as he reels Upon his awful quest: For there is that behind his heels Knows neither ruth nor rest.

The fiends in hell have flung the dice; The destinies depend On feet that run for fearful price, And fangs that gape to rend; And still the footsteps of his Vice Pursue him to the end:-- The feet of his incarnate Vice Shall dog him to the end.

'BEHOLD! I AM NOT ONE THAT GOES TO LECTURES.'

By W. W.

Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors.

The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.

I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is signed by the Dean's name--

And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I stay up

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

I am one who goes to the river,

I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'

How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is everything,

But the end is something.

I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.

I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the trousers of the twenty-two young men,

I see the Balliol men _en masse_ watching me.--The Hottentot that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man that wears only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy Sioux that hangs his testamur with his scalps.

I see the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me: and the wife of the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me.

I see the rapport of the wicket-keeper and umpire. I cannot see that I am out.

Oh! you Umpires!

I am not one who greatly cares for experience, soap, bull-dogs, cautions, majorities, or a graduated Income-Tax,

The certainty of space, punctuation, sexes, institutions, copiousness, degrees, committees, delicatesse, or the fetters of rhyme--

For none of these do I care: but least for the fetters of rhyme.

Myself only I sing. Me Imperturbe! Me Prononce!

Me progressive and the depth of me progressive,

And the bathos, Anglice bathos

Of me chanting to the Public the song of Simple Enumeration.

CALIBAN UPON RUDIMENTS[1].

OR AUTOSCHEDIASTIC THEOLOGY IN A HOLE.

Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments! 'Thinketh one made them i' the fit o' the blues.

'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match, But not the answers; 'doubteth there be none, Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that: Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon, And snow-white bands that round the neck o' the same.

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease. 'Hath heard that Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands, and the rest o 't. That's the case. Also 'hath heard they pop the names i' the hat, Toss out a brace, a dozen stick inside; Let forty through and plough the sorry rest.

'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in them, Only their strength, being made o' sloth i' the main-- 'Am strong myself compared to yonder names O' Jewish towns i' the paper. Watch th' event-- 'Let twenty pass, 'have a shot at twenty-first, 'Miss Ramoth-Gilead, 'take Jehoiakim, 'Let Abner by and spot Melchizedek, Knowing not, caring not, just choosing so, As it likes me each time, I do: so they.

'Saith they be terrible: watch their feats i' the Viva! One question plays the deuce with six months' toil. Aha, if they would tell me! No, not they! There is the sport: 'come read me right or die!' All at their mercy,--why they like it most When--when--well, never try the same shot twice! 'Hath fled himself and only got up a tree.

'Will say a plain word if he gets a plough.

[1] Caliban museth of the now extinct Examination in the Rudiments of Faith and Religion.

SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMPS.

My Juggins, see: the pasture green, Obeying Nature's kindly law, Renews its mantle; there has been A thaw.

The frost-bound earth is free at last, That lay 'neath Winter's sullen yoke 'Till people felt it getting past A joke.

Now forth again the Freshers fare, And get them tasty summer suits Wherein they flaunt afield and scare The brutes.

Again the stream suspects the keel; Again the shrieking captain drops Upon his crew; again the meal Of chops

Divides the too-laborious day; Again the Student sighs o'er Mods, And prompts his enemies to lay Long odds.

Again the shopman spreads his wiles; Again the organ-pipes, unbound, Distract the populace for miles Around.

Then, Juggins, ere December's touch Once more the wealth of Spring reclaim, Since each successive year is much The same;

Since too the monarch on his throne In purple lapped and frankincense, Who from his infancy has blown Expense,

No less than he who barely gets The boon of out-of-door relief, Must see desuetude,--come let's Be brief.

At those resolves last New Year's Day The easy gods indulgent wink. Then downward, ho!--the shortest way Is drink.

A LETTER.

Addressed during the Summer Term of 1888 by Mr. Algernon Dexter, Scholar of ------ College, Oxford, to his cousin, Miss Kitty Tremayne, at ------ Vicarage, Devonshire.

After W. M. P.

Dear Kitty, At length the term's ending; I 'm in for my Schools in a week; And the time that at present I'm spending On you should be spent upon Greek: But I'm fairly well read in my Plato, I'm thoroughly red in the eyes, And I've almost forgotten the way to Be healthy and wealthy and wise. So 'the best of all ways'--why repeat you The verse at 2.30 a.m., When I 'm stealing an hour to entreat you Dear Kitty, to come to Commem.?

Oh, come! You shall rustle in satin Through halls where Examiners trod: Your laughter shall triumph o'er Latin In lecture-room, garden, and quad. They stand in the silent Sheldonian-- Our orators, waiting--for you, Their style guaranteed Ciceronian, Their subject--'the Ladies in Blue.' The Vice sits arrayed in his scarlet; He's pale, but they say he dissem- -bles by calling his Beadle a 'varlet' Whenever he thinks of Commem.

There are dances, flirtations at Nuneham, Flower-shows, the procession of Eights: There's a list stretching _usque ad Lunam_ Of concerts, and lunches, and fetes: There's the Newdigate all about 'Gordon,' --So sweet, and they say it will scan. You shall flirt with a Proctor, a Warden Shall run for your shawl and your fan. They are sportive as gods broken loose from Olympus, and yet very em- -inent men. There are plenty to choose from, You'll find, if you come to Commem.

I know your excuses: Red Sorrel Has stumbled and broken her knees; Aunt Phoebe thinks waltzing immoral; And 'Algy, you are such a tease; It's nonsense, of course, but she _is_ strict'; And little Dick Hodge has the croup; And there's no one to visit your 'district' Or make Mother Tettleby's soup. Let them cease for a se'nnight to plague you; Oh, leave them to manage _pro tem_. With their croups and their soups and their ague) Dear Kitty, and come to Commem.

Don't tell me Papa has lumbago, That you haven't a frock fit to wear, That the curate 'has notions, and may go To lengths if there's nobody there,' That the Squire has 'said things' to the Vicar, And the Vicar 'had words' with the Squire, That the Organist's taken to liquor, And leaves you to manage the choir: For Papa must be cured, and the curate Coerced, and your gown is a gem; And the moral is--Don't be obdurate, Dear Kitty, but come to Commem.

'My gown? Though, no doubt, sir, you're clever, You 'd better leave fashions alone. Do you think that a frock lasts for ever?' Dear Kitty, I'll grant you have grown; But I thought of my 'scene' with McVittie That night when he trod on your train At the Bachelor's Ball. ''Twas a pity,' You said, but I knew 'twas Champagne. And your gown was enough to compel me To fall down and worship its hem-- (Are 'hems' wearing? If not, you shall tell me What is, when you come to Commem.)

Have you thought, since that night, of the Grotto? Of the words whispered under the palms, While the minutes flew by and forgot to Remind us of Aunt and her qualms? Of the stains of the old _Journalisten_? Of the rose that I begged from your hair? When you turned, and I saw something glisten-- Dear Kitty, don't frown; it _was_ there! But that idiot Delane in the middle Bounced in with 'Our dance, I--ahem!' And--the rose you may find in my Liddell And Scott when you come to Commem.

Then, Kitty, let 'yes' be the answer. We'll dance at the 'Varsity Ball, And the morning shall find you a dancer In Christ Church or Trinity hall. And perhaps, when the elders are yawning And rafters grow pale overhead With the day, there shall come with its dawning Some thought of that sentence unsaid. Be it this, be it that--'I forget,' or 'Was joking'--whatever the fem- -inine fib, you'll have made me your debtor And come,--you _will_ come? to Commem.

OCCASIONAL VERSES.

ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS.

Designed to show that the practice of lying is not confined to children.

By the late W. W. (of H.M. Inland Revenue Service).

And is it so? Can Folly stalk And aim her unrespecting darts In shades where grave Professors walk And Bachelors of Arts?

I have a boy, not six years old, A sprite of birth and lineage high: His birth I did myself behold, His caste is in his eye.

And oh! his limbs are full of grace, His boyish beauty past compare: His mother's joy to wash his face, And mine to brush his hair!

One morn we strolled on our short walk, With four goloshes on our shoes, And held the customary talk That parents love to use.

(And oft I turn it into verse, And write it down upon a page, Which, being sold, supplies my purse And ministers to age.)

So as we paced the curving High, To view the sights of Oxford town We raised our feet (like Nelly Bly), And then we put them down.

'Now, little Edward, answer me'-- I said, and clutched him by the gown-- 'At Cambridge would you rather be, Or here in Oxford town?'

My boy replied with tiny frown (He'd been a year at Cavendish), 'I'd rather dwell in Oxford town, If I could have my wish.'

'Now, little Edward, say why so; My little Edward, tell me why.' 'Well, really, Pa, I hardly know.' 'Remarkable!' said I:

'For Cambridge has her "King's Parade," And much the more becoming gown; Why should you slight her so,' I said, 'Compared with Oxford town?'

At this my boy hung down his head, While sterner grew the parent's eye; And six-and-thirty times I said, 'Come, Edward, tell me why?'

For I loved Cambridge (where they deal-- How strange!--in butter by the yard); And so, with every third appeal, I hit him rather hard.

Twelve times I struck, as may be seen (For three times twelve is thirty-six), When in a shop the _Magazine_ His tearful sight did fix.

He saw it plain, it made him smile, And thus to me he made reply:-- '_At Oxford there's a Crocodile_;[1] And that's the reason why.'

Oh, Mr. Editor! my heart For deeper lore would seldom yearn, Could I believe the hundredth part Of what from you I learn.

[1] Certain obscure paragraphs relating to a crocodile, kept at the Museum, had been perplexing the readers of the _Oxford Magazine_ for some time past, and had been distorted into an allegory of portentous meaning.

UNITY PUT QUARTERLY[1].

By A. C. S.

The Centuries kiss and commingle, Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain; No cycle but scorns to be single, No two but demur to be twain, 'Till the land of the lute and the love-tale Be bride of the boreal breast, And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail, The East with the West.

The desire of the grey for the dun nights Is that of the dun for the grey; The tales of the Thousand and One Nights Touch lips with 'The Times' of to-day.-- Come, chasten the cheap with the classic; Choose, Churton, thy chair and thy class, Mix, melt in the must that is Massic The beer that is Bass!

Omnipotent age of the Aorist! Infinitely freely exact!-- As the fragrance of fiction is fairest If frayed in the furnace of fact-- Though nine be the Muses in number There is hope if the handbook be one,-- Dispelling the planets that cumber The path of the sun.

Though crimson thy hands and thy hood be With the blood of a brother betrayed, O Would-be-Professor of Would-be, We call thee to bless and to aid. Transmuted would travel with Er, see The Land of the Rolling of Logs, Charmed, chained to thy side, as to Circe The Ithacan hogs.

O bourne of the black and the godly! O land where the good niggers go. With the books that are borrowed of Bodley, Old moons and our castaway clo'! There, there, till the roses be ripened Rebuke us, revile, and review, Then take thee thine annual stipend So long over-due.

[1] Suggested by an Article in the _Quarterly Review_, enforcing the unity of literature ancient and modern, and the necessity of providing a new School of Literature in Oxford.

FIRE!

By Sir W. S.

Written on the occasion of the visit of the United Fire Brigades to Oxford, 1887.

I.

St. Giles's street is fair and wide, St. Giles's street is long; But long or wide, may naught abide Therein of guile or wrong; For through St. Giles's, to and fro, The mild ecclesiastics go From prime to evensong. It were a fearsome task, perdie! To sin in such good company.

II.

Long had the slanting beam of day Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May Ere now, erect, its fiery heat Illumined all that hallowed street, And breathing benediction on Thy serried battlements, St. John, Suffused at once with equal glow The cluster'd Archipelago, The Art Professor's studio And Mr. Greenwood's shop, Thy building, Pusey, where below The stout Salvation soldiers blow The cornet till they drop; Thine, Balliol, where we move, and oh! Thine, Randolph, where we stop.

III.

But what is this that frights the air, And wakes the curate from his lair In Pusey's cool retreat, To leave the feast, to climb the stair, And scan the startled street? As when perambulate the young And call with unrelenting tongue On home, mamma, and sire; Or voters shout with strength of lung For Hall & Co's Entire; Or Sabbath-breakers scream and shout-- The band of Booth, with drum devout, Eliza on her Sunday out, Or Farmer with his choir:--

IV.

E'en so, with shriek of fife and drum And horrid clang of brass, The Fire Brigades of England come And down St. Giles's pass. Oh grand, methinks, in such array To spend a Whitsun Holiday All soaking to the skin! (Yet shoes and hose alike are stout; The shoes to keep the water out, The hose to keep it in.)

V.

They came from Henley on the Thames, From Berwick on the Tweed, And at the mercy of the flames They left their children and their dames, To come and play their little games On Morrell's dewy mead. Yet feared they not with fire to play-- The pyrotechnics (so they say) Were very fine indeed.

VI.

(P.S. by Lord Macaulay).

Then let us bless Our Gracious Queen and eke the Fire Brigade, And bless no less the horrid mess they've been and gone and made; Remove the dirt they chose to squirt upon our best attire, Bless all, but most the lucky chance that no one shouted 'Fire!'

DE TEA FABULA.

Plain Language from truthful James[1].

Do I sleep? Do I dream? Am I hoaxed by a scout? Are things what they seem, Or is Sophists about? Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these May be fairly applied By a party who sees A Society skied Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third, And I says to Bill Nye, 'Which it's true what I've heard: If you're, so to speak, fly, There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High.'

Which I mentioned its name, And he ups and remarks: 'If dress-coats is the game And pow-wow in the Parks, Then I 'm nuts on Sordello and Hohenstiel-Schwangau and similar Snarks.'

Now the pride of Bill Nye Cannot well be express'd; For he wore a white tie And a cut-away vest: Says I, 'Solomon's lilies ain't in it, and they was reputed well dress'd.'

But not far did we wend, When we saw Pippa pass On the arm of a friend --Doctor Furnivall 'twas, And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return, second-class.

'Well,' I thought, 'this is odd.' But we came pretty quick To a sort of a quad That was all of red brick, And I says to the porter,--'R. Browning: free passes; and kindly look slick.'

But says he, dripping tears In his check handkerchief, 'That symposium's career's Been regrettably brief, For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gunpowder-leaf!'

Then we tucked up the sleeves Of our shirts (that were biled), Which the reader perceives That our feelings were riled, And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits of her child.

Which emotions like these Must be freely indulged By a party who sees A Society bulged On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never divulged.

But I ask,--Do I dream? _Has_ it gone up the spout? Are things what they seem, Or is Sophists about? Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

[1] The Oxford Browning Society expired at Keble the week before this was written.

L'ENVOI.

AS I LAYE A-DREAMYNGE.

After T. I.

As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, O softlye moaned the dove to her mate within the tree, And meseemed unto my syghte Came rydynge many a knyghte All cased in armoure bryghte Cap-a-pie, As I laye a-dreamynge, a goodlye companye!

As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, O sadlye mourned the dove, callynge long and callynge lowe, And meseemed of alle that hoste Notte a face but was the ghoste Of a friend that I hadde loste Long agoe. As I laye a-dreamynge, oh, bysson teare to flowe!

As I laye a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, a-dreamynge, O sadlye sobbed the dove as she seemed to despayre, And laste upon the tracke Came one I hayled as 'Jacke!' But he turned mee his backe With a stare: As I laye a-dreamynge, he lefte mee callynge there.