Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College 29

Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen.

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,

That every laboring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage;
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings; all are men,
Condemned alike to groan,

The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise.

THOMAS GRAY.

THE SPIRES OF OXFORD

Ten centuries, if you will, are found chronicled in the stones of Oxford. The thread of its story runs unbroken through social, political and religious revolutions. Perhaps nowhere else in all England, unless it be at Cambridge, can the mind and eye of the traveler find so much antiquity as here beneath the spires of Oxford.

Generation after generation has seen this historic pile enlarged and improved in accordance with varying tastes and needs. As seen from a distance the grouping of its spires and towers is renowned for its beauty. The verdant "quads" and sequestered gardens add much to the charm of this "home of lost causes.'

I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;

My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.

The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay;
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play,
But when the bugles sounded-War!
They put their games away.

They left the peaceful river,
The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford
To seek a bloody sod.

They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.

The Spires of Oxford

God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Than even Oxford town.

31

W. M. LETTS.

TO THE AVON

We walk slowly down the chancel of Old Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon and stand looking down upon the epitaph whose awful imprecation has protected undisturbed the long sleep of the Bard of Avon.

"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here;

Blest be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones."

J. L. Stoddard once came this way and, after leaving this hallowed shrine, walked across the old churchyard to the Avon, whose murmur mingles in harmony with the music of the church organ. “I strolled,” he said, “beside the River Avon, which like a silver ribbon, threads its way for miles between green meadows carpeted with velvet turf and gemmed with flowers. The very trees seem fond of this historic stream, for they bend over it, gaze into its dark depths, and with their countless fingers touch caressingly its limpid waves. Surely beside this stream of Shakespeare all national differences can be forgotten. Upon the Avon's banks Americans and English form but one historic family, bowing alike in filial admiration for the king of poets and claiming as their common heritage the noble English language, which the great Bard of Stratford has so glorified."

Flow on, sweet river! like his verse
Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse;
Nor wait beside the churchyard wall
For him who cannot hear thy call.

Thy playmate once; I see him now
A boy with sunshine on his brow,
And hear in Stratford's quiet street
The patter of his little feet.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

LONDON TOWN

Oh London Town's a fine town, and London sights

are rare,

And London ale is right ale, and brisk's the London air,

And busily goes the world there, but crafty grows the mind,

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to leave behind.

Then hey for croft and hop-yard, and hill, and field, and pond,

With Bredon Hill before me and Malvern Hill beyond,

The hawthorn white i' the hedgerow, and all the spring's attire

In the comely land of Teme and Lugg, and Clent, and Clee, and Wyre.

Oh London girls are brave girls, in silk and cloth o' gold,

And London shops are rare shops where gallant things are sold,

And bonnily clicks the gold there, but drowsily blinks the eye,

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to hurry by.

Then, hey for covert and woodland, and ash and elm and oak,

Tewkesbury inns, and Malvern roofs, and Worcester chimney smoke.

The apple trees in the orchard, the cattle in the byre, And all the land from Ludlow town to Bredon church's spire.