the opprobrious name of "Parks-system," have done
something to efface the difference between Oxford and other towns.
But on the whole I think they have done surprisingly little.

Speaking as a writer of novels, then, I should say that to write a good
novel entirely concerned with Oxford lies close upon impossibility, and
will prophesy that, if ever it comes to be achieved, it will be a story of
friendship. But her glamour is for him to catch who can, whether in prose
or rhyme.

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 and fling her
One poor _sou_ for her serenade?
One poor laugh from the antic finger
Thrumming a lute string frayed?

Once, my dear--but the world was young then--
Magdalen elms and Trinity limes--
Lissom the blades and the 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 the lute; so . . . fold her
Under the faded shawl.

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;