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 stonier 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 to fling her
        One poor sou for her serenade?
    One short laugh for 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 dog-cart" (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.
    Ah! but her secret? You, young lover,
        Drumming her old ones forth from town,
    Know you the secret none discover?
        Tell it--when you go down.

Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,
        Lean to her whispers never so nigh;
    Yet if at last not less her lover
        You in your hansom leave the High;
    Down from her towers a ray shall hover--
        Touch you, a passer-by!

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, born on November 21, 1863, and died on May 12, 1944, was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name Q. His legacy includes a vast body of critical and anthological work, most notably 'The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900'. Quiller-Couch was knighted in 1910 and also served as a professor of English at the University of Cambridge. His works have influenced many, including writers like Virginia Woolf.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

In A College Garden.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

Twilight.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

The Splendid Spur.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

Hesperus

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

English

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Hence a while, severer Muses;
Spare your slaves till drear October.
Hence; for Alma Mater chooses
Not to be for ever sober:
But, like stately matron gray,
Calling child and grandchild round her,
Will for them at least be gay;
Share for once their holiday;
And, knowing she will sleep the sounder,
Cheerier-hearted on the morrow
Rise to grapple care and sorrow,
Grandly leads the dance adown, and joins the children's play.
    So go, for in your places
    Already, as you see,
(Her tears for some deep sorrow scarcely dried),
Venus holds court among her sinless graces,
With many a nymph from many a park and lea.
She, pensive, waits the merrier faces
Of those your wittier sisters three,
O'er jest and dance and song who still preside,
To cheer her...

Charles Kingsley

To Mary Boyle

I.

Spring-flowers! While you still delay to take
Your leave of town,
Our elm-trees ruddy-hearted blossom-flake
Is fluttering down.



II.

Be truer to your promise. There! I heard
Our cuckoo call.
Be needle to the magnet of your word,
Nor wait, till all



III.

Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain
And garden pass,
And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drop to the grass.



IV.

Is memory with your Marian gone to rest,
Dead with the dead?
For ere she left us, when we met, you prest
My hand, and said



V.

I come with your spring-flowers. You came not, my friend;
My birds would sing,
You heard not. Take then this spring-flower...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Of Three Children Choosing - A Chaplet Of Verse

You and I and Burd so blithe--
    Burd so blithe, and you, and I--
The Mower he would whet his scythe
    Before the dew was dry.

And he woke soon, but we woke soon
    And drew the nursery blind,
All wondering at the waning moon
    With the small June roses twined:
Low in her cradle swung the moon
    With an elfin dawn behind.

In whispers, while our elders slept,
    We knelt and said our prayers,
And dress'd us and on tiptoe crept
    Adown the creaking stairs.

The world's possessors lay abed,
    And all the world was ours--
"Nay, nay, but hark! the Mower's tread!
    And we must save the flowers!"

The Mower knew not rest nor haste--
    That old unweary man:
But we were young. We paused and raced
    And ...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

A Singer Asleep

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909)



I

In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea,
That sentrys up and down all night, all day,
From cove to promontory, from ness to bay,
    The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.

II

- It was as though a garland of red roses
Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun
When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun,
In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes,
Upon Victoria's formal middle time
    His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.

III

O that far morning of a summer day
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
    New words, in classic guise, -

Thomas Hardy