 | English Roses |  |
TO MY ALMA MATER.
Towns rise and fall, fair systems come and go,
All things obey the rhythmic ebb and flow
Decreed by nature, and fulfil their stature
And pass or into alien uses grow;
Philosophies have died, and stately creeds
Did fade for others as their living seeds,
And dust of nations wrought the new foundations
Of present powers and serve our riper needs;
Gray speculations from their centuried grave
Have yet returned in triumph, and to save
A time or city in immortal pity
From freezing error and its winter wave.
All things obey the rhythmic ebb and flow
Decreed by nature, and fulfil their stature
And pass or into alien uses grow;
Philosophies have died, and stately creeds
Did fade for others as their living seeds,
And dust of nations wrought the new foundations
Of present powers and serve our riper needs;
Gray speculations from their centuried grave
Have yet returned in triumph, and to save
A time or city in immortal pity
From freezing error and its winter wave.
But thou, my Alma Mater, shinest yet
Though lesser lights have round thee flashed and set
In the dumb starkness of eternal darkness,
To be a name which scholars even forget:
Thou art a piece of England and the years
Which builded us of splendid faiths and fears,
When kingdoms tumbled and religions crumbled,
And mighty singers married fire and tears;
As through the periods paced by famous feet
Still windeth on, where wit and wisdom meet,
By court and college and the shrines of knowledge
The ancient river of thy storied street.
Though lesser lights have round thee flashed and set
In the dumb starkness of eternal darkness,
To be a name which scholars even forget:
Thou art a piece of England and the years
Which builded us of splendid faiths and fears,
When kingdoms tumbled and religions crumbled,
And mighty singers married fire and tears;
As through the periods paced by famous feet
Still windeth on, where wit and wisdom meet,
By court and college and the shrines of knowledge
The ancient river of thy storied street.
Kings were thy sponsors, and the great and good
Loved thee and in thy pleasant cloisters stood,
Or fenced the straying land in walls of praying,
And with all beauty thou hast brotherhood;
Here learning laid the bases of its throne,
And hence about the earth the radiant zone
Of thought has travelled and deep lore unravelled,
To prove thereby some Master's touch and tone;
O thou above the vulgar crowd and cries
Hast had blue glimpses of serener skies,
And with thy martyrs given the world its charters
Of blessèd hopes and broader liberties.
Loved thee and in thy pleasant cloisters stood,
Or fenced the straying land in walls of praying,
And with all beauty thou hast brotherhood;
Here learning laid the bases of its throne,
And hence about the earth the radiant zone
Of thought has travelled and deep lore unravelled,
To prove thereby some Master's touch and tone;
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Hast had blue glimpses of serener skies,
And with thy martyrs given the world its charters
Of blessèd hopes and broader liberties.
My Alma Mater, pillar of the State
And one with it in grandeur and in fate,
For ever loyal to things right and royal,
Unmoved by sworded din or high debate;
A nursing mother to brave spirits tost
On doubts like ocean, while to causes lost
As classic Cato steadfast, and with Plato
Bridging the gulfs which none but he has crost;
Not often lured by falsehood's golden wraith
To heed what treason though empalaced saith,
'Mid old traditions finding sweet fruitions
And in the night a fortress of the faith.
And one with it in grandeur and in fate,
For ever loyal to things right and royal,
Unmoved by sworded din or high debate;
A nursing mother to brave spirits tost
On doubts like ocean, while to causes lost
As classic Cato steadfast, and with Plato
Bridging the gulfs which none but he has crost;
Not often lured by falsehood's golden wraith
To heed what treason though empalaced saith,
'Mid old traditions finding sweet fruitions
And in the night a fortress of the faith.
Green spread thy gardens as a lingering page
Of eld, and each stone is a drama stage,
And on the hoary towers abide in glory
The latest sorceries of a larger age;
Long generations formed those lawns and leas—
At length—so glad to educated ease,
Nor rest there shadows upon other meadows
With haunting memories such as thine to please;
Most venerable thou, yet always young
With some quaint fancy trembling on thy tongue,
And in the dewing of fresh founts renewing
Those graces which no bard has ever sung.
Of eld, and each stone is a drama stage,
And on the hoary towers abide in glory
The latest sorceries of a larger age;
Long generations formed those lawns and leas—
At length—so glad to educated ease,
Nor rest there shadows upon other meadows
With haunting memories such as thine to please;
Most venerable thou, yet always young
With some quaint fancy trembling on thy tongue,
And in the dewing of fresh founts renewing
Those graces which no bard has ever sung.
Thou shalt not pass when meaner homes have fled,
If fanes and fabrics like the rose do shed
Their life in fragrance soft as visions' vagrance,
Buttressed in truth, by praises ramparted;
Of worship are thy bulwarks, and the sod
Is redolent of pieties, where trod
The haloed teachers and the heaven-sent preachers,
And all thy reverend cults have root in God;
Still be our beacon when the land is blind
And make our men not only kin but kind,
While in thy oratories and thy great laboratories
Thou addest empires yet to unmapt mind.
If fanes and fabrics like the rose do shed
Their life in fragrance soft as visions' vagrance,
Buttressed in truth, by praises ramparted;
Of worship are thy bulwarks, and the sod
Is redolent of pieties, where trod
The haloed teachers and the heaven-sent preachers,
And all thy reverend cults have root in God;
Still be our beacon when the land is blind
And make our men not only kin but kind,
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Thou addest empires yet to unmapt mind.
| English Roses | |