Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ORIEL COLLEGE, by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ORIEL COLLEGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ye antique walls, ye portals old
Last Line: Beside the waves of cam!
Alternate Author Name(s): Godley, A. D.
Subject(s): Oxford University; Rhodes, Cecil (1853-1902); Scholarship & Scholars


There are several allusions in this poem to the terms of Mr. Cecil Rhodes's will. It may be noted
that the five annual scholarships allotted to Germany were annulled during the War.

I

YE antique walls, ye portals old,
Abode of High Research,
Whose ampler bounds will soon (I'm told)
Confront St. Mary's Church, --
Where Dignity and Comfort vie
To decorate your Table High,
While alien dons, a starveling crew,
Each eve regard with envious view
These highly-favoured scenes
(Themselves by fate compelled to chew
The Magdalen husks, the scraps of New,
The mouldy crusts of Queen's): --
Blest spot! where childlike Learning sits
Remote from worldly cares,
And leaves to skilled financiers its
Pecuniary affairs,
Or, taking Mr. Beit's advice,
Is taught to choose with judgment nice
And purchase at a trifling price
Remunerative shares!

II

Yet, when we dream our happy state
Of human woes is rid,
Still is there left by envious Fate
Amari Aliquid!
For what avails the lengthened feast,
And what th' augmented pay?
From North and South and West and East,
Like eagles to their prey,
From Canada, from New South Wales,
-- Where'er the British tongue prevails,
Where Yankees spurn the tyrant's curb,
Where'er the German compound verb
Delights the listening ear, --
All, all alike our peace disturb,
All, all assemble here!
And who are we, to grant degrees
To persons eminent like these?
From Virtue's point of view survey
The casual Britisher:
How prone he is from Right to stray,
How liable to err!
Such maxims as for him were meant
Can ne'er those juveniles content
Whose marks are ninety-five per cent.
For Moral Character, --
While Britain's Blues, like C. B. Fry,
Whom no capitalists supply
With wherewithal to go and buy
Their beef, and boots, and beer --
How shall our Blues with him compete
In strength of limb or speed of feet,
Who gets, because he's strong and fleet,
Three hundred pounds a year?

III

Then though they come in shoals and scores
From lands of various names,
Though Murrumbidgee daily pours
His waters in the Thames:
Though 'Cornstalks' stalking in the Corn
Affright th' unwonted don,
And men in Patagonia born
Surprise the Bursch from Bonn:
Though from each state Columbia's soil
Supply an undergrad,
And all Australia come to boil
Its billy in the quad:
Not mine decanally to cope
With students from thy Cape, Good Hope,
Or Germans on the Spree:
Britannia's youth supplies a scope
Sufficient quite for me:
-- Or if compelled for Mods. or Greats
Colonial undergraduates
With classic lore to cram,
Full blest I'll deem their humble lot
Who by capitalists forgot
Inhabit some sequestered spot
Beside the waves of Cam!





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