Classic Poem

Beneath my parasol by Camus' side
I sat a-reading; in the whole world wide
There was no one to tell me what to read;
And I agreed
How passing sweet it was to be so slack
In the Long Vac.

And as I sat, from somewhere up by Caius
There came a sound of revel on the breeze,
As when the maddened Maenads all are out
With Bacchus and his rout:

And scarce the axle-boxes of my knees
Had spun a furrow's length or thereabout,
When round the corner Mr. Berry shot
Up with his little lot.

Like to a waving field of corn they came,
Matron and maid, and faces all aflame,
A sight to rudely scare, if any can,
A solemn honours-man;
O then, O then, I say it to my shame,
My thoughts were very, very far from thee,
Thou " Academical Sobriety, "
And in a moment, lost to name and fame,
I, I, a two-year-old Girtonian,
Had joined the Summer Plan.

Berry, beside his ivied staff of men
I saw engirt with women, as a hen
With her appealing brood;
There was a listening air in their regard
As if from drinking information hard,
More really than was good;
And there I saw the Cambridge-Yankee blend,
A trifle lifted up among their peers,
Boasting Typhoeus-like how they " extend "
Over two hemispheres.

" Whence come ye, lady trippers, whence come ye,
So many and so many on the spree?
Why have ye left the provinces forlorn
This blessed August morn? "
" We follow Berry, Berry, on the fling
A-lecturing;
Before, behind, about him still we plod,
Fair or foul weather, thorough Hall or Quad;
Come hither, lady-undergrad, and greet
Our wild Extension Meet. "

" Whence come ye, master trippers, whence come ye,
So many and so many on the spree?
Forgetting Margate sands and Yarmouth pier,
And all her bloaters sere? "
" For Culture, Culture, have we waived the sea,
For Culture have exchanged the gay Marine
For King's-parade;
For Culture (Mr. Berry's) have we come;
Lord! only hear its universal hum!
So hither, lady-undergrad, and greet
Our wild Extension Meet. "

Pencil in pouch and syllabus in hand,
Hugging selected Poets of the land,
Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, all but Thomas Hood
And Byron (more's the pity),
They caught the local colour where they could;
And members of the feminine committee
To native grace an added charm would bring
Of light blue ribbons — not of abstinence —
But bearing just this sense —
" Enquire within on any mortal thing! "

Deserting afternoon half-tasted teas
For some Staff Officer on Pericles,
Treading where Dons will hardly dare to tread,
Sucking like any amorous Matine bee
Eclectic sweets of fair Philosophy,
We fluttered and we fed;
Whatso the theme, it mattered not one bit,
Scott or Sordello, Pheidias or Pitt,
Whether " Great Women " or the " Great Ice Age, "
Parkyn on Darwin, Fenton upon drugs,
Or Kimmins upon fertilising bugs,
Chanced to adorn the stage.

Anon to church with high impartial zeal,
Or where (his turn to deal)
Harris, the Levantine, uplifts the cry —
" Latest edition from Mt. Sinai! "
From dawn of light unto the stretch of shade,
Barring, when lunch is done,
Picnics to Ely, boats to Bottisham,
Or trips upon the circulating tram,
Or the accustomed Senate House parade
From half-past twelve to one.

Ah! sacred Temple, what a sight I saw!
That shrine upon whose steps inviolate
No mortal shoots the nimble knuckle-taw,
Until he pass the pupillary state, —
Nor any such upon its floor may be
Save when he gets, or goes for, a degree —
Here now the vagrant gossip moves, and here
The tables of the money-changers stand;
The syllabus is bought at second-hand;
The placard, terse and clear,
Proclaims alarums and excursions, so
That he who runs may read the thing and know
Where he has got to go.

And in the latter half, about the throne,
Silent, select, but not so popular,
The seeming-earnest readers sit alone
(No smoking is allowed abaft the bar);
Nor have I mentioned yet the Poste Restante ,
Yea, nothing that the lettered mind can want,
Excepting liquors, if it must be said,
But here was given gratis — or else sold;
Such sacrilege might well have waked the cold
Non-placets of the dead.

I saw Oxonian Isis, in the shape
Of Sadler, bow the head;
Acknowledging his own official tape
Was not so fine a red;
I saw Professor R. C. Jebb, M. P.,
Veiling in modest mood
His professorial profundity
To deal in platitude;
Verrall I saw lay down his caustic pen
And, mildly critical,
Deign to make popular remarks on men
And things in general.
I saw the great McTaggart, pale and proud,
Vainly declaim (before a hearty crowd)
Of such as cut their names on Learning's seat,
And marred her chaste retreat;
I saw when in Satyric vein rose Wedd,
Champion of " literary Maenads " he,
And fairly launched the modern Orpheus' head
Down Camus to the sea.

All this I tasted and some other things,
Like Gosse and Vernon Lee,
And ices underneath the elms of King's
Or Milton's mulberry-tree;
And now I feel within the after-pain,
And here's October with the term again.