TO V. P., ABOUT TO VISIT OXFORD.

So you will see what I can see no more: The broad quadrangles where the sunlit sward, At which you peep through some old oaken door, Is girt around by stone-work black and scarred; The sedgy Isis, which the swift Eight cleaves With mighty stroke, all rippled by the breeze; The narrow Cherwell, gliding under leaves; The City’s towers rising o’er the trees. All this, alas, for me is fading fast, And dimness seems descending on those walls While Cherwell slowly glides into the Past. The throng in cap and gown which filled those halls Is turning into ghosts, whose names at last I shall forget, as twilight round me falls.

I sat beside the fire, ten years ago, And in the dusk wreathed fancies in its flare, Meting the Future out, to each his share, While danced the restless shadows to and fro. And when at last the yellow flame grew low And leapt and licked no more, I still sat there Watching with eyes fast fixed, but mind elsewhere The darkening crimson of the flameless glow. And lo, at dusk, I watch once more to-day The slowly-sinking flame, the faint dull crash Of crumbling embers deadening into grey; But see alone the Past, misspent and rash, And wasted gifts, and chances thrown away. The Present and the Future? All is ash.