11 DECEMBER 1897, Page 16

POETRY.

OXFORD.

UPoN a hill I stood, and far below Lay the lov'd city in a silver haze : Mine eyes were quick with tears : she lay so fair, So passionless, so sad. 'Twas here our fathers Drain'd the waste fen, and with prophetic eye Divined a refuge for the soul, and plann'd A green oasis sever'd from the waste, Where each, in cloister'd calm and leisure shade, Might learn of wisdom in the lap of peace : Slowly she grew in unobtrusive grace, Generous in bounty as in beauty first ; As showers, as showers of scarlet leaves in autumn,.

The generations scatter : she remains Like Niobe,—surviving all her sons :- Shield me, shield me, oh Mother !—thy outcast child Spent with the arrow of Apollo's fire. G. M.