1 JANUARY 1965, Page 21

Oxford

Years on the Gothic rack : Bells crashing down on green water, Lashing the tree trunks for growing The meadows for lying flat.

And the flushed girls laughing At calf love.

Planting banderillas

That itched and dropped, but to burn—

All moved on, moved on Not where the arches would fling them, Not to a cloistered garden • Nor yet to the riverside, The willows. the weeping willows, To pins and needles in armchairs, Shrilling of telephone, doorbell, A well-mannered print or two Of towers, Gothic, black Against trim foliage, blue sky.

MICHAEL I LIMBURGER