For O in youth she lives, not in her age.
Her soul is with the springtime and the young;
And she absents her from the learned page,
Studious of high histories yet unsung,
More passionately prized than wisdom's book
Because her own. Her faith is in those eyes
That clear into the gape of hell can look,
Putting to proof ancient philosophies
Such as the virgin Muses would rehearse
Beside the silvery, swallow-haunted stream,
Under the grey towers. But immortal verse
Is now exchanged for its immortal theme—
Victory; proud loss; and the enduring mind;
Youth, that has passed all praises, and has won
More than renown, being that which faith divined,
Reality more radiant than the sun.
She gave, she gives, more than all anchored days
Of dedicated lore, of storied art;
And she resigns her beauty to men's gaze
To mask the riches of her bleeding heart.
TO THE OXFORD MEN IN THE WAR
OFTEN, on afternoons grey and sombre,
When clouds lie low and dark with rain,
A random bell strikes a chord familiar
And I hear the Oxford chimes again.
Never I see a swift stream running
Cold and full from shore to shore,
But I think of Isis, and remember
The leaping boat and the throbbing oar.
