| |
(St. Andrews, 1862. Oxford, 1865)
ST. ANDREWS by the Northern sea, | |
| A haunted town it is to me! | |
| A little city, worn and gray, | |
| The gray North Ocean girds it round, | |
| And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, | 5 |
| The long sea-rollers surge and sound. | |
| And still the thin and biting spray | |
| Drives down the melancholy street, | |
| And still endure, and still decay, | |
| Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. | 10 |
| Ghost-like and shadowy they stand | |
| Clear mirror’d in the wet sea-sand. | |
| |
| O, ruin’d chapel, long ago | |
| We loiter’d idly where the tall | |
| Fresh-budded mountain-ashes blow | 15 |
| Within thy desecrated wall: | |
| The tough roots broke the tomb below, | |
| The April birds sang clamorous, | |
| We did not dream, we could not know | |
| How soon the Fates would sunder us! | 20 |
| |
| O, broken minster, looking forth | |
| Beyond the bay, above the town, | |
| O, winter of the kindly North, | |
| O, college of the scarlet gown, | |
| And shining sands beside the sea, | 25 |
| And stretch of links beyond the sand, | |
| Once more I watch you, and to me | |
| It is as if I touch’d his hand! | |
| |
| And therefore art thou yet more dear, | |
| O, little city, gray and sere, | 30 |
| Though shrunken from thine ancient pride, | |
| And lonely by thy lonely sea, | |
| Than these fair halls on Isis’ side, | |
| Where Youth an hour came back to me. | |
| |
| A land of waters green and clear, | 35 |
| Of willows and of poplars tall, | |
| And in the Spring-time of the year, | |
| The white may breaking over all, | |
| And Pleasure quick to come at call; | |
| And summer rides by marsh and wold, | 40 |
| And Autumn with her crimson pall | |
| About the towers of Magdalen roll’d: | |
| And strange enchantments from the past, | |
| And memories of the friends of old, | |
| And strong Tradition, binding fast | 45 |
| The flying terms with bands of gold,— | |
| |
| All these hath Oxford: all are dear, | |
| But dearer far the little town, | |
| The drifting surf, the wintry year, | |
| The college of the scarlet gown, | 50 |
| St. Andrews by the Northern sea, | |
| That is a haunted town to me! | |
| |
