And feed my fancy with unearthly sight,

Restore the features of her famous dead,

Nor take a kingdom for the tear I shed!

And how reposeful is the haunted spot

Where life is mental, and the world forgot!

A spirit wafted from collegiate bowers

And the dim grandeur of her ancient towers

To Alma Mater museful calm impart,

That makes her scene harmonious with the heart.

The very air seems eloquently fraught

With the deep silence of devoted thought;

While all around her, grand as eye desires,

The mind ennobles, or the heart inspires.

And here, how many a youthful Soul began

To sketch the drama of the future man;

How many an eye o'er coming years hath smil'd,

And sparkled, as incessant hope beguil❜d!

The star-like spirits, whose enduring light

Beams on the world, and turns her darkness bright,

In radiant promise here begun to rise,

And glow ambitious for eternal skies!

Oh! none whose souls have felt a mighty name

Thrill to their centre with its sound of fame;

Whose hearts have warm'd at wisdom, truth, or worth,

And all that makes the heaven we meet on earth,

Can tread the ground by genius often trod,

Nor feel a nature more akin to God!

Here in their blended magic float along

Pindaric rapture and Virgilian song;

Still Homer charms as when he first prevail'd,

And honour'd Greece her idol poet hail'd :

See Athens in her classic bloom revive,

Her sages worshipp'd, and her bards alive!

See Rome triumphant, but with banner furl'd,

Awake her genius to enchant a world!

There are who see no intellectual rays

Flash from the spirit-light of other days;

Who deem no age transcendent as their own,

And high the present o'er the past enthrone.

Yet, not in vain the world hath aye ador'd

The treasur'd wisdom ages gone afford;

Or lov'd the freshness of that youthful time

When Nature thrill'd as man became sublime!

For then the elements of mind were new,

And fancy from their unworn magic drew;

Creation's self was one unrifled theme

To form a passion, or to frame a dream;

As yet unhaunted by inquiring thought,

Each track of mind with mental bloom was fraught ;

The first in nature were the first to feel

Impassion'd wonder and romantic zeal;

Hence matchless vigour nerv'd the living page

That won the worship of a future age;

While Genius moulded with a master hand

The primal elements of pure and grand

:

From ancient lore see modern learning rise,

The last we honour, but the first we prize.

Then long ador'd, in this august retreat

May Greece and Rome for high communion meet; Long may their forceful page and free-born style

From year to year succeeding youth beguile;

The judgment form, uncertain taste direct,
Teach Truth to feel, and Fancy to reflect:

And Learning, hallow'd by immortal fame,

See England glory in her Oxford name!

Yet not forsaken be the grand career