O bourne of the black and the godly! O land where the good niggers go. With the books that are borrowed of Bodley, Old moons and our castaway clo'! There, there, till the roses be ripened Rebuke us, revile, and review, Then take thee thine annual stipend So long over-due. [1] Suggested by an Article in the _Quarterly Review_, enforcing the unity of literature ancient and modern, and the necessity of providing a new School of Literature in Oxford. FIRE! By Sir W. S. Written on the occasion of the visit of the United Fire Brigades to Oxford, 1887. I. St. Giles's street is fair and wide, St. Giles's street is long; But long or wide, may naught abide Therein of guile or wrong; For through St. Giles's, to and fro, The mild ecclesiastics go From prime to evensong. It were a fearsome task, perdie! To sin in such good company. II. Long had the slanting beam of day Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May Ere now, erect, its fiery heat Illumined all that hallowed street, And breathing benediction on Thy serried battlements, St. John, Suffused at once with equal glow The cluster'd Archipelago, The Art Professor's studio And Mr. Greenwood's shop, Thy building, Pusey, where below The stout Salvation soldiers blow The cornet till they drop; Thine, Balliol, where we move, and oh! Thine, Randolph, where we stop. III. But what is this that frights the air, And wakes the curate from his lair In Pusey's cool retreat, To leave the feast, to climb the stair, And scan the startled street? As when perambulate the young And call with unrelenting tongue On home, mamma, and sire; Or voters shout with strength of lung For Hall & Co's Entire; Or Sabbath-breakers scream and shout-- The band of Booth, with drum devout, Eliza on her Sunday out, Or Farmer with his choir:-- IV. E'en so, with shriek of fife and drum And horrid clang of brass, The Fire Brigades of England come And down St. Giles's pass. Oh grand, methinks, in such array To spend a Whitsun Holiday All soaking to the skin! (Yet shoes and hose alike are stout; The shoes to keep the water out, The hose to keep it in.) V. They came from Henley on the Thames, From Berwick on the Tweed, And at the mercy of the flames They left their children and their dames, To come and play their little games On Morrell's dewy mead. Yet feared they not with fire to play-- The pyrotechnics (so they say) Were very fine indeed. VI. (P.S. by Lord Macaulay).