“Beautiful Mother,” he sang, to Oxford, “too old not to be sad, too austere to look sad and to mourn! Sometimes thou art young to my eyes because thy children are always young, and for a little while it was a journey to youth itself to visit thee. More often, not only art thou old and austere, but thy fresh and youthful children seem to have learned austerity and the ways of age, for love of thee, graciously apparelling their youth,--so that I have met old Lyly in Holywell, and Johnson at the Little Clarendon Street bookshop, and Newman by Iffley rose-window,--with their age taken away, by virtue of a mellower light upon thy lawns and a mellower shade under thy towers, than other cities. Or have I truly heard thee weep when the last revelry is quiet, and the scholar by his lamp sees thee as thou wast and wilt be, and the moonlight has her will with the spires and gardens? [Illustration: IFFLEY CHURCH FROM THE SOUTH-EAST The massive Norman tower of the Church shows to the left of the picture, the chancel extending eastward to the right. A yew tree--perhaps of the same age as the Church--covers part of the building, serving to throw into relief the remains of a cross, the shaft and base of which are ancient.] Oh, to the sad how pleasant thy age, to the joyous how admirable thy youth! Yet to the wise, perhaps, thou art neither young nor old, but eternal; and not so much beautiful as Beauty herself, masked as Cybele! And perhaps, oh sweet and wise and solemn mother, thou wilt not hear unkindly thy latest froward courtier, or at least will let him pass unnoticed, since one that speaks of thee, “Cannot dispraise without a kind of praise.” Or will it more delight thee to be praised in a tongue that is out of time, as thou seemest out of space and time?-- “Vive Midae gazis et Lydo ditior auro Troica et Euphratea super diademata felix, Quem non ambigui fasces, non mobile vulgus, Non leges, non castra tenent, qui pectore magno Spemque metumque domas. Nos, vilia turba, caducis Deservire bonis semperque optare parati, Spargimur in casus. Celsa tu mentis ab arce Despicis errantes, humanaque gaudia rides.” THE STONES OF OXFORD [Illustration: TOM TOWER, CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE The palisade enclosing the graveyard of St. Aldate’s Church is on the left; some of the buildings of Pembroke College appear to the right. The gateway in the centre of the picture is the west entrance to Christ Church from St. Aldate’s, and leads into the Fountain Quadrangle. The tower, to the level of the finial of the ogee-headed window, is of the date of Wolsey’s foundation; the remaining part was added by Sir Christopher Wren.] CHAPTER II THE STONES OF OXFORD Quia lapis de pariete clamabit, et lignum, quod inter juncturas aedificiorum est, respondebit.