The Old College, Cambridge

Just now my head begins to pound
As I awaken to the sound
Of the dawn chorus, shrill and bright,
That clears the vestiges of night.
And slowly I start to recall	5
The Green Man, and also the Blue Ball,
The Red Lion and the Rupert Brooke:
Four village pubs were I partook
In drinking games with pints of beer
until my head was far from clear.	10
I tried to stagger back to town
But worse for wear soon settled down
To sleep it off in the cool grass.
Unconsciously the hours passed,
Until I woke on the damp ground,	15
Opened my eyes, and looked around.

The skies are grey, but not with cloud.
The morning mist drapes like a shroud
Over the fields and round the knees
Of the truncated willow trees	20
That stand and guard the river's edge
Together with the hawthorne hedge.
A drowsy blackbird sings his song.
And still the river drifts along
On to the city out of sight,	25
And in the early morning light
Cowslips and hogweed wave about;
The bees and flies are not yet out.
The air feels crisp, and cool and clean,
No other people can be seen.	30

But in my half-awakened state
I'm sure I spy, near to the gate,
The ghost of a philosopher
His eyes blue as a kingfisher,
And as he stands there, deep in thought	35
On if his work will come to ought,
An English critic and his queen
Are punting quietly up the stream.
The two of them are deathly pale,
While over on the meadow trail	40
A poet and his poet-wife
Quibble over married life,
Wondering which will have the time
To fabricate the perfect rhyme.
Two mathematicians by degrees	45
Appear beneath the chestnut trees
And pose the question: "Is it true
That one and one add up to two?"
Then, as I rub my eyes and blink
These shades of academics slink	50
Into the darkness of the past
And I am left alone at last.

God, it would simply be divine
If I could travel back in time
to my late teens or so, and then	55
I'd have my student days again.
For university life I loved,
Three years I spent in bliss, and of
all Universities there are,
well, Cambridge is the best by far.	60
And from the colleges within
There's only one to choose: Selwyn.
For Kingsmen are all communists,
In Peterhouse they're usually pissed,
The Sidney Sussex food is dire,	65
And as it's often set on fire
In Christs you're woken by alarms,
And Girton's out beyond the farms.
The girls in Newnham are too chaste,
At Clare they leave their minds to waste,	70
At John's the dons are hard to please
(It's quite the opposite at Caius,
But there the rooms are cold and dank,
Too dark and small, and smell quite rank.)
In Churchill they eschew the arts,	75
And Pembroke's peopled by old farts,
The Tit Hall students one and all
Complain their college is too small.
As for the largest, Trinity,
It's hard to feel affinity	80
For anyone who studies there
Because they're generally so square.
Though other colleges there are,
I'm sorry - they're too bland by far.
But Selwyn college, proud and tall,	85
Stands a full head above them all:
ΑΝΔΡΙΖΕΣΘΕ! Quit ye like men!
As true today as it was then -
The motto of these sacred halls
And all who live within its walls.	90
Where students brim with erudition,
Yet respectful of tradition,
Know to balance play and work,
Apply themselves and never shirk
From any task that they are set.	95
(Then three years on, with some regret,
On learning what they need to learn,
They up and leave and don't return,
Knowing that procrastination
Bothers the next generation.)	100

Ah God! to walk those courts once more
And lead the life I had before!
To satisfy those idle whims
For crusted port, champagne or Pimms,
And in the gardens, with a glass,	105
Just lie there reading in the grass
Until the sun sinks down to rest
Behind the tower to the west.
Say, are those gardens green and lush,
Still shaded in a reverent hush?	110
And do they put the gate to lock
When Gladstone's bell chimes twelve o'clock,
So those who lag must scale the wall
Between the Master's Lodge and Hall?
And if I tarried later might	115
I see a lonely bedsit light
Where students, staying up till three,
Drink wine and talk philosophy?
To free the heart and feed the mind?
And in the hall where once I dined,	120
Oh, are there sausages for tea?
With beans and chips, and broccoli?