Years ago when I was at Balliol,
Balliol men--and I was one--
Swam together in winter rivers,
Wrestled together under the sun.
And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol,
Loved already, but hardly known,
Welded us each of us into the others:
Called a levy and chose her own.
Here is a House that armours a man
With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger,
And a laughing way in the teeth of the world
And a holy hunger and thirst for danger:
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,
Whatever I had she gave me again:
And the best of Balliol loved and led me,
God be with you, Balliol men.
I have said it before, and I say it again,
There was treason done, and a false word spoken,
And England under the dregs of men,
And bribes about, and a treaty broken:
But angry, lonely, hating it still,
I wished to be there in spite of the wrong.
My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill
And the hammer of galloping all day long.
Galloping outward into the weather,
Hands a-ready and battle in all:
Words together and wine together
And song together in Balliol Hall.
Rare and single! Noble and few!...
Oh! they have wasted you over the sea!
The only brothers ever I knew,
The men that laughed and quarrelled with me.
* * * * *
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,
Whatever I had she gave me again;
And the best of Balliol loved and led me,
God be with you, Balliol men.
Belloc took a First in the Modern History School in 1895. No one ever
experienced more keenly the tingling thrill of the eager student who
finds himself cast into the heart of Oxford's abundant life: the
thousands of books so generously alive; the hundreds of acute and worthy
rivals crossing steel on steel in play, work, and debate; the endless
throb of passionate speculation into all the crowding problems of human
history. The zest and fervour of those younger days he has never
outgrown, and there are few writers of our time who have appealed so
imperiously to the young. In the Oxford before the war all the
undergraduates were reading Belloc: you would hardly find a college room
that did not shelve one or two of his volumes.