I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against the pearl-grey sky.
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay,
The hoary Colleges look down
On careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded war
They put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,
The cricket-field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
To seek a bloody sod--
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.
God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Than even Oxford town.
_Francis Brett Young_
Francis Brett Young, who is a novelist as well as a poet, and who has
been called, by _The Manchester Guardian_, "one of the promising
evangelists of contemporary poetry," has written much that is both
graceful and grave. There is music and a message in his lines that
seem to have as their motto: "Trust in the true and fiery spirit of
Man." Best known as a writer of prose, his most prominent works are
_Marching on Tanga_ and _The Crescent Moon_.
Brett Young's _Five Degrees South_ (1917) and his _Poems 1916-18_
(1919) contain the best of his verse.