About the august and ancient _Square_,
Cries the wild wind; and through the air,
The blue night air, blows keen and chill:
Else, all the night sleeps, all is still.
Now, the lone _Square_ is blind with gloom:
Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom,
A cloudy moonlight plays, and falls
In glory upon _Bodley's_ walls:
Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales,
Storm the tumultuary gales.
O rare divinity of Night!
Season of undisturbed delight:
Glad interspace of day and day!
Without, a world of winds at play:
Within, I hear what dead friends say.
Blow, winds! and round that perfect _Dome_,
Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam:
Above _Saint Mary's_ carven home,
Struggle, and smite to your desire
The sainted watchers on her spire:
Or in the distance vex your power
Upon mine own _New College_ tower:
You hurt not these! On me and mine,
Clear candlelights in quiet shine:
My fire lives yet! nor have I done
With _Smollett_, nor with _Richardson_:
With, gentlest of the martyrs! _Lamb_,
Whose lover I, long lover, am:
With _Gray_, whose gracious spirit knew
The sorrows of art's lonely few:
With _Fielding_, great, and strong, and tall;
_Sterne_, exquisite, equivocal;
_Goldsmith_, the dearest of them all:
While _Addison's_ demure delights
Turn _Oxford_, into _Attic_, nights.
Still _Trim_ and _Parson Adams_ keep
Me better company, than sleep:
Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor I
Love well her nightly death to die,
And in her haunted chapels lie.
Sleep wins me not: but from his shelf
Brings me each wit his very self:
Beside my chair the great ghosts throng,
Each tells his story, sings his song:
And in the ruddy fire I trace
The curves of each _Augustan_ face.
I sit at _Doctor Primrose'_ board:
I hear _Beau Tibbs_ discuss a lord.
Mine, _Matthew Bramble's_ pleasant wrath;
Mine, all the humours of the _Bath_.
_Sir Roger_ and the _Man in Black_
Bring me the _Golden Ages_ back.
Now white _Clarissa_ meets her fate,
With virgin will inviolate:
Now _Lovelace_ wins me with a smile,
_Lovelace_, adorable and vile.
I taste, in slow alternate way,
Letters of _Lamb_, letters of _Gray_:
Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers,
More joy, than in my silent hours.
Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief:
Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief:
Better my dreams! Dear, human books,
With kindly voices, winning looks!
Enchaunt me with your spells of art,
And draw me homeward to your heart:
Till weariness and things unkind
Seem but a vain and passing wind:
Till the grey morning slowly creep
Upward, and rouse the birds from sleep:
Till _Oxford_ bells the silence break,
And find me happier, for your sake.
Then, with the dawn of common day,
Rest you! But I, upon my way,
What the fates bring, will cheerlier do,
In days not yours, through thoughts of you!