TOWN AND GOWN.
BRIGHTLY blazed up the fires through the long dark days of November,
Glimmered the genial lamp in the wainscoted rooms of the College,
Brightest of all in the rooms of De Whyskers, "the talented drinker."
Thence came the festive song, and the clink of the bottles and glasses,
Thence came the chorus loud, abhorred of the Dean and the Fellows.
There sat De Whyskers the jolly, the drinker of curious liquors,
There sat De Jones, and De Jenkyns, stroke oar of the Boniface Torpid;
There too, De Brown, and De Smith, well known to the eyes of the Proctors,
Heedless of numberless ticks, and the schools, and a "plough" in futuro,
Sat by the ruddy-faced fire, and quaffed the bright vintage of Xeres.
Merrily out to the night through the fogs and the mist of November
Floated the breath of the weed through the fields of the dark Empyrean,
Rose the melodious sounds of the "dogs" which are known as "the jolly,"
"Slapping" and "banging" along through that noisy and meaningless ditty.
But silence! the welkin now rings (whatever the meaning of that is),
A rumour of battle is heard, and the wine and the weeds are deserted.
Out to the darkling High, where the cad and the commoner struggle,
Out to the noise, and the din, and the crowd of the unwashed mechanics,
Went forth De Whyskers the bold, brimfull of the valour of Holland,
Flashed both his eyes in the dark with a gleam that was quite meteoric,
As flashes the pheasant's tail when he hears the first gun in October.
Now with a yell and a spring the cads came up to the onset,
Cursing and swearing amain, and throwing their arms out like thunder.
Stopping before All Saints' the hideous work of Dean Aldrich,
Stopping De Whyskers made emphatic the sign for the battle,
Thereon he let fall a blow swift like an armourer's hammer,
Down on his face fell a cad as falls an oak on the mountains,
Forth from his nose came "the red" as oft in the vintage the dresser
Squeezes the blushing grape on the plains of Estremadura.
Now from the end of the High a rush of the cads overwhelming
Sweeps as the sea sweeps on in the long dark nights of the winter,
Howling as howl the wolves through the snow in the forests of Sweden;
Blow after blow is struck, as the flakes come down in the snowstorm.
Now from the Turl to the Broad, and St. Giles's, abode of the peaceful,
Even to Worcester the slow, or Botany Bay, as they call it,
Down by Trinity Gates, and Balliol beloved of the scholar,
Down by the temple of Tom, whence the Curfew rings in the gloaming
Thundered the fray till the rain came down on the scene as a damper.
College Rhymes (T. and G. Shrimpton, Oxford, 1865.)
The great "Town and Gown" rows that used to occur annually on the Fifth of November, between the undergraduates and the townspeople, have been gradually dying out, but the memory of them still lingers in many old College Rhymes and traditions. They are most vividly described in Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, a light-hearted clever little work, by the Rev. E. Bradley, Rector of Lenton, better known under his pseudonym of Cuthbert Bede. Mr. Bradley, although himself a Cambridge man, was intimately acquainted with Oxford.