J'AI COMPOSÉ MES TRENTE SIX BALLADES

 DIZAIN As, to the pipe, with rhythmic feet In windings of some old-world dance, The smiling couples cross and meet, Join hands, and then in line advance, Si, to these fair old tunes of France, Through all their maze of to-and-fro, The light-heeled numbers laughing go, Retreat, return, and ere they flee, moment pause in panting row, And seem to say,—VOS PLAUDITE. AUSTIN DOBSON. 

VOS PLAUDITE

AUSTIN DOBSON.

AUSTIN DOBSON

[1] Thomas of Ercildoune.

[1]

[2] A knavish publisher.

[2]

[3] Cf. "Suggestions for Academic Reorganization."

[3]

[4] A hill on the Teviot in Roxburghshire.

[4]

 VERSES VAIN.

 ALMAE MATRES.   (St. Andrews, 1862. Oxford, 1865.)   St. Andrews by the Northern sea, A haunted town it is to me! A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round. And o'er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand Clear mirrored in the wet sea-sand. O, ruined chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tall Fresh budded mountain ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall:  The tough roots broke the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous, We did not dream, we could not know How soon the Fates would sunder us! O, broken minster, looking forth Beyond the bay, above the town, O, 'winter of the kindly North, O, college of the scarlet gown, And shining sands beside the sea, And stretch of links beyond the sand, Once more I watch you, and to me It is as if I touched his hand! And therefore art thou yet more dear, O, little city, grey and sere, Though shrunken from thine ancient pride And lonely by thy lonely sea, 

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