In Competition 2642 you were invited to submit a homage, in verse, to an educational institution. A century or so ago Balliol man Hilaire Belloc wrote with great affection:
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.
How times have changed. Here is Jerome Betts’s entry for this week’s competition:
Hail, Alma Mater on the Isis!
Your three long years of essay-crisis
Prepared for all I now possess —
A mortgage, debts, and constant stress!
From Trinity College, Oxford, to the University of Bootle, from Bridge Road Infants to Harvard; you lavished praise on your chosen seat of learning. Commendations to Brian Murdoch, David Silverman and Jim Hayes — and to Max Ross for a nice Thomas Hood pastiche. The winners, below, get £30. P.C. Parrish pockets the extra fiver.
Forty years ago your colours, tawny roundel,
azure U,
Led the march of nightly scholars ’gainst the
college-cloistered few,
Opened access for the doughty to the laurels
and the bays;
Joined anew under your banner, praise we now
our happiest days!
Not for them, our first alumni, court or quad’s
secluded ease,
Kitchen-table, homestead students, winning
honours by degrees;
And today when modern campus signals
distance from the Prof,
Many more shall swell our numbers, pinch their
pockets and not scoff.
Sound again, nocturnal fanfares! Scare off
children, summon geek,
Back to Shakespeare, Marxist moonshine,
physics under Dr Freake.
Televisual visitations, gleam until our eyeballs hurt!
May again the Test Card’s colours blur into our
tutor’s shirt!
We sing, Floreat Miltona! Let your Keynesian
grids expand,
Till the squares of virtual learning gain the
battle for broadband,
Shirk ye not the H.E.
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