A Anglaterra hi ha moltes merles, i a Oxford vaig passar algunes
estones mirant aquests ocells sobre l'herba dels claustres dels
col·legis. N'hi ha de moltes classes, una de les més corrents és la
que s'anomena, en anglès, el black bird o ocell negre, per
traduir-ho literalment. D'aquests ocells, a tot arreu n'hi ha, però
fa l'efecte que en alguns llocs abunden extraordinàriament. N'hi ha
més a Oxford que a Cambridge, cosa que és una llàstima, perquè
aquest ocell és un prodigi decoratiu. En els parcs i quadrangles
d'herba dels col·legis se'n poden veure molts. Jo em dedicava a
mirar-los de vegades assegut sobre una pedra o recolzat sobre una
columna, fumant una cigarreta.


A Oxford, em despertava la merla, o les merles, del jardí de la
residència, molt aviat, quan encara el dia era incert. Em
despertava de veritat, per sobre dels arcaics costums de la vida
personal, i m'acostava a la finestra. A la matinada, havien caigut
alguns ruixats primaverals. El ruixat sempre era imminent, però quan
sortia el sol –plou i fa sol– els arbres agafaven un aspecte brillant,
les gotes transformaven la botànica, i l'herba del jardí tenia un
color verd-verdíssim, jove enlluernador, prodigiosament humit però
sòlid, d'una solidesa suau –em semblava a mi. I llavors apareixia la
merla, que corria un moment amb el seu bec groc i la seva llarga cua,
sobre l'herba, picotejava un moment els brins molls i després,
voltant cautelosament, pujava a la branca d'un arbre, una branca
gotejant de la pluja immediata, i es posava a cantar amb una gorja
pastosa i suavíssima, d'una qualitat de vi del Rin fruitat i fresc,
d'una manera lleugerament àcida i en altres moments dolcíssima –i feia
el cant de la merla..

I have been told that the ambition of every Dramatic Club is to act Henry
IV.  I am not surprised.  The spirit of comedy is as fervent in this play
as is the spirit of chivalry; it is an heroic pageant as well as an
heroic poem, and like most of Shakespeare's historical dramas it contains
an extraordinary number of thoroughly good acting parts, each of which is
absolutely individual in character, and each of which contributes to the
evolution of the plot.

Rumour, from time to time, has brought in tidings of a proposed
production by the banks of the Cam, but it seems at the last moment Box
and Cox has always had to be substituted in the bill.

To Oxford belongs the honour of having been the first to present on the
stage this noble play, and the production which I saw last week was in
every way worthy of that lovely town, that mother of sweetness and of
light.  For, in spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and
the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of
Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still
remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life
and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one.  Indeed, in most
other towns art has often to present herself in the form of a reaction
against the sordid ugliness of ignoble lives, but at Oxford she comes to
us as an exquisite flower born of the beauty of life and expressive of
life's joy.  She finds her home by the Isis as once she did by the
Ilissus; the Magdalen walks and the Magdalen cloisters are as dear to her
as were ever the silver olives of Colonus and the golden gateway of the
house of Pallas: she covers with fanlike tracery the vaulted entrance to
Christ Church Hall, and looks out from the windows of Merton; her feet
have stirred the Cumnor cowslips, and she gathers fritillaries in the
river-fields.  To her the clamour of the schools and the dulness of the
lecture-room are a weariness and a vexation of spirit; she seeks not to
define virtue, and cares little for the categories; she smiles on the
swift athlete whose plastic grace has pleased her, and rejoices in the
young Barbarians at their games; she watches the rowers from the reedy
bank and gives myrtle to her lovers, and laurel to her poets, and rue to
those who talk wisely in the street; she makes the earth lovely to all
who dream with Keats; she opens high heaven to all who soar with Shelley;
and turning away her head from pedant, proctor and Philistine, she has
welcomed to her shrine a band of youthful actors, knowing that they have
sought with much ardour for the stern secret of Melpomene, and caught
with much gladness the sweet laughter of Thalia.  And to me this ardour
and this gladness were the two most fascinating qualities of the Oxford
performance, as indeed they are qualities which are necessary to any fine
dramatic production.  For without quick and imaginative observation of
life the most beautiful play becomes dull in presentation, and what is
not conceived in delight by the actor can give no delight at all to
others.

I know that there are many who consider that Shakespeare is more for the
study than for the stage.  With this view I do not for a moment agree.
Shakespeare wrote the plays to be acted, and we have no right to alter
the form which he himself selected for the full expression of his work.
Indeed, many of the beauties of that work can be adequately conveyed to
us only through the actor's art.  As I sat in the Town Hall of Oxford the
other night, the majesty of the mighty lines of the play seemed to me to
gain new music from the clear young voices that uttered them, and the
ideal grandeur of the heroism to be made more real to the spectators by
the chivalrous bearing, the noble gesture and the fine passion of its
exponents.  Even the dresses had their dramatic value.  Their
archaeological accuracy gave us, immediately on the rise of the curtain,
a perfect picture of the time.  As the knights and nobles moved across
the stage in the flowing robes of peace and in the burnished steel of
battle, we needed no dreary chorus to tell us in what age or land the
play's action was passing, for the fifteenth century in all the dignity
and grace of its apparel was living actually before us, and the delicate
harmonies of colour struck from the first a dominant note of beauty which
added to the intellectual realism of archaeology the sensuous charm of
art.

As for individual actors, Mr. Mackinnon's Prince Hal was a most gay and
graceful performance, lit here and there with charming touches of
princely dignity and of noble feeling.  Mr. Coleridge's Falstaff was full
of delightful humour, though perhaps at times he did not take us
sufficiently into his confidence.  An audience looks at a tragedian, but
a comedian looks at his audience.  However, he gave much pleasure to
every one, and Mr. Bourchier's Hotspur was really most remarkable.  Mr.
Bourchier has a fine stage presence, a beautiful voice, and produces his
effects by a method as dramatically impressive as it is artistically
right.  Once or twice he seemed to me to spoil his last line by walking
through it.  The part of Harry Percy is one full of climaxes which must
not be let slip.  But still there was always a freedom and spirit in his
style which was very pleasing, and his delivery of the colloquial
passages I thought excellent, notably of that in the first act:

     What d' ye call the place?
  A plague upon't--it is in Gloucestershire;
  'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,
  His uncle York;

lines by the way in which Kemble made a great effect.  Mr. Bourchier has
the opportunity of a fine career on the English stage, and I hope he will
take advantage of it.  Among the minor parts in the play Glendower,
Mortimer and Sir Richard Vernon were capitally acted, Worcester was a
performance of some subtlety, Mrs. Woods was a charming Lady Percy, and
Lady Edward Spencer Churchill, as Mortimer's wife, made us all believe
that we understood Welsh.  Her dialogue and her song were most pleasing
bits of artistic realism which fully accounted for the Celtic chair at
Oxford.

But though I have mentioned particular actors, the real value of the
whole representation was to be found in its absolute unity, in its
delicate sense of proportion, and in that breadth of effect which is to
be got only by the most careful elaboration of detail.  I have rarely
seen a production better stage-managed.  Indeed, I hope that the
University will take some official notice of this delightful work of art.
Why should not degrees be granted for good acting?  Are they not given to
those who misunderstand Plato and who mistranslate Aristotle?  And should
the artist be passed over?  No.  To Prince Hal, Hotspur and Falstaff,
D.C.L.'s should be gracefully offered.  I feel sure they would be
gracefully accepted.  To the rest of the company the crimson or the sheep-
skin hood might be assigned honoris causa to the eternal confusion of the
Philistine, and the rage of the industrious and the dull.  Thus would
Oxford confer honour on herself, and the artist be placed in his proper
position.  However, whether or not Convocation recognises the claims of
culture, I hope that the Oxford Dramatic Society will produce every
summer for us some noble play like Henry IV.  For, in plays of this kind,
plays which deal with bygone times, there is always this peculiar charm,
that they combine in one exquisite presentation the passions that are
living with the picturesqueness that is dead.  And when we have the
modern spirit given to us in an antique form, the very remoteness of that
form can be made a method of increased realism.  This was Shakespeare's
own attitude towards the ancient world, this is the attitude we in this
century should adopt towards his plays, and with a feeling akin to this
it seemed to me that these brilliant young Oxonians were working.  If it
was so, their aim is the right one.  For while we look to the dramatist
to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to
romance...

                 
HOW changed is here each spot man makes or fills!
    In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;
        The village street its haunted mansion lacks,
    And from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name,
        And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks;
            Are ye too changed, ye hills?
    See, ’tis no foot of unfamiliar men
        To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!
        Here came I often, often, in old days;
    Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. 
Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
    Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns
        The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?
    The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
        The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?—
            This winter-eve is warm,
    Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,
        The tender purple spray on copse and briers!
        And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
    She needs not June for beauty’s heightening, 

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!—
    Only, methinks, some loss of habit’s power
        Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.
    Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour;
        Now seldom come I, since I came with him.
            That single elm-tree bright
    Against the west—I miss it! is it gone?
        We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,
        Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead;
    While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. 

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,
    But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;
        And with the country-folk acquaintance made
    By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.
        Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assayed.
            Ah me! this many a year
    My pipe is lost, my shepherd’s holiday!
        Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart
        Into the world and wave of men depart;
    But Thyrsis of his own will went away. 

It irked him to be here, he could not rest.
    He loved each simple joy the country yields,
        He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,
    For that a shadow lower’d on the fields,
        Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.
            Some life of men unblest
    He knew, which made him droop, and fill’d his head.
        He went; his piping took a troubled sound
        Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;
    He could not wait their passing, he is dead! 

So, some tempestuous morn in early June,
    When the year’s primal burst of bloom is o’er,
        Before the roses and the longest day—
    When garden-walks and all the grassy floor
        With blossoms red and white of fallen May
            And chestnut-flowers are strewn—
    So have I heard the cuckoo’s parting cry,
        From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,
        Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:
    The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I. 

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?
    Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
        Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
    Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
        Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,
            And stocks in fragrant blow;
    Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
        And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
        And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
    And the full moon, and the white evening-star. 

He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!
    What matters it? next year he will return,
        And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,
    With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,
        And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,
            And scent of hay new-mown.
    But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see;
        See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,
        And blow a strain the world at last shall heed—
    For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee! 

Alack, for Corydon no rival now!—
    But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,
        Some good survivor with his flute would go,
    Piping a ditty sad for Bion’s fate;
        And cross the unpermitted ferry’s flow,
            And relax Pluto’s brow,
    And make leap up with joy the beauteous head
        Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair
        Are flowers first opened on Sicilian air,
    And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead. 

O easy access to the hearer’s grace
    When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!
        For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
    She knew the Dorian water’s gush divine,
        She knew each lily white which Enna yields
            Each rose with blushing face;
    She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.
        But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!
        Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr’d;
    And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! 

Well! wind-dispers’d and vain the words will be,
     Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
        In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp’d hill!
    Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?
        I know the wood which hides the daffodil,
            I know the Fyfield tree,
    I know what white, what purple fritillaries
        The grassy harvest of the river-fields,
        Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,
    And what sedg’d brooks are Thames’s tributaries; 

I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?—
    But many a tingle on the loved hillside,
        With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom’d trees,
    Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried
        High towered the spikes of purple orchises,
            Hath since our day put by
    The coronals of that forgotten time;
        Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy’s team,
        And only in the hidden brookside gleam
    Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 

Where is the girl, who by the boatman’s door,
    Above the locks, above the boating throng,
        Unmoored our skiff, when, through the Wytham flats,
    Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among
        And darting swallows and light water-gnats,
            We tracked the shy Thames shore?
    Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell
        Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
        Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?—
    They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
    In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
        I see her veil draw soft across the day,
    I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
        The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;
            I feel her finger light
    Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train; —
        The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
        The heart less bounding at emotion new,
    And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again. 

And long the way appears, which seem’d so short
    To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;
        And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
    The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
        Tops in life’s morning-sun so bright and bare!
            Unbreachable the fort
    Of the long-batter’d world uplifts its wall;
        And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
        And near and real the charm of thy repose,
    And night as welcome as a friend would fall. 

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss
    Of quiet;—Look! adown the dusk hill-side,
        A troop of Oxford hunters going home,
    As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!
        From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come—
            Quick! let me fly, and cross
    Into yon farther field!—’Tis done; and see,
        Backed by the sunset, which doth glorify
        The orange and pale violet evening-sky,
    Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 

I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,
    The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,
        The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,
    And in the scatter’d farms the lights come out.
        I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night,
            Yet, happy omen, hail!
    Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno vale
        (For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep
        The morningless and unawakening sleep
    Under the flowery oleanders pale), 

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!—
    Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,
        These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
    That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;
        To a boon southern country he is fled,
            And now in happier air,
    Wandering with the great Mother’s train divine
        (And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
        I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)
    Within a folding of the Apennine, 

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old.
    Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
        In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
    For thee the Lityerses song again
        Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;
            Sings his Sicilian fold,
    His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes;
        And how a call celestial round him rang,
        And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,
    And all the marvel of the golden skies. 

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here
    Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair;
        Despair I will not, while I yet descry
    ’Neath the mild canopy of English air
        That lonely tree against the western sky.
            Still, still these slopes, ’tis clear,
    Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!
        Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,
        Woods with anemonies in flower till May,
    Know him a wanderer still; then why not me? 

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,
    Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.
        This does not come with houses or with gold,
    With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;
        ’Tis not in the world’s market bought and sold.
            But the smooth-slipping weeks
    Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;
        Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,
        He wends unfollowed, he must house alone;
    Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. 

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;
    Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!
        Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,
    If men esteem’d thee feeble, gave thee power,
        If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.
            And this rude Cumner ground,
    Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,
        Here cams’t thou in thy jocund youthful time,
        Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!
    And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. 

What though the music of thy rustic flute
    Kept not for long its happy, country tone;
        Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
    Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
        Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat—
            It failed, and thou wast mute!
    Yet hadst thou always visions of our light,
        And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,
        And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,
    Left human haunt, and on alone till night. 

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!
    ’Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,
        Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.
    Then through the great town’s harsh, heart-wearying roar,
        Let in thy voice a whisper often come,
            To chase fatigue and fear:
    Why faintest thou! I wander’d till I died.
        Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.
        Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,
    Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.