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.
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