f perambulators on the pavement.
But once upon a time--how long ago!--all through the summer day and
summer night there was a kind of music in the air. The whisper of the
wind that stirred the willows made soft accompaniment of the splash of
paddle in the stream: the birds sang lustily amid the gentle rustle of
the garden trees, and when the thrush retired to roost the nightingale
took up the tale. The very footfall of the men hurrying to lecture was a
pleasant sound, for then they needed not to punctuate their progress
with the sharp tang of the bicycle bell. And best of all the bells made
music morning and evening at the chapel hours. Not the despairing music
of a peal, that falls and rises only to fall again, till nervous men are
racked, but a cheerful note--just one--but different from each side;
and, amongst all, that one that each man knew to be his own and loved,
and knows it still to-day and loves it still. It is true enough that
other sounds, less musical, are heard by memory's ears. Sometimes the
nightingale would take to flight, affronted that her note was drowned by
"the shout of them that triumph, the song of them that feast", as the
College kept high revel in honour of the Eight. Even now it is possible
to hear the raucous yell of "Dra-ag", to summon those who lingered over
luncheon and kept the char-a-banc from starting for the Cowley cricket
grounds, and none who have once heard it can forget the roar mingled
with the rattles, pistol shots and bells, that draws closer and even
closer, as the Eights come racing to the Barges. Scarcely music,
perhaps, but for all that a part of the song of Oxford life.

But in all the sweetest sounds that have till now gone up from earth to
heaven Oxford has had its part. Not only have birds and meadows, trees
and rippling streams made constant music to the God who made them, but
the heart and voice of man have not unworthily joined in. What of Keble
and Clough from Oriel, singing indeed a different strain, but singing
for all that? What of Bishops Heber and Ken, from All Souls and from
New? Of Robert Browning of Balliol, and Landor Trinity's chief poet? And
lastly what of Shelley, recognized at last as singer of immortal verse?
These and a host of lesser songsters, each with his several songs,
joining with the glorious harmonies that have for so long been sent up
from Magdalen, New College, and from that ancient fane where once St.
Frideswide rested, make good the claim of