At this my boy hung down his head,
     While sterner grew the parent’s eye;
     And six-and-thirty times I said,
    ‘Come, Edward, tell me why?’

     For I loved Cambridge (where they deal—­
     How strange!—­in butter by the yard);
     And so, with every third appeal,
        I hit him rather hard.

     Twelve times I struck, as may be seen
    (For three times twelve is thirty-six),
     When in a shop the Magazine
        His tearful sight did fix.

     He saw it plain, it made him smile,
     And thus to me he made reply:—­
    ’At Oxford there’s a Crocodile;[1]
        And that’s the reason why.’

     Oh, Mr. Editor! my heart
     For deeper lore would seldom yearn,
     Could I believe the hundredth part
        Of what from you I learn.

[1] Certain obscure paragraphs relating to a crocodile, kept at the Museum, had been perplexing the readers of the Oxford Magazine for some time past, and had been distorted into an allegory of portentous meaning.

UNITY PUT QUARTERLY[1].

By A. C. S.

     The Centuries kiss and commingle,
     Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain;
     No cycle but scorns to be single,
     No two but demur to be twain,
    ’Till the land of the lute and the love-tale
     Be bride of the boreal breast,
     And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail,
       The East with the West.

     The desire of the grey for the dun nights
     Is that of the dun for the grey;
     The tales of the Thousand and One Nights
     Touch lips with ‘The Times’ of to-day.—­
     Come, chasten the cheap with the classic;
     Choose, Churton, thy chair and thy class,
     Mix, melt in the must that is Massic
        The beer that is Bass!

     Omnipotent age of the Aorist! 
     Infinitely freely exact!—­
     As the fragrance of fiction is fairest
     If frayed in the furnace of fact—­
     Though nine be the Muses in number
     There is hope if the handbook be one,—­
     Dispelling the planets that cumber
        The path of the sun.

     Though crimson thy hands and thy hood be
     With the blood of a brother betrayed,
     O Would-be-Professor of Would-be,
     We call thee to bless and to aid. 
     Transmuted would travel with Er, see
     The Land of the Rolling of Logs,
     Charmed, chained to thy side, as to Circe
        The Ithacan hogs.

     O bourne of the black and the godly! 
     O land where the good niggers go. 
     With the books that are borrowed of Bodley,
     Old moons and our castaway clo’! 
     There, there, till the roses be ripened
     Rebuke us, revile, and review,
     Then take thee thine annual stipend
        So long over-due.