Oxford & Mr. Toad

dailymail.co.uk

The clever men at Oxford
Know all there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know half as much
As intelligent Mr Toad.

~ Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932), The Wind in the Willows

On Oxford Station, 15th February 1997 By David Constantine

Then everything paused, it all went very quiet.

I watched a small cloud on the blue due north,

Blue that the iron tracks were levelled at,

Such blue, such quiet blue, it troubled me

Like something unimaginable that I could see

And didn't have a word for, I watched the cloud,

One white cloud on the quiet empty blue,

Light has a feather at the lips of life

Testing for breath, feeling for final proof.

~ David Constantine

Sonnet 29 ~ Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.