Oxford’s Crime

 

Bow-tied young blades,

armed with mini-skirted ladies,

stride up the street.

Their bow-legged confident gaits

proudly own the quadrangles

Oxford stone hems them in.

A porter in black bowler hat outside college gate

in pompous tones lends hoi-polloi weight.

 

Cut off, by walls, inside hallowed grounds

history has closed any alternative to,

young things who sit in gardens,

and frolic in alleys and paths between trees and stone,

elect, in each stride over lawn,

to enter centuries of sin.

 

The spaces the buildings make,

to each young blade mean something

they don't to the unchosen,

add one more generation

to the generations their cloister silence holds.

 

Ageing men and women

in awry ties and scruffy garb,

queuing for dinner,

selected for private receptions,

tickets for classical concerts in their hands,

linger and linger there their whole lives.

 

In its classy bustle, and refined loitering,

Oxford’s crime permeates the stones which gave it room.