I.
As you survey this marble hall
And cast your eye around the wall,
Consider the polyglot graffiti.
I personally find them far from pretty.
- That last line could have been more spectacular
Had I indulged in the vernacular,
But I thought it best, at this seat(!) of learning
to give my phrase a more modest turning.
II.
We would sit here and read with pride
the words we’d written up inside,
and when the caretaker rubbed them out,
we didn’t scream, we didn’t shout,
but knuckled down like Oxford men
to write graffiti up again.
So now the Taylor’s rarest, if not best,
this manuscript’s its only palimpsest.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 12:53 PM UTC
I.
As you survey this marble hall
And cast your eye around the wall,
Consider the polyglot graffiti.
I personally find them far from pretty.
- That last line could have been more spectacular
Had I indulged in the vernacular,
But I thought it best, at this seat(!) of learning
to give my phrase a more modest turning.
II.
We would sit here and read with pride
the words we’d written up inside,
and when the caretaker rubbed them out,
we didn’t scream, we didn’t shout,
but knuckled down like Oxford men
to write graffiti up again.
So now the Taylor’s rarest, if not best,
this manuscript’s its only palimpsest.
Part I was composed during an idle moment at the Taylorian Institution, Oxford, the modern and mediaeval languges centre of the University of Oxford. Part II when I returned in a new term and found the walls the walls re-written after a thorough cleaning.
- Kilroy, for those who don't know him, is the phantom graffitist who writes "Kilroy was here" on any availablr toilet wall.
- Palimpsest is a document written over an old one where writing has been erased.
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