University Of Oxford Alumni

"O fairest of the feather’d train! For whom I sing, for whom I burn, Attend with pity to my strain, And grant my love a kind return."

"The truth is that all these men exemplify a triumph of will-power: that is what enabled them to succeed. The strain made some of them harsh — Grenville was harsh, and Bligh of the Bounty. Perhaps Drake too — as certainly he was in his execution of Captain Doughty in South America, before breaking into the Pacific. Still you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. It is a mistake to be too soft; one can't expect to achieve anything without grit. That they all had."

"Within the the authorities had increasing difficulties to contend with from the puritans in these middle years of the reign: at their height from 1571 to 1584. The strength of puritanism was that it was the ideology, or if you prefer, the religion, of the forward-looking gentry and middle class."

"The most elaborate of these were those of Christmas 1594, of which we have a detailed, somewhat tedious account — for what amused the Elizabethans does not much amuse us (Shakespeare and Ben Jonson excepted)."

"... Marlowe's plays had the advantage of being performed by the greatest of Elizabethan actors, then coming to the fore in his youthful prime. Similarly, Marlowe's plays, dominated by one towering character — Tamburlaine, the Guise, Barabas, Faustus — gave 's large-scale personality the scope it demanded."

"I consoled myself with a rare bout of gossip with the piano-tuner, rather a dear little man, with up-turned, waved mustaches, bright bird-like eyes, a slightly lisping manner of speech, which recalled his great days in London and rubbing shoulders with celebrities. He had been piano-tuner to some well-known pianist — I think — of a previous generation. From him I heard the gossip of county society, and life at , our cathedral city."

"No leopard would change into a hyena, and the crested crane would hate to be changed into the bold-headed. Dung-eating vulture, The long-necked and graceful giraffe. Cannot become a monkey. Let no one. Uproot the pumkin."

"Ocol says black people's foods are primitive, but what is backward about them? He says black people's foods are dirty: he means, some clumsy and dirty black women prepare food clumsily and put them in dirty containers"

"I have no wish. To look like a white woman."

"You kiss her on the cheek, as white people do. You kiss her lips, even if they have open sores, as white people do. You exchange slimy saliva from each other's mouths, just like white people do."

"Each man, though not necessarily with his wife, dances inside a dark house. They shamelessly hold each other tightly, so tightly that it feels as if they can barely breathe."

"I am proud of the hair with which I was born and as no white woman wishes to do her hair like mine, because she is proud of the hair with which she was born."

"He says that I look extremely ugly when I am fully adorned for the dance, and that I make his bed-sheets dirty and his bed smelly."

"My husband says he no longer desires a woman with a gap in her teeth. He has fallen in love with a woman whose teeth completely fill her mouth, like those of war captives and slaves."

"I really hate the charcoal stove! Your hand is always charcoal-dirty and anything you touch is blackened; and your finger nails resemble those of a poison woman."

"When the beautiful one with whom I share my husband returns from cooking her hair, she resembles a chicken that has fallen into a pond; her hair looks like the python's discarded skin."

"I admit that I am a little jealous; there's no use denying it, as we all suffer from jealousy at times. It sneaks up on you like ghosts bringing fevers and surprises you like earth tremors. However, when you see the beautiful woman with whom I share my husband, you can't help but feel a little pity for her."

"I may not fully understand the ways of foreigners, but I do not despise their customs."

"Perhaps she has aborted many children, or maybe she has even thrown her twins into the pit latrine!"

"Forgive me, brother, for I am not insulting the woman with whom I share my husband. Do not think that my words are sharpened by jealousy. It is the sight of Tina that stirs sympathy in my heart."

"The pumpkin in the old homestead. Must not be uprooted."

"My husband abuses me together with my parents. He says terrible things about my mother. And I am so ashamed! ..."

"Ocol is no longer in love with; The old type; He is in love with a modern girl; The name of the beautiful one; Is Clementine; Brother, when you see Clementine! The beautiful one aspires; To look like a white woman; Her lips are red-hot; Like glowing charcoal; She resembles the wild cat; That has dipped its mouth in blood; Her mouth is like raw yaws; Tina dusts powder on her face; And it looks so pale ;..."

"I don't know how to dance the rumba or samba, as my mother taught me the traditional dances of the Acoli people. I haven't learned the dances of the white people. I won't deceive you; you once saw me participate in the Orak dance, the dance for youths, the dance of our people."

"The smell of carbolic soap; Makes me sick; And the smell of powder; Provokes the ghosts in my head; It is then necessary to fetch a goat; From my mother's brother; The sacrifice over; The ghost -dance drum must sound; The ghost be laid; And my peace restored."

"When the drums beat, and the black youths kick up dust, they dance with energy and vigor. They dance with a healthy spirit, naughtily with pride, and full of life. It's a dance filled with competition, provocation, and challenges, showcasing their youthful exuberance and cultural pride."

"I do not complain that you eat white men's foods. If you enjoy them, go ahead. Shall we just agree to have freedom to eat what one likes?"

"He says Black people are primitive. And their ways are utterly harmful. Their dances are mortal sins. They are ignorant, poor and diseased!"

"Look, straight before you is the central pole, that shiny stool... At the foot of the pole is my father's revered stool. Further on, the rows of pots placed one on top of the other are stores and cupboards. Millet flour, dried carcasses of various animals, beans, peas, fish, dried cucumber..."

"I am terribly afraid of the electric stove, I do not like using it because you stand up when you cook."

"I confess, I do not deny! I do not know how to cook like a white woman."

"The electric fire kills people: they say it is lightning..."

"In the wisdom of the Acoli, time is not stupidly split up into seconds and minutes. It does not flow like beer in a pot that is sucked until it is finished."

"I do not know how to cook like white women; I do not enjoy white men's foods; and how they eat, how could I know? And why should I know it?"

"Ocol, in his arrogance, does not know how to welcome visitors. When they appear at his door, he tries to get rid of them quickly with the question: 'What can I do for you?"

"Over the past forty years the doctrine of originalism (along with its sibling, textualism) has been the cornerstone of the jurisprudence of the conservative majority that now dominates the [[w:Supreme Court of the United States|[Supreme] Court]]. Concocted in the 1980s to roll back the constitutional precedents of the New Deal and Great Society eras, supposedly in the name of judicial restraint, originalism purports to divine the original intentions of the framers by presenting tendentious renderings of the past as a kind of scripture. This bad-faith invocation of the framers has become a ploy to justify overturning Roe v. Wade, gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, eliminating commonsense gun regulation, and more. But now this originalist petard is exploding in the majority’s face. No degree of cherry-picking or obfuscation can deny the historical record of the Fourteenth Amendment, which is unequivocal: if Donald Trump engaged, in any way, in the insurrection of January 6, he is automatically barred from holding any public office, federal or state."

"The majority opinion in Trump v. United States, the most sweeping judicial reconstruction of the American presidency in history, secures the monumental historic disgrace of the John Roberts Court. Since last winter, the Supreme Court has intervened directly in the 2024 presidential campaign by effectively shielding Donald Trump from being tried on major federal charges before the November election. No previous Supreme Court has protected a political candidate in this way. Far more ominously, in March the Court in Trump v. Anderson openly nullified the section of the Fourteenth Amendment that bars insurrectionists from holding federal or state office, discarding basic lessons about threats to American democracy dating back to the Civil War. Now, in Trump v. United States, handed down on the last day of its 2023–2024 term, the Court has seized the opportunity to invent, with no textual basis, "at least presumptive" and quite possibly "absolute" presidential criminal immunity for official acts, a decision so broad that it essentially places the presidency above the law."

"There are two Births, the one when Light First strikes the new awak’ned sense; The Other when two Souls unite; And we must count our life from thence: When you lov’d me, and I lov’d you, Then both of us were born anew.Love then to us did new Souls give, And in those Souls did plant new pow’rs; Since when another life we live, The Breath we breathe is his, not ours; Love makes those young, whom Age doth Chill, And whom he finds young, keeps young still."

"She who to Heaven more heaven doth annex, Whose lowest Thought was above all our Sex, Accounted nothing Death but t’be Repriv’d, And dyed as free from sickness as she liv’d. Others are dragg’d away, or must be driven, She only saw her time and stept to Heaven."

"I can hear thee curse, yet chase thee; Drink thy tears, yet still embrace thee. Easie riches is no treasure; She that’s willing, spoils the pleasure. Love bids learn the restless fight, Pull and struggle whilst ye twine: Let me use my force to night, The next conquest shall be thine."

"Give me a Girl, if one I needs must meet, Or in her nuptial, or her Winding-sheet; I know but two good Hours that Women have, One in the Bed, another in the Grave, Thus of the whole Sex all I would desire, Is to enjoy their Ashes or their Fire."

"His mind was like a jewel with innumerable facets, all slightly blurred or misted; or perhaps it would be a juster illustration to compare his character to an opal, where all the colours lie perdue, drowned in a milky mystery, and so arranged that to a couple of observers, simultaneously bending over it, the prevalent hue shall in one case seem a pale green, in the other a fiery crimson."

"The characteristics of De Tabley’s poetry are pre-eminently magnificence of style, derived from close study of Milton, sonority, dignity, weight and colour. His passion for detail was both a strength and a weakness: it lent a loving fidelity to his description of natural objects, but it sometimes involved him in a loss of simple effect from over-elaboration of treatment. He was always a student of the classic poets, and drew much of his inspiration directly from them. He was a true and a whole-hearted artist, who, as a brother poet well said, “still climbed the clear cold altitudes of song.” His ambition was always for the heights, a region naturally ice-bound at periods, but always a country of clear atmosphere and bright, vivid outlines."

"Hero and herdsman in red earth are one."

"Sweet are the ways of death to weary feet, Calm are the shades of men. The phantom fears no tyrant in his seat, The slave is master then.Love is abolish’d; well, that this is so; We knew him best as Pain. The gods are all cast out, and let them go! Who ever found them gain?Ready to hurt and slow to succour these; So, while thou breathest, pray. But in the sepulchre all flesh has peace; Their hand is put away."

"I had a true-love, none so dear, And a friend both leal and tried. I had a cask of good old beer, And a gallant horse to ride.A little while did Fortune smile On him and her and me. We sang along the road of life Like birds upon a tree.My lady fell to shame and hell, And with her took my friend. My cask ran sour, my horse went lame,— So alone in the cold I end."

"Thou felon anchorite of pain Who sittest in a world of slain."

"A fair girl tripping out to meet her love, Trimmed in her best, fresh as a clover bud. An old crone leaning at an ember’d fire, Short-breath’d in sighs and moaning to herself— And all the interval of stealing years To make that this, and one by one detach Some excellent condition; till Despair Faint at the vision, sadly, fiercely blinds Her burning eyes on her forgetful hands."

"Sigh, heart, and break not; rest, lark, and wake not! Day I hear coming to draw my Love away. As mere-waves whisper, and clouds grow crisper, Ah, like a rose he will waken up with day!"

"Arcadian spaces of great grass arise; Crisp lambs are merry: hoary vales are laid, Studded with roe-deer and wild straw-berries: In one a shepherd tabours, near a maid,Who teazes at the button of his cloak, Where rarely underneath them grows the herb; A squirrel eyes the lovers from an oak, And speckled horses pasture without curb.In a fair meadow set with tulip heads; A water-mill rolls little crested falls Of olive torrent, broken in grey threads, A grave-yard crowds black crosses in square walls.Quaint pastoral Arcadia, where are set Thy rainy lands and reddish underwoods? Earth hath not held thy fabled sunsets yet, Though lovers build their palace on thy roods."