Still there?

They’d ring the single bell in Christ Church:
it chimed for every student in.
They ring it still, although the curfew
  has faded long before the din.
A comforted old boy might wander
  with silent, ghostly, measured tread
Through colleges he still remembers
  While hearing words his friends once said.
    Beside the River C. he sits-
      the bench still bears his name-
    And looks around contented that
      it all still looks the same.

“But is there yet the MCR,
  the sofas and the tea?
Is there still my college, though
  there isn’t any me?
And are they all pretending now
That now’s last week; last year; not now?”

Past workmen digging up Cornmarket
  Just like they did this time last year,
And past the entrance to Exam Schools-
  Accumulating sweat and fear….
Down Broad Street shumble dons and fellows,
  encumbered like a circus troupe,
Past serried ranks of foreign tourists
  All huddled in a foreign group.
    They cannot start to comprehend
      the academic dress,
    While fellows understand these strange
      outsiders even less.

“Do you still pass my pigeonholes
  twice daily on your bike?
And is the coffee down in hall
  still brewed just how I like?
And do the dons, like me, find strange
The thought that anything might change?”