Collected English Verse — Matthew Arnold. b. 1822, d. 1888 (Part 7 of 9)

Thou hearest the immortal strains of old.
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
For thee the Lityerses song again
Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;
Sings his Sicilian fold,
His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes;
And how a call celestial round him rang
And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,
And all the marvel of the golden skies.

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here
  Sole in these fields; yet will I not despair;
   Despair I will not, while I yet descry
  ’Neath the soft canopy of English air
   That lonely Tree against the western sky.
    Still, still these slopes, ’tis clear,
  Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!
   Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,
   Woods with anemonies in flower till May,
Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,
  Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.
   This does not come with houses or with gold,
  With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;
   ’Tis not in the world’s market bought and sold.
    But the smooth-slipping weeks
  Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;
   Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,
   He wends unfollow’d, he must house alone;
Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wert bound,
  Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour;
    Men gave thee nothing, but this happy quest,
  If men esteem’d thee feeble, gave thee power,
  If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.
      And this rude Cumner ground,
  Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,
    Here cam’st thou in thy jocund youthful time,
    Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime;
And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

What though the music of thy rustic flute
 Kept not for long its happy, country tone,
  Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
 Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
 Which task’d thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat—
  It fail’d, and thou wast mute;
 Yet hadst thou always visions of our light,
  And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,
  And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,
Left human haunt, and on alone till night.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!
 ’Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,
  Thyrsis, in reach of sheep-bells is my home!
 Then through the great town’s harsh, heart-wearying roar,
 Let in thy voice a whisper often come,
  To chase fatigue and fear:
 Why faintest thou? I wander’d till I died.
  Roam on! the light we sought is shining still.
  Dost thou ask proof? Our Tree yet crowns the hill,
Our Scholar travels yet the loved hillside.

761   Philomela

HARK! ah, the Nightingale!
The tawny-throated!
Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark—what pain!

O Wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder’d brain
That wild, unquench’d, deep-sunken, old-world pain—
 Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack’d heart and brain
 Afford no balm?

 Dost thou to-night behold
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
 Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear’d eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister’s shame?
 Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor Fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
 Listen, Eugenia—
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!
 Again—thou hearest!
Eternal Passion!
Eternal Pain!

762   Shakespeare

OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free,
We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,
Out- topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill
That to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps