The scholar gipsy & Thyrsis

The Scholar Gipsy
& Thyrsis

&&*i^.

Tyfteld

E.-H-K&V

" Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm ? "

iSy n, i)

BY /MA/TTHEW ARNOLD

WITlT^ILLUSTRATIONS BY

W. RUSSELL FLINT

LONDON: PHILIP LEE WARNER
7 GRAFTON ST., BOND ST., W.

*

To

the memory of the Author of THTRSIS,
whom :

... we may not mourn —
He would not have it so, whose life was love
Of those green fields, and river flowing on
To that high City, throned beyond all song —
His even, aye ! For when would Daphnis dare
Praise of her openly, although he bare
Her, in his secret throned all else above ?
He knew too well : " None may directly tell
Her wonder, which is builded sheer on life,
One with our Being, yet beyond all strife."

• • • • •

She is not like another City, built
Of stone and lime and mortar, grown so gray,
That life is gone from here, and all made sad ;
She is To-day by Other Days made glad —

DEDICATION

Throned on quick adamant of builded years,
Joy of their joying, sorrow of their tears, —
Aye, she hath known their life and passing

way;

And is as one eternal, for her tnrone
Is Memory. ....

If on her breast ye dearest flowers see,

Is there not blood of Martyrs red, her guilt ?

And Daphnis, knowing all, mark how he wrought
To tell her praises ! He would never dare
Essay her outward mysteries to trace
In human wise ; he knew too well the grace
Of Love's caresses, to the world made bare,
How fugitive. And, so, he took a tear —
One single tear of his own human sadness
From life's eternal tide of pain and gladness —
And thereupon he set, immortal crown,
The memory of her dim, undying soul.

VI

DEDICATION

Friend, dost thou weep lost Thyrsis ? Or is it
Our City's wistful spirit which doth flit,
Crying through his great Song, that we, who

knew

Nor Mourned nor Mourner, in the ways of men,
Almost may cry : " We, too, had Thyrsis then ! "
And the Song's grief is ours and ever new ?

O. R.

vn

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

*" Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm ?" Frontispiece

tSy u, i)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

"And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers"

(in, lo) Facing page 4

"The stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe "

(vm, 4) „ 10

*' And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames "

(x, I, 2) „ 14

*' The line of festal light in Christ Church hall "

(xm, 9) „ 1 8

4' As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
. . . Saw the merry Grecian coaster come,

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd in brine;
And knew the intruders on his ancient home "

(xxiv, 2-10) „ 24

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

" There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets

of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come"

(xxv, 8, 9) Facing page 2$

THYRSIS

" Groups under the dreaming garden-trees " (vn, 9) „ 38

" For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
She knew the Dorian water's gush divine" (x, 3, 5) „ ^

" Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields"

(xxn, 7) „ 52:

xn

The Scholar Gipsy

" There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford,
who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there ;
and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies.
Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty
of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and
esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After
he had been a pretty while well exercised in the trade,
there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had
formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out
their old friend among the gipsies ; and he gave them an
account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of
life, and told them that the people he went with were not
such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a
traditional kind of learning among them, and could do
wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding
that of others : that himself had learned much of their art,
and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended,
he said, to leave their company, and give the world an
account of what he had learned."

GLANVIL'S Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661.

The Scholar Gipsy

i

'O, for they call you, Shepherd, from the

hill;

Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropped grasses shoot another

head.

But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-
blanched green ;
Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest.

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

ii

Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores

to use ;

Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne ;
With distant cries of reapers in the corn —
All the live murmur of a summer's day.

in
Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped

field,

And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies

peep

And round green roots and yellowing stalks I
see

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep :

And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed

showers

Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with

shade ;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers:

IV

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book —
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again,
The story of that Oxford scholar poor,
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
Who, tired of knocking at Preferment's door,

One summer morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy lore,
And roamed the world with that wild

brotherhood,

A nd came, as most men deemed, to little good ,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more.

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

But once, years after, in the country lanes,
Two scholars whom at college erst he knew
Met him, and of his way of life enquired.
Whereat he answered, that the Gipsy crew,
His mates, had arts to rule as they desired

The workings of men's brains ;
And they can bind them to what thoughts

.'- they will :

"And I," he said, "the secret of their art,
When fully learned, will to the world im-
part :
But it needs happy moments for this skill."

VI

This said, he left them, and returned no more,
But rumours hung about the country side

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-
tied,

8

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,

The same the Gipsies wore.
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring:
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire

moors,
On the warm ingle bench, the smock-frocked

boors
Had found him seated at their entering^

VII

But, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly :
And I myself seem half to know thy looks,

Andputtheshepherds,Wanderer,on thy trace;
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place;

Or in my boat I lie

Moored to the cool bank in the summer heats,
Mid wide grass meadows which the sun-
shine fills,
And watch the warm green-muffled Cumner

hills,
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.

D 9

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

VIII

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground.
Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe,

Returning home on summer nights, have

met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-

hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,

As the slow punt swings round :
And leaning backwards in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
Plucked in shy fields and distant woodland

bowers,
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.

IX

And then they land, and thou art seen no more.
Maidens who from the distant hamlets come
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
Oft through the darkening fields have seen
thee roam,

10

" The stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe "

(vm, 4)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

Or cross a stile into the public way.

Oft thou hast given them store
Of flowers — the frail-leafed, white anemone —
Dark bluebells drenched with dews of sum-
mer eves —

And purple orchises with spotted leaves —
But none has words she can report of thee.

x

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,

Men who through those wide fields of breezy

grass
Where black-winged swallows haunt the

glittering Thames,
To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass,

Have often passed thee near
Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown :

Marked thy outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air;
But, when they came from bathing, thou
wert gone.

'3

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

XI

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
Where at her open door the housewife darns,
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
Children, who early range these slopes and

late

For cresses from the rills,
Have known thee watching, all an April day,,
The springing pastures and the feeding kine ;
And marked thee, when the stars come out

and shine,

Through the long dewy grass move slow
away.

XII

In Autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood,
Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edged

way
Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush

you sec
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey>

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames"

(X, I, 2)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

Above the forest ground called Thessaly —
The blackbird picking food

Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all ;
So often has he known thee past him stray
Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray,

And waiting for the spark from Heaven to fall.

XIII

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
Where home through flooded fields foot-
travellers go,

Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge

Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,

Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry

ridge ?

And thou hast climbed the hill
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range,
Turned once to watch, while thick the

snowflakes fall,

The line of festal light in Christ Church hall —
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered
grange.

17

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

XIV

But what — I dream ! Two hundred years are flown

Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,

And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe

That thou wert wandered from the studious

walls
To learn strange arts, and join a Gipsy tribe:

And thou from earth art gone
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid ;
Some country nook, where o'er thy unknown

grave
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles

wave —
Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's shade.

xv

— No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours.
For what wears out the life of mortal men ?
'Tis that from change to change their being

rolls :
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,

18

"The line of festal light in Christ Church hall"

(xm, 9)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

Exhaust the energy of strongest souls
And numb the elastic powers.

Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,
And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,
To the just-pausing Genius we remit

Our worn-out life, and are — what we have been.

XVI

Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish,

so ?

Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire :
Else wert thou long since numbered with

the dead —

Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire.
The generations of thy peers arc fled,

And we ourselves shall go ;
But thou possesses! an immortal lot,

And we imagine thee exempt from age
And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page,
Because thou hadst — what we, alas, have not !

21

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

XVII

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers,.
Fresh, undiverted to the world without,

Firm to their mark,not spent on other things;

Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,

Which much to have tried, in much been

baffled, brings,
O Life unlike to ours!
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
Of whom each strives, nor knows for what

he strives,

And each half lives a hundred different lives ;
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.

XVIII

Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven: and we>
Light half-believers of our casual creeds,

Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed,
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose vague resolves never have been ful-
filled;

22

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-
day—
Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?

XIX

Yes, we await it, but it still delays,

And then we suffer; and amongst us One,
Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly
His seat upon the intellectual throne;
And all his store of sad experience he

Lays bare of wretched days ;
Tells us his misery's birth and growth and

signs,
And how the dying spark of hope was

fed,
And how the breast was soothed, and how

the head,
And all his hourly varied anodynes.

XX

This for our wisest : and we others pine,

And wish the long unhappy dream would

end,
And waive all claim to bliss, and try to

bear

With close-lipped Patience for our only friend,
Sad Patience, too near neighbour to Despair :

But none has hope like thine.
Thou through the fields and through the

woods dost stray,

Roaming the country side, a truant boy,
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
And every doubt long blown by time away.

XXI

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,.
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames ;
Before this strange disease of modern life,.
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
. . . Saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine.
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine ;
And knew the intruders on his ancient home "

(XXIV, 2-IO)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was

rife —

Fly hence, our contact fear I
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood !
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern
From her false friend's approach in Hades

turn
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.

XXII

Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade,

With a free onward impulse brushing

through,

By night, the silvered branches of the glade —
Far on the forest skirts, where none pursue

On some mild pastoral slope
Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales,
Freshen thy flowers, as in former years,
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales.

27

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

XXIII

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly !
For strong the infection of our mental strife,
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils

for rest ;

And we should win thee from thy own fair life,
Like us distracted, and like us unblest.

Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy

powers,
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting

made :
And then thy glad perennial youth would

fade,
Fade, and grow old at last and die like ours.

XXIV

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
— As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,

28

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of

foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come "

(xxv, 8, 9)

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY

The fringes of a southward-facing brow

Among the jEgean isles ;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian

wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in

brine ;
And knew the intruders on his ancient home,

xxv

The young light-hearted Masters of the waves ;
And snatched hisrudder,andshookoutmore sail,

And day and night held on indignantly
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,

To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the Western Straits, and unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through

sheets of foam,

Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come ;
And on the beach undid his corded bales.

3'

Thyrsis : A Monody

Thus yesterday, to-day, to-morrow come,
They hustle one another and they pass ;
But all our hustling morrows only make
The smooth to-day of God.

From LUCRETIUS, an unpublished Tragedy.

Thyrsis : A Monody

To commemorate the Author's friend,
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, who died at Florence, 1861 *

I
T TOW changed is here each spot man makes

or fills !

In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same,
The village-street its haunted mansion lacks,
And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,
And from the roofs the twisted chimney-
stacks ;

Are ye too changed, ye hills ?
See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men

To-night from Oxford UD your pathway

strays !

Here came I often, often, in old days;
Thyrsis and I ; we still had Thyrsis then.

* This poem contains frequent references to the preceding
piece, 2 he Scholar Gipsy.

THYRSIS

ii

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,

Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns

The hill behind whose ridge the sunset

flames ?

The Signal-Elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
The Vale, the three lone wears, the youth-
ful Thames ? —
This winter-eve is warm,
Humid the air; leafless, yet soft as spring,
The tender purple spray on copse and briers ;
And that sweet City with her dreaming

spires,
She needs not June for beauty's heightening.

in

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night !
Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power
Befalls me wandering through this upland

dim ;
Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour,

36

THYRSIS

Now seldom come I, since I came with him.
That single elm-tree bright

Against the west — I miss it ! is it gone ?
We prized it dearly ; while it stood, we said,
Our friend, the Scholar Gipsy, was not dead ;

While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.

IV

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here !
But once I knew each field, each flower, each

stick ;
And with the country-folk acquaintance

made

By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.
Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assayed.

Ah me ! this many a year
My pipe is lost, my shepherd's-holiday !
Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy

heart

Into the world and wave of men depart;
But Thyrsis of his own will went away.

37

THYRSIS

v

It irked him to be here, he could not rest.
He loved each simple joy the country yields,
He loved his mates ; but yet he could not

keep,

For that a shadow lowered on the fields,
Here with the shepherds and the silly

sheep.

Some life of men unblest
He knew, which made him droop, and filled

his head.

He went ; his piping took a troubled sound
Of storms that rage outside our happy

ground ;
He could not wait their passing, he is dead !

VI

So, some tempestuous morn in early June,

When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,.

Before the roses and the longest day —
When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor,

38

" Groups under the dreaming garden-trees "

(vn, 9)

THYRSIS

With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May,

And chestnut-flowers are strewn —
So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,
From the wet field, through the vext

garden-trees,
Come with the volleying rain and tossing

breeze :
The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

VII

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ?
Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
Soon will the musk carnations break and

swell,

Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet-Williamwithitshomely cottage-smell,

And stocks in fragrant blow ;
Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
And the full moon, and the white evening-star.

H 41

THYRS1S

VIII

He hearkens not ! light comer, he is flown !
What matters it f next year he will return,
And we shall have him in the sweet spring-
days,

With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,
And blue-bells trembling by the forest-
ways,

And scent of hay new-mown.
But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see !
See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,
And blow a strain the world at last shall

heed —
For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee.

IX

Alack, for Corydon no rival now! —

* j

But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,
Some good survivor with his flute would

g°>
Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate,

42

THYRSIS

And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,

And relax Pluto's brow,
And make leap up with joy the beauteous

head

Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair
Are flowers, first opened on Sicilian air,
And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the
dead.

x

O easy access to the hearer's grace

When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine !

For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,
She knew each lily white which Enna yields,

Each rose with blushing face;
She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.
But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard !
Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirred !
And we should tease her with our plaint in
vain.

43

THYRSIS

XI

Well ! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,
Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
In the old haunt, and find our tree-topped

hill!

Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?
I know the wood which hides the daffodil,

I know the Fyfield tree,
I know what white, what purple fritillaries
The grassy harvest of the river-fields,
Above by Eynsham, down by Sandford,

yields,

And what sedged brooks are Thames tribu-
taries ;

XII

I know these slopes ; who knows them if not I ? —
But many a dingle on the loved hill-side,
With thorns once studded, old, white-

bloseomed trees,

Where thick the cowslips grew, and, far
descried,

" For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
-She knew the Dorian water's gush divine "

(x> 3, 4)

THYRSIS

High towered the spikes of purple orchises,

Hath since our day put by
The coronals of that forgotten time ;

Down each green bank hath gone the

ploughboy's team,

And only in the hidden brookside gleam
Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.

XIII

Where is the girl, who, by the boatman's door,
Above the locks, above the boating throng,
Unmoored our skiff, when, through the

Wytham flats,
Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet

among,
And darting swallows, and light water-gnats,

We tracked the shy Thames shore ?
Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell
Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass ? —
They all are gone, and thou art gone as well.

47

THYRSIS

XIV

Ye, thou art gone ! and round me too the night
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
I see her veil draw soft across the day,
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade

The cheek grown thin, the brown hair

sprent with grey ;
I feel her finger light

Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train ;
The foot less prompt to meet the morning

dew,

The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crushed, less quick to spring
again,

xv
And long the way appears, which seemed so

short
To the unpractised eye of sanguine youth ;

And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
The mountain-tops where is the throne of

Truth,
48

THYRSIS

Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and

bare !

Unbreachable the fort

Of the long-battered world uplifts its wall ;
And strange and vain the earthly turmoil

grows,

And near and real the charm of thy reposev
And night as welcome as a friend would fall.

XVI

But hush ! the upland hath a sudden loss
Of quiet ; — Look ! adown the dusk hillside,
A troop of Oxford hunters going home,
As in old days, jovial and talking, ride !

From hunting with the Berkshire hounds

they come —

Quick, let me fly, and cross
Into yon further field ! — 'Tis done ; and see,
Backed by the sunset, which doth glorify
The orange and pale violet evening-sky,
Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree ! the Tree L
i 49

THYRSIS

XVII

I take the omen ! Eve lets down her veil,
The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,
The west unflushes, the high stars grow

bright,

And in the scattered farms the lights come out.
I cannot reach the Signal-Tree to-night,

Yet, happy omen, hail!
Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno vale
(For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids

keep

The morningless and unawakening sleep
Under the flowery oleanders pale),

XVIII

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our Tree is there !—
Ah, vain ! These English fields, this upland

dim,

These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him.

50

THYRSIS

To a boon southern country he is fled,

And now in happier air,
Wandering with the great Mother's train

divine

(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see!)
Within a folding of the Apennine,

XIX

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.

5*

THYRSIS

xx

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 the sheep from cages pull the

hay,

Woods with anemones in flower till May,
Know him a wanderer still ; then why not
me ?

XXI

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.

52

Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields "

(xxn, 7)

THYRSIS

But the smooth-slipping weeks
Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired ;
Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,
He wends unfollowed, he must house alone ;
Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.

XXII

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 esteemed 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.

55

THYRSIS

XXIII

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 tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired

thy throat —

It failed, and thou wast mute;
Yet hadst thou alway 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.

XXIV

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 hornet
Then through the great town's harsh, heart-
wearying roar,

THYRSIS

Let in thy voice a whisper often come,

To chase fatigue and fear :
Why faintest thou ? I wandered 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.

FINIS

57

WILLIAM BKBNDOH AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS
I-LVMOUTH, tNGt-AND

CENTRAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
University of California, San Diego

DATE DUE

KEB 1 8 1981

rtM*~Zg'

JUNlO 1981

Cl 39

UCSD Libr.