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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.

Where is the girl, who, by the boatman's door,
Above the locks, above the boating throng,

Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,
Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among,
And darting swallows, and light water-gnats,
We track'd 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!

Yes, 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 gray;

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 crush'd, less quick to spring again.

And long the way appears, which seem'd so short
To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;

And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!

Unbreachable the fort

Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;

And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
And near and real the charm of thy repose,
And night as welcome as a friend would fall.

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss
Of quiet! Look, adown the dusk hill-side,

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 farther field! 'Tis done; and see, Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale violet evening-sky, Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!

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 scatter'd 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),

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;
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,

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!—
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain

In the hot corn-field 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 mild canopy of English air
That lonely tree against the western sky.
Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,

Our Gypsy-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?

* "Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the power of the King of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was of the early plaintive strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers."

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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 honor, 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 wast 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,

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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;

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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 tried thy throat

It fail'd, 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.

Too rare, too rare, grow now thy 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 hill-side.

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"YE scatter'd birds that faintly sing,

The reliques o' the vernal choir!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honors o' the aged year!

A few short months, and, glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;

But nocht in all revolving time

Can gladness bring again to me.

"In Poverty's low barren vale,

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round;
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye,
Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic sang
Became alike thy fostering care.

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