Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with its homely 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. He hearkens not! light comer, he is gone! What matters it? next year he will return, And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, With whitening hedges, and 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. 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 treetopped 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 riverfields, Above by Ensham, down by Sand ford, yields; And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; 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 is he gone, He wends unfollowed, he must house alone: Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. Thou too, O Thyrsis, on this 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 And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, Know him a wanderer still; then Left human haunt, and on alone till till May, why not me? 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 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. MATTHEW ARNOLD. DION. MOURN, hills and groves of Attica! and mourn Ilissus, bending o'er thy classic urn! Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads Your once sweet memory, studious walks and shades! For him who to divinity aspired, Not on the breath of popular applause, But through dependence on the sacred lawS Framed in the schools where Wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right (More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars) Which Dion learned to measure with delight; But He hath overleaped the eternal bars; And, following guides whose craft holds no consent With aught that breathes the ethereal element, Hath stained the robes of civil power with blood, Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that came too late, and wishes vain, Hollow excuses, and triumphant, pain; |