Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/934

 MATTHEW ARNOLD 756 Thyrsis

HOW changed is here each spot man makes or fills' In the two Hmkseys 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? Sec, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men

To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays Here came I often, often, in old days; Thyrsis and I, we still had Thyrsis then.

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,

The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful 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,

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night' Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power

Befalls me wandering through this upland dim; Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour, Now seldom come I, since I came with him.

That single elm-tree bright

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