Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/935

 MATTHEW ARNOLD

Against the west I miss it! is it gone?

We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our fncnd, the Scholar-Gipsy, was not dead;

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

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 assay'd.

Ah me' this many a year My pipe ib 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.

It irk'd 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 lower'd on the fields,

Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.

Some life of men unblcst He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.

He went; hib piping took a troubled sound

Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead!

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, With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May, And chestnut-flowers are strewn

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