Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/939

 MATTHEW ARNOLD

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, Jet me fly, and cross Into yon further 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 m the scattcr'd farms the hghtb 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 morninglesb 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,

Thes>e brambles pale with mibt engarlnnded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him. To a boon southern country he ib fled, And now in happier air,

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