Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/947

 MATTHEW ARNOLD

But once, years after, in the country lanes, Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,

Met him, and of his way of life inquired. Whereat he answered that the Gipsy-crew,

His mates, had arts to rule as they desired

The workings of men's brains; And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.

'And I,' he said, 'the secret of their art,

When fully Icarn'd, will to the world impart

This said, he left them, and returned no more, But rumours hung about the country-side,

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,

The same the Gipsies wore. Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors Had found him seated at their entering,

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly: And I myself seem half to know thy looks,

And put the shepherds, Wanderer, on thy trace; And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks

I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place;

Or in my boat I lie Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer heats,

'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,

And watch the warm green-muffled Cumnei hills, And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.

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