Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/957

 MATTHEW ARNOLD

They see Tiresias

Sitting, staff in hand,

On the warm, grassy

Asopus* bank*

His robe drawn over

His old, sightless head:

Revolving inly

The doom of Thebes.

They see the Centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams, Where red-berried ashes fringe The clear-brown shallow pooh, With streaming flanks, and heads Rear'd proudly, snuffing The mountain wind.

They see the Indian

Drifting, knife in hand,

His frail boat moor'd to

A floating isle thick matted

With large-leav'd, low-creeping melon-plants,

And the daik cucumber.

He reaps, and stows them,

Drifting drifting lound him,

Round his green harvest-plot,

Flow the cool lake-waves.

The mountains ring them.

They see the Scythian On the wide Stepp, unharnessing Hib wheel'd house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,

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