Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/180

142 Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale

Watching by the salt sea-tide,

With her children at her side,

For the gleam of thy white sail.

Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!

To our lonely sea complain,

To our forests tell thy pain.

TRISTRAM.

All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,

But it is moonlight in the open glade;

And in the bottom of the glade shine clear

The forest-chapel and the fountain near.

—I think I have a fever in my blood;

Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,

Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.

—Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light.

God! 'tis her face plays in the waters bright!

"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon,

At this soft hour, under this sweet moon?"—

Iseult!...

Ah, poor soul! if this be so,

Only death can balm thy woe.

The solitudes of the green wood

Had no medicine for thy mood;

The rushing battle cleared thy blood

As little as did solitude.

—Ah! his eyelids slowly break

Their hot seals, and let him wake;

What new change shall we now see?

A happier? Worse it cannot be.