Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/232

194 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 pools,

With streaming flanks, and heads

Reared proudly, snuffing

The mountain wind.

They see the Indian

Drifting, knife in hand,

His frail boat moored to

A floating isle thick-matted

With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants,

And the dark cucumber.

He reaps and stows them,

Drifting—drifting; round him,

Round his green harvest-plot,

Flow the cool lake-waves,

The mountains ring them.

They see the Scythian

On the wide steppe, unharnessing

His wheeled house at noon.

He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,—

Mares' milk, and bread

Baked on the embers. All around,

The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starred

With saffron and the yellow hollyhock

And flag-leaved iris-flowers.