Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/236

198 Down at the water-side

Sprinkled and smoothed

His drooping garland,

He told me these things.

But I, Ulysses,

Sitting on the warm steps,

Looking over the valley,

All day long, have seen,

Without pain, without labor,

Sometimes a wild-haired mænad,

Sometimes a faun with torches,

And sometimes, for a moment,

Passing through the dark stems

Flowing-robed, the beloved,

The desired, the divine,

Beloved Iacchus.

Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!

Ah, glimmering water,

Fitful earth-murmur,

Dreaming woods!

Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling goddess,

And thou, proved, much-enduring,

Wave-tossed wanderer!

Who can stand still?

Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me—

The cup again!

Faster, faster,

O Circe, goddess,

Let the wild, thronging train,

The bright procession

Of eddying forms,

Sweep through my soul!