Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/285

Rh Where the shoreward ripple breaks.

And he taught him how to please

The red-snooded Phrygian girls,

Whom the summer evening sees

Flashing in the dance's whirls

Underneath the starlit trees

In the mountain villages.

Therefore now Olympus stands,

At his master's piteous cries

Pressing fast with both his hands

His white garment to his eyes,

Not to see Apollo's scorn.—

Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun!

EMPEDOCLES.

And lie thou there,

My laurel bough!

Scornful Apollo's ensign, lie thou there!

Though thou hast been my shade in the world's heat,

Though I have loved thee, lived in honoring thee,

Yet lie thou there,

My laurel bough!

I am weary of thee.

I am weary of the solitude

Where he who bears thee must abide,—

Of the rocks of Parnassus,

Of the gorge of Delphi,

Of the moonlight peaks, and the caves.

Thou guardest them, Apollo!

Over the grave of the slain Pytho,

Though young, intolerably severe!

Thou keepest aloof the profane,

But the solitude oppresses thy votary.

The jars of men reach him not in thy valley,