Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/294

256 First hymn they the Father

Of all things; and then,

The rest of immortals,

The action of men.

The day in his hotness,

The strife with the palm;

The night in her silence,

The stars in their calm.

BACCHANALIA; OR, THE NEW AGE.

The evening comes, the fields are still.

The tinkle of the thirsty rill,

Unheard all day, ascends again;

Deserted is the half-mown plain,

Silent the swaths; the ringing wain,

The mower's cry, the dog's alarms,

All housed within the sleeping farms.

The business of the day is done,

The last-left haymaker is gone.

And from the thyme upon the height,

And from the elder-blossom white

And pale dog-roses in the hedge,

And from the mint-plant in the sedge,

In puffs of balm the night-air blows

The perfume which the day foregoes.

And on the pure horizon far,

See, pulsing with the first-born star,

The liquid sky above the hill!

The evening comes, the fields are still.