Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/301

Rh Deep is their penitential moan,

Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone.

They have declared the spirit's sore,

Sore load, and words can do no more.

Beethoven takes them then,—those two

Poor, bounded words,—and makes them new;

Infinite makes them, makes them young;

Transplants them to another tongue,

Where they can now, without constraint,

Pour all the soul of their complaint,

And roll adown a channel large

The wealth divine they have in charge.

Page after page of music turn,

And still they live, and still they burn,

Eternal, passion-fraught, and free,—

Miserere, Domine!"

Onward we moved, and reached the ride

Where gayly flows the human tide.

Afar, in rest the cattle lay;

We heard, afar, faint music play;

But agitated, brisk, and near,

Men, with their stream of life, were here.

Some hang upon the rails, and some

On foot behind them go and come.

This through the ride upon his steed

Goes slowly by, and this at speed.

The young, the happy, and the fair,

The old, the sad, the worn, were there;

Some vacant and some musing went,

And some in talk and merriment.

Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!

And now and then, perhaps, there swells

A sigh, a tear—but in the throng

All changes fast, and hies along.