Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/372

334 Yet then another man would bring this news,

Wherewith from end to end Arcadia rings.—

O honor'd Queen, thy son, my charge, is gone.

THE CHORUS.

Too suddenly thou tellest such a loss.

Look up, O Queen! look up, O mistress dear!

Look up, and see thy friends who comfort thee.

MEROPE.

Ah...ah...ah me!

THE CHORUS.

And I, too, say, ah me!

ARCAS.

Forgive, forgive the bringer of such news!

MEROPE.

Better from thine than from an enemy's tongue.

THE CHORUS.

And yet no enemy did this, O Queen:

But the wit-baffling will and hand of Heaven.

ARCAS.

No enemy! and what hast thou, then, heard?

Swift as I came, hath falsehood been before?

THE CHORUS.

A youth arrived but now—the son, he said,

Of an Arcadian lord—our prince's friend—

Jaded with travel, clad in hunter's garb.