Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/421

Rh This said, he left them, and returned no more.

But rumors hung about the country-side,

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,

Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray,

The same the gypsies wore.

Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors

Had found him seated at their entering;

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.

And I myself seem half to know thy looks,

And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace;

And boys who in lone wheat-fields scare the rooks

I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place;

Or in my boat I lie

Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats,

'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,

And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills,

And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!

Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,

Returning home on summer-nights, have met

Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,

Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,

As the punt's rope chops round;

And leaning backward in a pensive dream,

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers

Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,

And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.