Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/422

384 And then they land, and thou art seen no more!

Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come

To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,

Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,

Or cross a stile into the public way;

Oft thou hast given them store

Of flowers,—the frail-leafed, white anemone,

Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves,

And purple orchises with spotted leaves,—

But none hath words she can report of thee!

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass,

Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames,

To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass,

Have often passed thee near

Sitting upon the river-bank o'ergrown;

Marked thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare,

Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air:

But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,

Where at her open door the housewife darns,

Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate

To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.

Children, who early range these slopes and late

For cresses from the rills,

Have known thee eying, all an April day,

The springing pastures and the feeding kine;

And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine,

Through the long dewy grass move slow away.