Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/430

392 And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,

And the full moon, and the white evening-star.

He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!

What matters it? next year he will return,

And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,

With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,

And bluebells trembling by the forest-ways,

And scent of hay new-mown.

But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see,—

See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,

And blow a strain the world at last shall heed;

For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee!

Alack, for Corydon no rival now!—

But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,

Some good survivor with his flute would go,

Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate;

And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,

And relax Pluto's brow,

And make leap up with joy the beauteous head

Of Proserpine, among whose crownèd hair

Are flowers first opened on Sicilian air,

And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.

Oh, easy access to the hearer's grace

When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!

For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,

She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,

She knew each lily white which Enna yields,

Each rose with blushing face;

She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.

But ah! of our poor Thames she never heard;

Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirred;

And we should tease her with our plaint in vain.