Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/461

Rh See! in the May afternoon,

O'er the fresh short turf of the Hartz,

A youth, with the foot of youth,

Heine! thou climbest again:

Up through the tall dark firs

Warming their heads in the sun,

Checkering the grass with their shade;

Up by the stream, with its huge

Moss-hung bowlders, and thin

Musical water half-hid;

Up o'er the rock-strewn slope,

With the sinking sun, and the air

Chill, and the shadows now

Long on the gray hillside,—

To the stone-roofed hut at the top!

Or, yet later, in watch

On the roof of the Brocken-tower

Thou standest, gazing!—to see

The broad red sun over field,

Forest, and city, and spire,

And mist-tracked steam of the wide,

Wide German land, going down

In a bank of vapors,—again

Standest, at nightfall, alone!

Or, next morning, with limbs

Rested by slumber, and heart

Freshened and light with the May,

O'er the gracious spurs coming down

Of the Lower Hartz, among oaks

And beechen coverts, and copse

Of hazels green, in whose depth

Ilse, the fairy transformed,

In a thousand water-breaks light