Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/468

430 What boots it, Shelley! that the breeze

Carried thy lovely wail away,

Musical through Italian trees

Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay?

Inheritors of thy distress,

Have restless hearts one throb the less?

Or are we easier, to have read,

O Obermann! the sad, stern page,

Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head

From the fierce tempest of thine age

In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau,

Or chalets near the Alpine snow?

Ye slumber in your silent grave!—

The world, which for an idle day

Grace to your mood of sadness gave,

Long since hath flung her weeds away.

The eternal trifler breaks your spell;

But we—we learnt your lore too well!

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age,

More fortunate, alas! than we,

Which without hardness will be sage,

And gay without frivolity.

Sons of the world, oh! speed those years;

But, while we wait, allow our tears!

Allow them! We admire with awe

The exulting thunder of your race;

You give the universe your law,

You triumph over time and space:

Your pride of life, your tireless powers,

We praise them, but they are not ours.

We are like children reared in shade

Beneath some old-world abbey wall,