Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/519

Rh CROMWELL.

28, 1843.

fate is theirs, ye sleepless waves, whose ear

Learns Freedom's lesson from your voice of fear;

Whose spell-bound sense from childhood's hour hath known

Familiar meanings in your mystic tone:

Sounds of deep import—voices that beguile

Age of its tears and childhood of its smile,

To yearn with speechless impulse to the free

And gladsome greetings of the buoyant sea!

High fate is theirs, who where the silent sky

Stoops to the soaring mountains, live and die;

Who scale the cloud-capt height, or sink to rest

In the deep stillness of its shelt'ring breast;—

Around whose feet the exulting waves have sung,

The eternal hills their giant shadows flung.

No wonders nurs'd thy childhood; not for thee

Did the waves chant their song of liberty!

Thine was no mountain home, where Freedom's form

Abides enthron'd amid the mist and storm,

And whispers to the listening winds, that swell

With solemn cadence round her citadel!

These had no sound for thee: that cold calm eye

Lit with no rapture as the storm swept by,

To mark with shiver'd crest the reeling wave