Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/520

482 Hide his torn head beneath his sunless cave;

Or hear 'mid circling crags, the impatient cry

Of the pent winds, that scream in agony!

Yet all high sounds that mountain children hear

Flash'd from thy soul upon thine inward ear;

All Freedom's mystic language—storms that roar

By hill or wave, the mountain or the shore,—

All these had stirr'd thy spirit, and thine eye

In common sights read secret sympathy;

Till all bright thoughts that hills or waves can yield

Deck'd the dull waste, and the familiar field;

Or wondrous sounds from tranquil skies were borne

Far o'er the glistening sheets of windy corn:

Skies—that, unbound by clasp of mountain chain,

Slope stately down, and melt into the plain;

Sounds—such as erst the lone wayfaring man

Caught, as he journeyed, from the lips of Pan;

Or that mysterious cry, that smote with fear,

Like sounds from other worlds, the Spartan's ear,

While o'er the dusty plain, the murmurous throng

Of Heaven's embattled myriads swept along.

Say not such dreams are idle: for the man

Still toils to perfect what the child began;

And thoughts, that were but outlines, time engraves

Deep on his life; and childhood's baby waves,

Made rough with care, become the changeful sea,

Stemm'd by the strength of manhood fearlessly;

And fleeting thoughts, that on the lonely wild

Swept o'er the fancy of that heedless child,

Perchance had quicken'd with a living truth

The cold dull soil of his unfruitful youth;

Till with his daily life, a life that threw

Its shadows o'er the future flower'd and grew,