Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/62

24 Ah, I hope! yet, once away,

What may chain us, who can say?

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that lilac kerchief, bound

Her soft face, her hair around;

Tied under the archest chin

Mockery ever ambushed in.

Let the fluttering fringes streak

All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that figure's pliant grace

As she toward me leaned her face,

Half refused and half resigned,

Murmuring, "Art thou still unkind?"

Many a broken promise then

Was new made—to break again.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,

Eager tell-tales of her mind;

Paint, with their impetuous stress

Of inquiring tenderness,

Those frank eyes, where deep doth be

An angelic gravity.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets. Memory!

What! my friends, these feeble lines

Show, you say, my love declines?