Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/90

52 Some two hours' march, with serious air,

Through the deep noontide heats we fare;

The red-grouse, springing at our sound,

Skims, now and then, the shining ground;

No life, save his and ours, intrudes

Upon these breathless solitudes.

Oh, joy! again the farms appear.

Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer;

There springs the brook will guide us down,

Bright comrade, to the noisy town.

Lingering, we follow down; we gain

The town, the highway, and the plain.

And many a mile of dusty way,

Parched and road-worn, we made that day;

But, Fausta, I remember well,

That as the balmy darkness fell,

We bathed our hands with speechless glee,

That night, in the wide-glimmering sea.

Once more we tread this self-same road,

Fausta, which ten years since we trod;

Alone we tread it, you and I,

Ghosts of that boisterous company.

Here, where the brook shines, near its head,

In its clear, shallow, turf-fringed bed;

Here, whence the eye first sees, far down,

Capped with faint smoke, the noisy town,—

Here sit we, and again unroll,

Though slowly, the familiar whole.

The solemn wastes of heathy hill

Sleep in the July sunshine still;

The self-same shadows now, as then,

Play through this grassy upland glen;