Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/91

Rh The loose dark stones on the green way

Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay;

On this mild bank above the stream,

(You crush them!) the blue gentians gleam.

Still this wild brook, the rushes cool,

The sailing foam, the shining pool!

These are not changed; and we, you say,

Are scarce more changed, in truth, than they.

The gypsies, whom we met below,

They too have long roamed to and fro;

They ramble, leaving, where they pass,

Their fragments on the cumbered grass.

And often to some kindly place

Chance guides the migratory race,

Where, though long wanderings intervene,

They recognize a former scene.

The dingy tents are pitched; the fires

Give to the wind their wavering spires;

In dark knots crouch round the wild flame

Their children, as when first they came;

They see their shackled beasts again

Move, browsing, up the gray-walled lane.

Signs are not wanting, which might raise

The ghost in them of former days,—

Signs are not wanting, if they would;

Suggestions to disquietude.

For them, for all, time's busy touch,

While it mends little, troubles much.

Their joints grow stiffer—but the year

Runs his old round of dubious cheer;

Chilly they grow—yet winds in March,

Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch;