Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/97

Rh Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood,

Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves

Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof

Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,

Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn.

We shot beneath the cottage with the stream.

On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms

Came forth—Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine.

Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;

Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue,

Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd.

They saw us, they conferr'd; their bosoms heaved,

And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes.

Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly,

Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed.

One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat

Hung poised—and then the darting river of Life

(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life,

Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd,

Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone.

Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines

Faded—the moss—the rocks; us burning plains,

Bristled with cities, us the sea received.

HORATIAN ECHO.

TO AN AMBITIOUS FRIEND.

Written in 1847. Printed by permission of Mr. Arthur Galton, to whom the Poem was given in 1886 for publication in The Hobby Horse.

, omit, my simple friend,

Still to inquire how parties tend,

Or what we fix with foreign powers.

If France and we are really friends,

And what the Russian czar intends,

Is no concern of ours.