Thyrsis, a Monody

for Arthur Hugh Clough

   HOW changed is here each spot man makes or fills!

      In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;

        The village street its haunted mansion lacks,

      And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,

        And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks--

          Are ye too changed, ye hills?

      See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men

        To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!

        Here came I often, often, in old days--

      Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

   Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,

      Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns

        The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?

      The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,

        The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?--

          This winter-eve is warm,

      Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,

        The tender purple spray on copse and briers!

        And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,

      She needs not June for beauty's heightening,

   Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!--

      Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power

        Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.

      Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour;

        Now seldom come I, since I came with him.

          That single elm-tree bright

      Against the west--I miss it! is it goner?

        We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,

        Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead;

      While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.

   Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,

      But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;

        And with the country-folk acquaintance made

      By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.

        Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd.

          Ah me! this many a year

      My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday!

        Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart

        Into the world and wave of men depart;

      But Thyrsis of his own will went away.

   It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest.

      He loved each simple joy the country yields,

        He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,

      For that a shadow lour'd on the fields,

        Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.

          Some life of men unblest

      He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.

        He went; his piping took a troubled sound

        Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;

      He could not wait their passing, he is dead.

   So, some tempestuous morn in early June,

      When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,

        Before the roses and the longest day--

      When garden-walks and all the grassy floor

        With blossoms red and white of fallen May

          And chestnut-flowers are strewn--

      So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,

        From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,

        Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:

      The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I!

   Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?

      Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,

        Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,

      Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,

        Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,

          And stocks in fragrant blow;

      Roses that down the alleys shine afar,

        And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,

        And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,

      And the full moon, and the white evening-star.

   He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!

      What matters it? next year he will return,

        And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,

      With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,

        And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,

          And scent of hay new-mown.

      But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see;

        See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,

        And blow a strain the world at last shall heed--

      For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee!

   Alack, for Corydon no rival now!--

      But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,

        Some good survivor with his flute would go,

      Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate;

        And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,

          And relax Pluto's brow,

      And make leap up with joy the beauteous head

        Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair

        Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air,

      And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.

   O easy access to the hearer's grace

      When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!

        For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,

      She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,

        She knew each lily white which Enna yields

          Each rose with blushing face;

      She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.

        But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!

        Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd;

   And we should tease her with our plaint in vain!

   Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,

      Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour

      In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill!

   Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?

      I know the wood which hides the daffodil,

        I know the Fyfield tree,

   I know what white, what purple fritillaries

      The grassy harvest of the river-fields,

      Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,

   And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;

I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?--

   But many a tingle on the loved hillside,

      With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees,

   Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried

      High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises,

        Hath since our day put by

   The coronals of that forgotten time;

      Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team,

      And only in the hidden brookside gleam

   Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.

Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door,

   Above the locks, above the boating throng,

      Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,

   Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among

      And darting swallows and light water-gnats,

        We track'd the shy Thames shore?

   Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell

      Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,

      Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?--

   They all are gone, and thou art gone as well!

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night

   In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.

      I see her veil draw soft across the day,

   I feel her slowly chilling breath invade

      The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;

        I feel her finger light

   Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train; --

      The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,

      The heart less bounding at emotion new,

   And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.

And long the way appears, which seem'd so short

   To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;

      And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,

   The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,

      Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!

        Unbreachable the fort

   Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;

      And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,

      And near and real the charm of thy repose,

   And night as welcome as a friend would fall.

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss

   Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side,

      A troop of Oxford hunters going home,

   As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!

      From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come.

        Quick! let me fly, and cross

   Into yon farther field!--'Tis done; and see,

      Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify

      The orange and pale violet evening-sky,

   Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!

I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,

   The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,

      The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,

   And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out.

      I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night,

        Yet, happy omen, hail!

   Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale

      (For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep

      The morningless and unawakening sleep

   Under the flowery oleanders pale),

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!--

   Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,

      These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,

   That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;

      To a boon southern country he is fled,

        And now in happier air,

   Wandering with the great Mother's train divine

      (And purer or more subtle soul than thee,

      I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)

   Within a folding of the Apennine,

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!--

   Putting his sickle to the perilous grain

      In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,

   For thee the Lityerses-song again

      Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;

        Sings his Sicilian fold,

   His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes--

      And how a call celestial round him rang,

      And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,

   And all the marvel of the golden skies.

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here

   Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair.

      Despair I will not, while I yet descry

   'Neath the mild canopy of English air

      That lonely tree against the western sky.

        Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,

   Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!

      Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,

      Woods with anemonies in flower till May,

   Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,

   Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.

      This does not come with houses or with gold,

   With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;

      'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold--

        But the smooth-slipping weeks

   Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;

      Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,

      He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone;

   Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;

   Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!

      Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,

   If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power,

      If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.

        And this rude Cumner ground,

   Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,

      Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time,

      Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!

   And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

What though the music of thy rustic flute

   Kept not for long its happy, country tone;

      Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note

   Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,

      Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat--

        It fail'd, and thou wage mute!

   Yet hadst thou always visions of our light,

      And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,

      And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,

   Left human haunt, and on alone till night.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!

   'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,

      Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.

   --Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar,

      Let in thy voice a whisper often come,

        To chase fatigue and fear:

   Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died.

      Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.

      Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,

   Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

Matthew Arnold

Immortality

FOIL'D by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,

We leave the brutal world to take its way,

And, Patience! in another life, we say

The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.

And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn

The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,

Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,

Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?

No, no! the energy of life may be

Kept on after the grave, but not begun;

And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing--only he,

His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,

Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

Matthew Arnold

Philomela

HARK! ah, the nightingale--

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

What triumph! hark!--what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,

Still, after many years, in distant lands,

Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain

That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain--

Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn

With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,

And moonshine, and the dew,

To thy rack'd heart and brain

Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,

The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?

Dost thou again peruse

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?

Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive, the feathery change

Once more, and once more seem to make resound

With love and hate, triumph and agony,

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?

Listen, Eugenia--

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!

Again--thou hearest?

Eternal passion!

Eternal pain!

Matthew Arnold

Isolation: To Marguerite

WE were apart; yet, day by day,

I bade my heart more constant be.

I bade it keep the world away,

And grow a home for only thee;

Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,

Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,

What far too soon, alas! I learn'd--

The heart can bind itself alone,

And faith may oft be unreturn'd.

Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell--

Thou lov'st no more;--Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell!--and thou, thou lonely heart,

Which never yet without remorse

Even for a moment didst depart

From thy remote and spherèd course

To haunt the place where passions reign--

Back to thy solitude again!

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame

Which Luna felt, that summer-night,

Flash through her pure immortal frame,

When she forsook the starry height

To hang over Endymion's sleep

Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.

Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved

How vain a thing is mortal love,

Wandering in Heaven, far removed.

But thou hast long had place to prove

This truth--to prove, and make thine own:

"Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone."

Or, if not quite alone, yet they

Which touch thee are unmating things--

Ocean and clouds and night and day;

Lorn autumns and triumphant springs;

And life, and others' joy and pain,

And love, if love, of happier men.

Of happier men--for they, at least,

Have dream'd two human hearts might blend

In one, and were through faith released

From isolation without end

Prolong'd; nor knew, although not less

Alone than thou, their loneliness.

Matthew Arnold

To Marguerite: Continued

YES! in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown,

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions live alone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,

And they are swept by balms of spring,

And in their glens, on starry nights,

The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,

Across the sounds and channels pour--

Oh! then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent;

For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent!

Now round us spreads the watery plain--

Oh might our marges meet again!

Who order'd, that their longing's fire

Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?

Who renters vain their deep desire?--

A God, a God their severance ruled!

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

Matthew Arnold

Palladium

SET where the upper streams of Simois flow

Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;

And Hector was in Ilium, far below,

And fought, and saw it not--but there it stood!

It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light

On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.

Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight

Round Troy--but while this stood, Troy could not fall.

So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.

Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;

Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;

We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!

We shall renew the battle in the plain

To-morrow;--red with blood will Xanthus be;

Hector and Ajax will be there again,

Helen will come upon the wall to see.

Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,

And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,

And fancy that we put forth all our life,

And never know how with the soul it fares.

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,

Upon our life a ruling effluence send.

And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;

And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.

Matthew Arnold