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 dingle on the loved hill-side,

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 hillside,
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; 19

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.

X

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 soft 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 cam'st 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 wast mute!

Yet hadst thou alway 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, heartwearying 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 hillside.

MEMORIAL VERSES.

APRIL, 1850.

GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Grecce,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb-
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.