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.

80

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!

100

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;

110

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,

120

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!

130

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 gray;

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,

140

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!-'T is 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!

150

160

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 Arnovale
(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 engar

landed,

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 eyesAnd how a call celestial round him rang, And heavenward from the fountain-brink

he sprang,

And all the marvel of the golden skies.

170

180

190