19 be. Here, where the reaper was at work of But once, years after, in the country-lanes, late, Two scholars, whom at college erst he In this high field's dark corner, where he knew, leaves Met him, and of his way of life inHis coat, his basket, and his earthen quired; cruse, Whereat he answered, that the gypsyAnd in the sun all morning binds the crew, sheaves, His mates, had arts to rule as they Then here at noon comes back his stores desired The workings of men's brains, And they can bind them to what thoughts While to my ear from uplands far away they will. The bleating of the folded flocks is “And I,” he said, “the secret of their borne, art, With distant cries of reapers in the When fully learned, will to the world corn, impart; All the live murmur of a summer's day. But it needs Heaven-sent moments for this skill." 50 Screened is this nook o'er the high, halfreaped field, This said, he left them, and returned no And here till sundown, shepherd ! will I more. But rumors hung about the country-side, Through the thick corn the scarlet pop That the lost Scholar long was seen to pies peep, stray, And round green roots and yellowing Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tonguestalks I see tied, Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep; In hat of antique shape, and cloak of And air-swept lindens yield gray, Their scent, and rustle down their per The same the gypsies wore. fumed showers Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in Of bloom on the bent grass where I am spring; laid, At some lone alehouse in the BerkAnd bower me from the August-sun shire moors, with shade; On the warm ingle-bench, the smockAnd the eye travels down to Oxford's frocked boors towers. 30 Had found him seated at their entering; And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would book. Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! And I myself seem half to know thy The story of that Oxford scholar poor, looks, Of shining parts and quick inventive And put the shepherds, wanderer ! on brain, thy trace; Who, tired of knocking at preferment's And boys who in lone wheat-fields scare door, the rooks One summer-morn forsook I ask if thou hast passed their quiet His friends, and went to learn the gypsy- | place; lore, Or in my boat I lie And roamed the world with that wild 1 Moored to the cool bank in the summerbrotherhood, beats, fly. 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 100 70 For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft ab stracted air: But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, Where at her open door the housewife darns, Thou bast been seen, or hanging on a gate To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. Children, who early range these slopes and late For cresses from the rills, Have known thee eying, all an April day, The springing pastures and the feed ing kine; And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine, Through the long dewy grass move slow away. In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood, Where most the gypsies by the turf edged way Pitch their smoked tents, and every · bush you see With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of gray, Above the forest ground called Thes saly, — The blackbird picking food Sees thee, nor stops his ineal, nor fears at all; So often bas he known thee past him stray, Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray, And waiting for the spark from heaven 80 As the punt's rope chops round; And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Plucked in shy fields and distant Wych wood bowers, And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. And then they land, and thou art seen no more! Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, seen thee roam, Oft thou hast given them store anemone, Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves, – But none hath words she can report of thee! 90 And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay time 's here In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass, Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames, To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass, Have often passed thee near Sitting upon the river-bank o'ergrown; Marked thine outlandish garb, thy fig. ure spare, I 10 to fail. 120 And once, in winter, on the causeway chill Where home through flooded fields foot travellers go, Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow, try ridge ? And gained the white brow of the Cum ner range; Turned once to watch, while thick the snow-flakes fall, The line of festal light in Christ-church hall: Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange. 130 But what I dream! Two hundred years are flown Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, And the grave Glanvil did the tale in scribe That thou wert wandered from the stu dious walls To learn strange arts, and join the gypsy-tribe. And thou from earth art gone laid, - known grave Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. 140 – No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours ! For what wears out the life of mortal men ? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, And numb the elastic powers, and teen, our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we re mit Our well-worn life, and are — what we have been. 150 Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so? Thou hadst one aim, one business, one de sire; Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead!. Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! For early didst thou leave the world, with powers Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. O life unlike to ours! Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives; Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. 170 Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too? Yes, we await it! but it still delays, 181 And then we suffer! avd amongst us one, Who most has suffered, takes deject edly His seat npon the intellectual throne; And all his store of sad experience he Lays bare of wretched days; and signs, 200 And how the dying spark of hope was But fly our paths, our feverish contact fed, fly! And how the breast was soothed, and For strong the infection of our mental how the head, strife, And all his hourly varied anodynes. 190 Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; This for our wisest! and we others pine, And we should wiu thee from thy own And wish the long unhappy dream would fair life, end, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. And waive all claim to bliss, and try Soon, soon thy cheer would die, to bear; Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed With close-lipped patience for our only thy powers, friend, — And tby clear ainis be cross and shiftSad patience, too near neighbor to de ing made: spair, And then thy glad perennial youth But none has hope like thine! would fade, Thou through the fields and through the Fade, and grow old at last, and die like woods dost stray, ours. 230 Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and And every doubt long blown by time smiles ! away. - As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, Oh, born in days when wits were fresh and Descried at sunrise an emerging prow clear, Lifting the cool-baired creepers stealthAnd life ran gayly as the sparkling ily, Thames; The fringes of a southward-facing Before this strange disease of modern brow life, Among the Ægean isles; With its sick hurry, its divided aims, And saw the merry Grecian coaster Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, come, was rife, Freighted with amber grapes, and Fly hence, our contact fear! Chian wine, Still fly, plunge deeper in the howering Green bursting figs, and tunnies wood ! steeped in brine, Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern And knew the intruders on his ancient From her false friend's approach in home, Hades turn, 209 Wave us away, and keep thy solitude ! The young light-hearted masters of the waves, — Still nursing the unconquerable hope, And snatched his rudder, and shook out Still clutching the inviolable shade, more sail, With a free, onward impulse brushing And day and night held on indigthrough, nantly By night, the silvered branches of the O'er the blue Midland waters with the glade, gale, Far on the forest-skirts, where none Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, pursue, To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits, and unbent Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales sails Freshen thy flowers as in former years There where down clondy cliffs, With dew, or listen with enchanted through sheets of foam, ears, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians From the dark dingles, to the nightin come; 249 gales ! 220 | And on the beach undid his corded bales. 240 |