Matthew Arnold

Lyric and Elegiac Poems Matthew Arnold

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rocks I ask if thou hast pass?d their quiet place 3 Or in my boat I lie Moor?d to the cool bank in the summer-heats, ?Mid wide grass meadows which? the sunshine fills, And watch the warm, green-mufiied Oumner hills, And wonder if thou haunt?st their shy retreats. 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, And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Pluck?d in shy fields and distant Wychwood 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, Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, Or cross a stile into the public way. Oft thou hast given them store Of flowers--the frail-leaf?d, white anemony, Dark bluebells drench?d with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves--But none hath words she can report of thee. 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-wing?d swallows haunt the glittering Thames, To bathe in the abandon?d lasher pass, Have often pass?d thee near Sitting upon the river bank o?ergrown; Mark?d thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted airBut, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! At some lone homestead in the Oumner hills, Where at her open door the housewife darns,...