Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Tears fill'd his mild blue eye.

On his white mule, across the bridge,
A cassock'd priest rode by.

[ocr errors]

Why sitt'st thou there, O Neckan, And play'st thy harp of gold?

Sooner shall this my staff bear leaves,
Than thou shalt Heaven behold."

But, lo, the staff, it budded!

It green'd, it branch'd, it waved. "O ruth of God," the priest cried out, "This lost sea-creature saved!"

The cassock'd priest rode onwards,
And vanished with his mule;
But Neckan in the twilight gray,
Wept by the river-pool.

He wept: "The earth hath kindness,
The sea, the starry poles;

Earth, sea, and sky, and God above-
But, ah, not human souls!"

In summer, on the headlands,

The Baltic Sea along,

Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,

And sings this plaintive song.

CALLICLES' SONG OF APOLLO

[ocr errors]

From EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA

MATTHEW ARNOLD

N the sward at the cliff-top

Lie strewn the white flocks;

On the cliff-side the pigeons

Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets
Asleep on the hills.

What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?

What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?

What voices enrapture

The night's balmy prime?

'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.

[ocr errors][merged small]

They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?

They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.

EVENING

From BACCHANALIA

MATTHEW ARNOLD

THE evening comes, the fields are still.
The tinkle of the thirsty rill,

Unheard all day, ascends again;
Deserted is the half-mown plain,
Silent the swaths! the ringing wain,
The mower's cry, the dog's alarms,
All housed within the sleeping farms!
The business of the day is done,
The last-left haymaker is gone.
And from the thyme upon the height
And from the elder-blossom white
And pale dog-roses in the hedge,
And from the mint-plant in the sedge,
In puffs of balm the night-air blows
The perfume which the day forgoes.
And on the pure horizon far,

See, pulsing with the first-born star,
The liquid sky above the hill!

The evening comes, the fields are still.

WHERE LIES THE LAND?

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

HERE lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Link'd arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast

Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

« AnteriorContinuar »