Volume Ii Part 114 (1/2)

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays towards me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there: Who, let me say, is this stranger regards me, With the gray eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

LONGING

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say: My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

DIVIDED

I An empty sky, a world of heather, Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom; We two among them wading together, Shaking out honey, treading perfume.

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover, Crowds of gra.s.shoppers skip at our feet, Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.

Flusheth the rise with her purple favor, Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring, 'Twixt the two brown b.u.t.terflies waver, Lightly settle, and sleepily swing.

We two walk till the purple dieth, And short dry gra.s.s under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank the down.

II Over the gra.s.s we stepped unto it, And G.o.d He knoweth how blithe we were!

Never a voice to bid us eschew it: Hey the green ribbon that showed so fair!

Hey the green ribbon! we kneeled beside it, We parted the gra.s.ses dewy and sheen: Drop over drop there filtered and slided A tiny bright beck that trickled between.

Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sung to us, Light was our talk as of fairy bells;-- Fairy wedding-bells faintly rung to us Down in their fortunate parallels.

Hand in hand, while the sun peered over, We lapped the gra.s.s on that youngling spring; Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover, And said, ”Let us follow it westering.”

III A dappled sky, a world of meadows, Circling above us the black rooks fly Forward, backward; lo their dark shadows Flit on the blossoming tapestry;--

Flit on the beck; for her long gra.s.s parteth As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back: And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth His flattering smile on her wayward track.

Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather Till one steps over the tiny strand, So narrow, in sooth, that still together On either brink we go hand in hand.

The beck grows wider, the hands must sever.

On either margin, our songs all done, We move apart, while she singeth ever, Taking the course of the stooping sun.