On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors Had found him seated at their entering,

But, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.
And I myself seem half to know thy looks,

And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace;
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place;

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-muffled Cumner 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,
As the slow punt swings round:

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 anemone,

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 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 hast 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 watching, all an April-day,
The springing pastures and the feeding kine;
And mark'd 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 gipsies by the turf-edged way

Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see
With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of grey,
Above the forest-ground called Thessaly-
The blackbird picking food

Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;
So often has he known thee past him stray,
Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray,
And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,

(B 838)

15

Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge? And thou hast climb'd the hill,

And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,

The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall— Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange.

But what I dream! Two hundred years are flown
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,
And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe
That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls
To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe.
And thou from earth art gone

Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid—
Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave,
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade.

Matthew Arnold.

T

A Dream

DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,

And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth

The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—

Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,-and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!-oh! to whom?

Shelley.

B

Thistledown

LOWETH like snow
From the grey thistles
The thistledown:
And the fairy-feathers
O' the dandelion

Are tossed by the breeze
Hither and thither:

Over the grasses,
The seeding grasses,
Where the poppies shake

And the campions waver,
And where the clover,
Purple and white,

Fills leagues with the fragrance

Of sunsweet honey;

Hither and thither
The fairy-feathers
O' the dandelion,
And white puff-balls
O' the thistledown,
Merrily dancing,
Light on the breeze.

.. then the wind takes them,

Blows them, plays with them,

Tosses them high through the gold of the sunshine, Wavers them upward, wavers them downward. Hither and thither among the white butterflies, Over and under the blue-moths and honey bees,

Over the leagues of blossoming clover,

Purple and white, the sweet-smelling clover,
Far o'er the grasses,

And grey hanging thistles,