1 Go, for they call you,
shepherd, from the hill;
2 Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!
3 No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
4 Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
5 Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.
6 But when the fields are still,
7 And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
8 And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
9 Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd
green.
10 Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!
11 Here, where the reaper was at work of late--
12 In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
13 His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
14 And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
15 Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use--
16 Here will I sit and wait,
17 While to my ear from uplands far away
18 The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
19 With distant cries of reapers in the corn--
20 All the live murmur of a summer's day.
21 Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,
22 And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.
23 Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
24 And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
25 Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;
26 And air-swept lindens yield
27 Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers
28 Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
29 And bower me from the August sun with shade;
30 And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.
31 And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book--
32 Come, let me read the oft-read tale again!
33 The story of the Oxford scholar poor,
34 Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
35 Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door,
36 One summer-morn forsook
37 His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,
38 And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood,
39 And came, as most men deem'd, to little good,
40 But came to Oxford and his friends no more.
41 But once, years after, in the country-lanes,
42 Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
43 Met him, and of his way of life enquired;
44 Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew,
45 His mates, had arts to rule as they desired
46 The workings of men's brains,
47 And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.
48 "And I," he said, "the secret of
their art,
49 When fully learn'd, will to the world impart;
50 But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill."
51 This said, he left them, and return'd no more.--
52 But rumours hung about the country-side,
53 That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,
54 Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,
55 In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,
56 The same the gipsies wore.
57 Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;
58 At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,
59 On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd
boors
60 Had found him seated at their entering,
61 But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.
62 And I myself seem half to know thy looks,
63 And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace;
64 And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
65 I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place;
66 Or in my boat I lie
67 Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats,
68 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,
69 And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills,
70 And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.
71 For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!
72 Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,
73 Returning home on summer-nights, have met
74 Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,
75 Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
76 As the punt's rope chops round;
77 And leaning backward in a pensive dream,
78 And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
79 Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,
80 And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.
81 And then they land, and thou art seen no more!--
82 Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come
83 To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
84 Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,
85 Or cross a stile into the public way.
86 Oft thou hast given them store
87 Of flowers--the frail-leaf'd, white anemony,
88 Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves,
89 And purple orchises with spotted leaves--
90 But none hath words she can report of thee.
91 And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here
92 In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,
93 Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass
94 Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames,
95 To bathe in the abandon'd lasher
pass,
96 Have often pass'd thee near
97 Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown;
98 Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
99 Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air--
100 But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!
101 At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
102 Where at her open door the housewife darns,
103 Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
104 To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
105 Children, who early range these slopes and late
106 For cresses from the rills,
107 Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day,
108 The springing pasture and the feeding kine;
109 And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine,
110 Through the long dewy grass move slow away.
111 In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood--
112 Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way
113 Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see
114 With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of grey,
115 Above the forest-ground called Thessaly--
116 The blackbird, picking food,
117 Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;
118 So often has he known thee past him stray,
119 Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray,
120 And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.
121 And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
122 Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,
123 Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge,
124 Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
125 Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge?
126 And thou has climb'd the hill,
127 And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range;
128 Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
129 The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall--
130 Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange.
131 But what--I dream! Two hundred years are flown
132 Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,
133 And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe
134 That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls
135 To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe;
136 And thou from earth art gone
137 Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid--
138 Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave
139 Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave,
140 Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade.
141 --No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours!
142 For what wears out the life of mortal men?
143 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls;
144 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,
145 Exhaust the energy of strongest souls
146 And numb the elastic powers.
147 Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,
148 And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,
149 To the just-pausing Genius we remit
150 Our worn-out life, and are--what we have been.
151 Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish, so?
152 Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire;
153 Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead!
154 Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire!
155 The generations of thy peers are fled,
156 And we ourselves shall go;
157 But thou possessest an immortal lot,
158 And we imagine thee exempt from age
159 And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page,
160 Because thou hadst--what we, alas! have not.
161 For early didst thou leave the world, with powers
162 Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
163 Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;
164 Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
165 Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.
166 O life unlike to ours!
167 Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
168 Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,
169 And each half lives a hundred different lives;
170 Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.
171 Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
172 Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
173 Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd,
174 Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
175 Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd;
176 For whom each year we see
177 Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
178 Who hesitate and falter life away,
179 And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day--
180 Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?
181 Yes, we await it!--but it still delays,
182 And then we suffer! and amongst us one,
183 Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly
184 His seat upon the intellectual throne;
185 And all his store of sad experience he
186 Lays bare of wretched days;
187 Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs,
188 And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
189 And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,
190 And all his hourly varied anodynes.
191 This for our wisest! and we others pine,
192 And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
193 And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;
194 With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend,
195 Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair--
196 But none has hope like thine!
197 Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
198 Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
199 Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
200 And every doubt long blown by time away.
201 O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
202 And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
203 Before this strange disease of modern life,
204 With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
205 Its heads o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife--
206 Fly hence, our contact fear!
207 Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!
208 Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern
209 From her false friend's approach in Hades turn,
210 Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!
211 Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
212 Still clutching the inviolable shade,
213 With a free, onward impulse brushing through,
214 By night, the silver'd branches of the glade--
215 Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,
216 On some mild pastoral slope
217 Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales
218 Freshen thy flowers as in former years
219 With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
220 From the dark tingles, to the nightingales!
221 But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
222 For strong the infection of our mental strife,
223 Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;
224 And we should win thee from thy own fair life,
225 Like us distracted, and like us unblest.
226 Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
227 Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers,
228 And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;
229 And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
230 Fade and grow old at last, and die like ours.
231 Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
232 --As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
233 Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
234 Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily,
235 The fringes of a southward-facing brow
236 Among the Ægæan Isles;
237 And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
238 Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
239 Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd in brine--
240 And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
241 The young light-hearted masters of the waves--
242 And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail;
243 And day and night held on indignantly
244 O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
245 Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,
246 To where the Atlantic raves
247 Outside the western straits; and unbent sails
248 There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
249 Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
250 And on the beach undid his corded bales.
Together with the editors, the Department ofEnglish (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press,the following individuals share copyright for the work that wentinto this edition: