Still with his soul severe account he kept, Which still in water sets at night, Wondrous young man! why wert thou made so good, To be snatched hence ere better understood? But danger and infectious death Where life, spirit, pleasure, always used to But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age, 128 136 The place now only free from those. There 'mong the blest thou dost for ever shine, And wheresoe'er thou cast'st thy view, Upon that white and radiant crew, Seest not a soul clothed with more light than thine. 144 And if the glorious saints cease not to know Their wretched friends who fight with life below, Thy flame to me does still the same abide, There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost Thou dost with holy pity see Where grief and misery can be joined with verse. 1656. 152 Abraham Cowley. THYRSIS A MONODY, to commemorate the author's friend, ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, who died at Florence, 1861 How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same: Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, 't is no foot of unfamiliar men To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! Here came I often, often, in old daysThyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. 10 Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames? This winter-eve is warm, Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, briars! And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty's heightening. 20 Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!— dim. Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour; Now seldom come I, since I came with him. That single elm-tree bright Against the west-I miss it! is it gone? We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead: While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. Too rare, too 'rare, grow now my visits here, But once I knew each field, each flower, each !stick; 30 And with the country-folk acquaintance By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd. Ah me! this many a year My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart Into the world and wave of men depart; But Thyrsis of his own will went away. It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest. keep, For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep. Some life of men unblest He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd He went; his piping took a troubled sound happy ground; 40 He could not wait their passing, he is dead. 50 So, some tempestuous morn in early June. When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, Before the roses and the longest day When garden-walks and all the grassy floor With blossoms red and white of fallen May So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottagesmell, And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses that down the alleys shine afar, And groups under the dreaming garden trees, And the full moon, and the white evening star. He harkens not! light comer, he is flown! 70 With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, And scent of hay new-mown. |