Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, Above the locks, above the boating throng, Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,° °123 Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 125 We track'd the shy Thames shore? Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?-- They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 130
Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. I see her veil draw soft across the day, I feel her slowly chilling breath invade The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent° with grey; °135 I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;-- The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 140
And long the way appears, which seem'd so short To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! 145 Unbreachable the fort Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, And near and real the charm of thy repose, And night as welcome as a friend would fall.° °150
But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side, A troop of Oxford hunters going home, As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! From hunting with the Berkshire° hounds they come. °155 Quick! let me fly, and cross Into yon farther field!--'Tis done; and see, Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale violet evening-sky, Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 160
I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165 Yet, happy omen, hail! Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale° °167 (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep The morningless and unawakening sleep Under the flowery oleanders pale), 170
Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!-- Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; To a boon southern country he is fled,° °175 And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's° train divine °177 (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) Within a folding of the Apennine, 180