MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Became a dreadful face which did oppress
Me with the weight of its unwinking

"Strange constellations burned above
my head,
Strange birds around the vessel shrieked
and flew,

Strange shapes, like shadows, through
the clear sea fled,
As our lone ship, wide-winged, came
rippling through,
Angering to foam the smooth and sleep-
ing blue."

eye.

It fled, when I burst forth into a cry,
A shoal of fiends came on me from the
deep;

I hid, but in all corners they did pry,
And dragged me forth, and round did
dance and leap;

And from the blue twin lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the churchyard fair,

They mouthed on me in dream, and tore And 'neath the garden-walk it hums, me from sweet sleep. The house, and is my Marguerite there?

The lady sighed, "Far, far upon the sea,
My own Sir Arthur, could I die with you!
The wind blows shrill between my love
and me."

Fond heart! the space between was but the apple-tree.

There was a cry of joy, with seeking hands

She fled to him, like worn bird to her nest;

Like washing water on the figured sands,
His being came and went in sweet un-
rest,

As from the mighty shelter of his breast
The Lady Barbara her head uprears
With a wan smile, "Methinks I'm but
half blest:

Now when I've found thee, after weary
years,

I cannot see thee, love! so blind I am with tears."

"3

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

265

THE TERRACE AT BERNE.

TEN years-and to my waking eye
Once more the roofs of Berne appear;
The rocky banks, the terrace high,

The stream, and do 1 linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland,

The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar,

Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush

Of startled pleasure floods thy brow,
Quick through the oleanders brush,
And clap thy hands, and cry, 'Tis
thou?

Or hast thou long since wandered back, Daughter of France! to France, thy home;

And flitted down the flowery track
Where feet like thine too lightly come?

Doth riotous laughter now replace

Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare, Thy cheek's soft hue and fluttering lace The kerchief that enwound thy hair?

Or is it over?-art thou dead?

Dead?-and no warning shiver ran Across my heart, to say thy thread

Of life was cut, and closed thy span!

Could from earth's ways that figure slight

Be lost, and I not feel 't was so?
Of that fresh voice the gay delight

Fail from earth's air, and I not know?

Or shall I find thee still, but changed,

But not the Marguerite of thy prime? With all thy being rearranged,

Passed through the crucible of time;

With spirit vanished, beauty waned,

And hardly yet a glance, a tone,
A gesture, anything, - retained
Of all that was my Marguerite's own?

I will not know!- for wherefore try
To things by mortal course that live
A shadowy durability

For which they were not meant to give?

Like driftwood spars which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,