Matthew Arnold

And he saw that Youth, Of age and looks to be his own dear son, Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe Of an unskillful gardener has been cut, Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,

and all the pleasant life they led, They three, in that long-distant summer-time — The castle and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills In Ader-baijan.

his own early youth, And all its bounding rapture

as the vast tide Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore At the full moon.

No horse's cry was that, most like the roar Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, And comes at night to die upon the sand.

For a cloud Grew suddenly in Heaven, and darked the sun.

Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words!

Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?

An unlopp’d trunk it was, and huge, Still rough; like those which men in treeless plains ... fish from the flooded rivers.

And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts Hail’d; but the Tartars knew not who he was.

The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once Did in Bokhara by the river find A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home And reared him, a bright bay with lofty crest.

He has the wild stag’s foot, the lion’s heart.

When the dew glistens on the pearlèd ears, A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy.

long files of horse, they stream’d: As when, some grey November morn, the files, In marching order spread.

and left His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay, And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat He pass’d.

All night long I lie Tossing and wakeful, and I come.

for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?

He slept light, an old man's sleep.

and now The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa’s tent.

And the first grey of morning fill’d the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush’d, and still the men were plunged in sleep.

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silver’d branches of the glade.

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife — Fly hence, …

And amongst us one, Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.

Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?