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Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town ;
At the church on the hill-side-
And then come back down.
Singing: There dwells a loved one,

But cruel is she!

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea.'

M. ARNOLD.

364

THE SONG OF CALLICLES ON ETNA

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;

All Etna heaves fiercely

Her forest-clothed frame.

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Not here, O Apollo !

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Are haunts meet for thee.

But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,

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365

SHAKESPEARE

Others abide our question-Thou art free!
We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge! So some sovran hill
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,

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Making the heaven of heavens his dwellingplace,

Spares but the border, often, of his base To the foil'd searching of mortality ;

And thou, whose head did stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self

secure,

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Didst walk on earth unguess'd at.-Better so !
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
M. ARNOLD.

366

A SUMMER NIGHT

In the deserted moon-blanch'd street
How lonely rings the echo of my feet!
Those windows, which I gaze at, frown,
Silent and white, unopening down,
Repellent as the world ;-but see!
A break between the housetops shows
The moon, and, lost behind her, fading dim
Into the dewy dark obscurity

Down at the far horizon's rim,

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Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose,

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And to my mind the thought

Is on a sudden brought

Of a past night, and a far different scene.

Headlands stood out into the moon-lit deep

As clearly as at noon;

The spring-tide's brimming flow

Heaved dazzlingly between ;

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Houses with long white sweep
Girdled the glistening bay;
Behind, through the soft air,

The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away.
That night was far more fair-

But the same restless pacings to and fro,

And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, And the same bright calm moon.

And the calm moonlight seems to say:

Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,
Which never deadens into rest,

Nor ever feels the fiery glow

That whirls the spirit from itself away,

But fluctuates to and fro,

Never by passion quite possess'd,

And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?

And I, I know not if to pray

Still to be what I am, or yield, and be
Like all the other men I see.

For most men in a brazen prison live,

Where in the sun's hot eye,

With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give,
Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.
And as, year after year,

Fresh products of their barren labour fall
From their tired hands, and rest
Never yet comes more near,

Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;

And while they try to stem

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The waves of mournful thought by which they are

prest,

Death in their prison reaches them,

Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.

And the rest, a few,

Escape their prison, and depart
On the wide ocean of life anew.

There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart
Listeth, will sail;

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Nor doth he know how there prevail,
Despotic on that sea,

Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.
Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd
By thwarting signs, and braves

The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him; and between The lightning-bursts is seen

Only a driving wreck,

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And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck 65 With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false impossible shore.

And sterner comes the roar

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Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?
Madman or slave, must man be one?

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Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!

Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great Are yet untroubled and unpassionate !

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Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,
And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!
I will not say that your mild deeps retain
A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long❜d deeply once, and long'd in vain ;
But I will rather say that you remain
A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!
How it were good to live there, and breathe free!
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still!

M. ARNOLD.

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