THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET
Doth it not thrill thee, Poet,
Dead and dust though thou art,
To feel how I press thy singing
Close to my heart?--
Take it at night to my pillow,
Kiss it before I sleep,
And again when the delicate morning
Beginneth to peep?
See how I bathe thy pages
Here in the light of the sun,
Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses,
The breezes shall run.
Feel how I take thy poem
And bury within it my face,
As I pressed it last night in the heart of
a flower,
Or deep in a dearer place.
Think, as I love thee, Poet,
A thousand love beside,
Dear women love to press thee too
Against a sweeter side.
Art thou not happy, Poet?
I sometimes dream that I
For such a fragrant fame as thine
Would gladly sing and die.
Say, wilt thou change thy glory
For this same youth of mine?
And I will give my days i' the sun
For that great song of thine.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888)
Within that wood where thine own scholar strays,
O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound
Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound
But the dark muttering of the forest maze
We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze;
And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found
That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground
Set in dark dingles of the songful ways.
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