And now look round—­seest thou this bloom? 
Seven petals and each petal seven dyes,
The stem is gilded and the root in blood: 
That came of thee. 
Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee. 
I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree,
I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem,
I light my palace with the seven stars,
And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants: 
All thanks to thee.

But the soul wept with hollow hectic face,
Captive in that lupanar of a man.

And I who passed by heard and wept for both,—­
The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad,
The soul was once an angel up in heaven.

O let the body be a healthy beast,
And keep the soul a singing soaring bird;
But lure thou not the soul from out the sky
To pipe unto the body in the sty.

TO A POET

As one, the secret lover of a queen,
  Watches her move within the people’s eye,
  Hears their poor chatter as she passes by,
And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen;
The little room where love did ‘shut them in,’
  The fragrant couch whereon they twain did lie,
  And rests his hand where on his heart doth die
A bruised daffodil of last night’s sin: 

So, Poet, as I read your rhyme once more
  Here where a thousand eyes may read it too,
    I smile your own sweet secret smile at those
    Who deem the outer petals of the rose
  The rose’s heart—­I, who through grace of you,
Have known it for my own so long before.

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.