THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY deg.

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
  Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes deg.! deg.2
    No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
  Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
    Nor the cropp’d herbage shoot another head. 5
      But when the fields are still,
  And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
    And only the white sheep are sometimes seen;
    Cross and recross deg. the strips of moon-blanch’d green, deg.9
  Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 10

Here, where the reaper was at work of late—­
  In this high field’s dark corner, where he leaves
    His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, deg. deg.13
  And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
    Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—­ 15
      Here will I sit and wait,
  While to my ear from uplands far away
    The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
    With distant cries of reapers in the corn deg.—­ deg.19
  All the live murmur of a summer’s day. 20

Screen’d is this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d field,
  And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. 
    Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
  And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
    Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 25
      And air-swept lindens yield
  Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers
    Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
    And bower me from the August sun with shade;
  And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers. deg. deg.30

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book deg.—­ deg.31
  Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! 
    The story of the Oxford scholar poor,
  Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
    Who, tired of knocking at preferment’s door, 35
      One summer-morn forsook
  His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,
    And roam’d the world with that wild brotherhood,
    And came, as most men deem’d, to little good,
  But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40

But once, years after, in the country-lanes,
  Two scholars, whom at college erst deg. he knew, deg.42
    Met him, and of his way of life enquired;
  Whereat he answer’d, that the gipsy-crew,
    His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 45
      The workings of men’s brains,
  And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. 
    “And I,” he said, “the secret of their art,
    When fully learn’d, will to the world impart;
  But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill. deg.” deg.50