And long the way appears, which seem’d so short
  To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;
    And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
  Tops in life’s morning-sun so bright and bare! 145
    Unbreachable the fort
  Of the long-batter’d world uplifts its wall;
    And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
    And near and real the charm of thy repose,
  And night as welcome as a friend would fall. deg. deg.150

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss
  Of quiet!—­Look, adown the dusk hill-side,
    A troop of Oxford hunters going home,
As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! 
  From hunting with the Berkshire deg. hounds they come. deg.155
    Quick! let me fly, and cross
  Into yon farther field!—­’Tis done; and see,
    Back’d by the sunset, which doth glorify
    The orange and pale violet evening-sky,
  Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 160

I take the omen!  Eve lets down her veil,
  The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,
    The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,
  And in the scatter’d farms the lights come out. 
    I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165
      Yet, happy omen, hail! 
  Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale deg. deg.167
    (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep
    The morningless and unawakening sleep
  Under the flowery oleanders pale), 170

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!—­
  Ah, vain!  These English fields, this upland dim,
    These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
  That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;
    To a boon southern country he is fled, deg. deg.175
      And now in happier air,
  Wandering with the great Mother’s deg. train divine deg.177
    (And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
    I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)
  Within a folding of the Apennine, 180

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!—­
  Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
    In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
  For thee the Lityerses-song again
    Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; 185
      Sings his Sicilian fold,
  His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes—­
    And how a call celestial round him rang,
    And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,
  And all the marvel of the golden skies. deg. deg.190