Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air?
But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!
At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
Where at her open door the housewife darns,
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
Children, who early range these slopes and late
For cresses from the rills,
Have known thee eying, all an April day,
The springing pastures and the feeding kine;? cattle
And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine,
Through the long dewy grass move slow away.
In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood?
Where most the gypsies by the turf-edged way
Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey,
Above the forest ground called Thessaly?
The blackbird, picking food,
Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;
So often has he known thee past him stray,
9. The scholar's flat-bottomed boat ('punt') is tied of the boat as it is stirred by the current of the river up by a rope at the riverbank near the ferry crossing causes the chopping sound of the rope in the like the speaker's boat (in the previous stanza), water. which was 'moored to the cool bank.' The motion 1. Water that spills over a dam or weir.
.
THE SCHOLAR GYPSY / 1365
Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray,
120 And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
Where home through flooded fields foot-travelers go,
Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge,
Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
125 Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge?
And thou hast climbed the hill,
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range;
Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
The line of festal light in Christ Church hall2? 130 Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange.0 farmhouse
But what?I dream! Two hundred years are flown
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,
And the grave Glanvill did the tale inscribe
That thou wert wandered from the studious walls
135 To learn strange arts, and join a gypsy tribe; And thou from earth art gone
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid?
Some country nook, where o'er thy unknown grave
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave,
140 Under a dark, red-fruited yew tree's shade. ?No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours!
For what wears out the life of mortal men?
'Tis that from change to change their being rolls;
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,
145 Exhaust the energy of strongest souls
And numb the elastic powers.
Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,? vexation And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,
