{
"id": "matthew-arnold/thyrsis",
"title": "Thyrsis",
"ordinal": null,
"subtitle": "A Monody, to Commemorate the Author’s Friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, Who Died at Florence, 1861",
"poet": "Matthew Arnold",
"poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
"language": "en",
"book": "New Poems",
"book_slug": "new-poems",
"book_kind": "volume",
"sequence": 1,
"container": null,
"epigraph": "Thus yesterday, to-day, to-morrow come, / They hustle one another and they pass; / But all our hustling morrows only make / The smooth to-day of God.",
"first_published": {
"year": 1867,
"venue": "New Poems (1867)",
"note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
"uncertain": false,
"sources": [
"https://archive.org/details/newpoems00arno"
]
},
"source": {
"kind": "standard-ebooks",
"repo": "standardebooks/matthew-arnold_poetry",
"file": "poetry.xhtml",
"upstream": [
"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
"https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
"https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
"https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
],
"rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
},
"verification": {
"level": "structural-only",
"last_checked": "2026-08-12",
"corrections": [
{
"line": null,
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{
"line": 80,
"was": "For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee.48",
"now": "For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee.",
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{
"line": 185,
"was": "Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;49",
"now": "Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;",
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]
},
"stats": {
"n_lines": 240,
"n_stanzas": 24,
"n_parts": 0,
"longest_line_chars": 57,
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"stanzas": [
[
{
"text": "How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The village street its haunted mansion lacks,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Are ye too changed, ye hills?",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "See, ’tis no foot of unfamiliar men",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Here came I often, often, in old days;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "This winter-eve is warm,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Humid the air; leafless, yet soft as spring,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The tender purple spray on copse and briers;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And that sweet City with her dreaming spires,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "She needs not June for beauty’s heightening,",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Only, methinks, some loss of habit’s power",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Befalls me wandering through this upland dim;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Once pass’d I blindfold here, at any hour,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Now seldom come I, since I came with him.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "That single elm-tree bright",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Against the west—I miss it! is it gone?",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Our friend, the Scholar-Gipsy, was not dead;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And with the country-folk acquaintance made",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay’d.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Ah me! this many a year",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "My pipe is lost, my shepherd’s-holiday!",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Into the world and wave of men depart;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "But Thyrsis of his own will went away.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "It irk’d him to be here, he could not rest.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "He loved each simple joy the country yields,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "For that a shadow lower’d on the fields,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Some life of men unblest",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "He knew, which made him droop, and fill’d his head.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "He went; his piping took a troubled sound",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "He could not wait their passing, he is dead!",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "So, some tempestuous morn in early June,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "When the year’s primal burst of bloom is o’er,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Before the roses and the longest day—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And chestnut-flowers are strewn—",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "So have I heard the cuckoo’s parting cry,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And stocks in fragrant blow;",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Roses that down the alleys shine afar,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And the full moon, and the white evening-star.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "What matters it? next year he will return,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And bluebells trembling by the forest-ways,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And scent of hay new-mown.",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see!",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And blow a strain the world at last shall heed—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Alack, for Corydon no rival now!—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Some good survivor with his flute would go,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Piping a ditty sad for Bion’s fate;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And cross the unpermitted ferry’s flow,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And relax Pluto’s brow,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "And make leap up with joy the beauteous head",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Of Proserpine, among whose crownèd hair",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Are flowers, first open’d on Sicilian air,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "O easy access to the hearer’s grace",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "She knew the Dorian water’s gush divine,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "She knew each lily white which Enna yields,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Each rose with blushing face;",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr’d!",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And we should tease her with our plaint in vain.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Well! wind-dispers’d and vain the words will be,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp’d hill!",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "I know the wood which hides the daffodil,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "I know the Fyfield tree,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "I know what white, what purple fritillaries",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The grassy harvest of the river-fields,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And what sedg’d brooks are Thames’s tributaries;",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "But many a dingle on the loved hill-side,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom’d trees,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Where thick the cowslips grew; and, far descried,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "High tower’d the spikes of purple orchises,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Hath since our day put by",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "The coronals of that forgotten time.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy’s team,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And only in the hidden brookside gleam",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Where is the girl, who, by the boatman’s door,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Above the locks, above the boating throng,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Unmoor’d our skiff, when, through the Wytham flats,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And darting swallows, and light water-gnats,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "We track’d the shy Thames shore?",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Of our boat passing heav’d the river-grass,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "They all are gone, and thou art gone as well.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "I see her veil draw soft across the day,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "I feel her slowly chilling breath invade",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "I feel her finger light",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The heart less bounding at emotion new,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "And long the way appears, which seem’d so short",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "To the unpractis’d eye of sanguine youth;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And high the mountaintops, in cloudy air,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The mountaintops where is the throne of Truth,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Tops in life’s morning-sun so bright and bare!",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Unbreachable the fort",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Of the long-batter’d world uplifts its wall.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And near and real the charm of thy repose,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And night as welcome as a friend would fall.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Of quiet;—Look! adown the dusk hill-side,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "A troop of Oxford hunters going home,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Quick, let me fly, and cross",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Into yon further field!—’Tis done; and see,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Back’d by the sunset, which doth glorify",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The orange and pale violet evening-sky,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And in the scatter’d farms the lights come out.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "I cannot reach the Signal-Tree to-night,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Yet, happy omen, hail!",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno vale",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "(For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "The morningless and unawakening sleep",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Under the flowery oleanders pale),",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our Tree is there!—",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "To a boon southern country he is fled,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And now in happier air,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Wandering with the great Mother’s train divine",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see!)",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Within a folding of the Apennine,",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Thou hearest the immortal strains of old.",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Putting his sickle to the perilous grain",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "For thee the Lityerses song again",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Sings his Sicilian fold,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And how a call celestial round him rang",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And all the marvel of the golden skies.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Sole in these fields; yet will I not despair;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Despair I will not, while I yet descry",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "’Neath the mild canopy of English air",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "That lonely Tree against the western sky.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Still, still these slopes, ’tis clear,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Woods with anemonies in flower till May,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "This does not come with houses or with gold,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "’Tis not in the world’s market bought and sold.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "But the smooth-slipping weeks",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "He wends unfollow’d, he must house alone;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wert bound,",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour;",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Men gave thee nothing, but this happy quest,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "If men esteem’d thee feeble, gave thee power,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And this rude Cumner ground,",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Here cam’st thou in thy jocund youthful time,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime;",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "What though the music of thy rustic flute",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "Kept not for long its happy, country tone,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Which task’d thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat—",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "It fail’d, and thou wast mute;",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Left human haunt, and on alone till night.",
"indent": 1
}
],
[
{
"text": "Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!",
"indent": 0
},
{
"text": "’Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Thyrsis, in reach of sheep-bells is my home!",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Then through the great town’s harsh, heart-wearying roar,",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Let in thy voice a whisper often come,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "To chase fatigue and fear:",
"indent": 3
},
{
"text": "Why faintest thou? I wander’d till I died.",
"indent": 1
},
{
"text": "Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Dost thou ask proof? Our Tree yet crowns the hill,",
"indent": 2
},
{
"text": "Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.",
"indent": 1
}
]
]
}