Written in a Volume of Matthew Arnold's Poems

To mine own poet dreaming, in his mountains,
Such dreams as solitary moments nurse,
Go, Poet, that by Castaly's clear fountains
Hast twined thy glorious verse.

Go — when his wearied heart among the hills
Lies dead and flat — and breathe thy golden strain,
Till all the poet in his bosom thrills,
And high thoughts speak again.

He, too, has heard the bees in Summer weave
Their drowsy chant 'mid Oxford's scented limes;
He, too, has watch'd the quickening pulses heave
The heart of these strange times;

He, too, has felt the pressure of deep thought —
As his soul struggled through the angry throng,
When wrath, or fear, or love too keenly wrought —
Work itself off in song.

His voice, like thine, has rung in that great hall,
Through the deep silence, ere the plaudits stirr'd,
When thousand hearts hung breathless in the thrall
Of his own measured word.

Go — in brief pauses won from sterner duty,
Much needs the soul sweet fancy's wand of gold,
That, touching, tinges with a strange wild beauty
Earth's common things, and cold.

Go — and as sweet a strain perchance shall swell
Where his own fount of song lies sealed and dim,
For, when strange waters drop into the well,
It bubbles to the brim.