Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/190

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
152
TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

—The wild boar rustles in his lair;
The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air;
But lord and hounds keep rooted there.


Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,
O hunter! and without a fear
Thy golden-tasselled bugle blow,
And through the glades thy pastime take—
For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here!
For these thou seest are unmoved;
Cold, cold as those who lived and loved
A thousand years ago.




TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

III.

Iseult of Brittany.

A year had flown, and o'er the sea away,
In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay;
In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old:
There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.


The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,
Had wandered forth. Her children were at play
In a green circular hollow in the heath
Which borders the seashore; a country path
Creeps over it from the tilled fields behind.
The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined;
And to one standing on them, far and near
The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear
Over the waste. This cirque of open ground

Is light and green; the heather, which all round