Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/476

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438
OBERMANN ONCE MORE.

The scented pines of Switzerland
Stand dark round thy green grave,—


Between the dusty vineyard-walls
Issuing on that green place,
The early peasant still recalls
The pensive stranger's face,—


And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date
Ere he plods on again;
Or whether, by maligner fate,
Among the swarms of men,—


Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
Thy hardly-heard-of grave,—


Farewell! Under the sky we part,
In this stern Alpine dell.
O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!




OBERMANN ONCE MORE.

(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)

Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d'un monde?

Obermann.

Glion? Ah! twenty years, it cuts
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts;
Glion, but not the same!


And yet I know not! All unchanged

The turf, the pines, the sky!