LXXXV.

I PAST beside the reverend walls

In which of old I wore the gown ;

I roved at random through the town,

And saw the tumult of the halls;

And heard once more in college fanes

The storm their high-built organs make,

And thunder-music, rolling, shake The prophets blazon'd on the panes ;

And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Among the willows; paced the shores

And many a bridge, and all about

The same gray flats again, and felt

The same, but not the same; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past

To see the rooms in which he dwelt.

Another name was on the door :

I linger'd; all within was noise

Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crash'd the glass and beat the floor;

Where once we held debate, a band

Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labour, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land;

When one would aim an arrow fair,

But send it slackly from the string;

And one would pierce an outer ring,

And one an inner, here and there;

And last the master-bowman, he

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear We lent him. Who, but hung to hear The rapt oration flowing free

From point to point with power and grace, And music in the bounds of law,

To those conclusions when we saw

The God within him light his face,

And seem to lift the form, and glow

In azure orbits heavenly-wise;

And over those ethereal eyes The bar of Michael Angelo.

LXXXVI.

WILD bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, Rings Eden through the budded quicks,

O tell me where the senses mix,

O tell me where the passions meet,

Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ
Thy spirits in the dusking leaf,

And in the midmost heart of grief

Thy passion clasps a secret joy:

And I-my harp would prelude woe-
I cannot all command the strings ;

The glory of the sum of things

Will flash along the chords and go.

LXXXVII.

WITCH-ELMS that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright:

And thou, with all thy breadth and height Of foliage, towering sycamore;

How often, hither wandering down,

My Arthur found your shadows fair,

And shook to all the liberal air

The dust and din and steam of town:

He brought an eye for all he saw ;

He mixt in all our simple sports;

They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts

And dusky purlieus of the law.

O joy to him in this retreat,

Immantled in ambrosial dark,

To drink the cooler air, and mark The landscape winking through the heat:

K