Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol

ITALIA

Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen   Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride   From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee QueenBecause rich gold in every town is seen,   And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride   Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys rideBeneath one flag of red and white and green.O Fair and Strong!  O Strong and Fair in vain!   Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town   Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?   Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,   And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.Venice.

SONNET

WRITTEN IN HOLY WEEK AT GENOAI wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat,   The oranges on each o’erhanging spray   Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleetMade snow of all the blossoms; at my feet   Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:   And the curved waves that streaked the great green bayLaughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,   ‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,   O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.’Ah, God!  Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours   Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,   The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

ROME UNVISITED

IThe corn has turned from grey to red,   Since first my spirit wandered forth   From the drear cities of the north,And to Italia’s mountains fled.And here I set my face towards home,   For all my pilgrimage is done,   Although, methinks, yon blood-red sunMarshals the way to Holy Rome.O Blessed Lady, who dost hold   Upon the seven hills thy reign!   O Mother without blot or stain,Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!O Roma, Roma, at thy feet   I lay this barren gift of song!   For, ah! the way is steep and longThat leads unto thy sacred street.IIAnd yet what joy it were for me   To turn my feet unto the south,   And journeying towards the Tiber mouthTo kneel again at Fiesole!And wandering through the tangled pines   That break the gold of Arno’s stream,   To see the purple mist and gleamOf morning on the ApenninesBy many a vineyard-hidden home,   Orchard and olive-garden grey,   Till from the drear Campagna’s wayThe seven hills bear up the dome!IIIA pilgrim from the northern seas —   What joy for me to seek alone   The wondrous temple and the throneOf him who holds the awful keys!When, bright with purple and with gold   Come priest and holy cardinal,   And borne above the heads of allThe gentle Shepherd of the Fold.O joy to see before I die   The only God-anointed king,   And hear the silver trumpets ringA triumph as he passes by!Or at the brazen-pillared shrine   Holds high the mystic sacrifice,   And shows his God to human eyesBeneath the veil of bread and wine.IVFor lo, what changes time can bring!   The cycles of revolving years   May free my heart from all its fears,And teach my lips a song to sing.Before yon field of trembling gold   Is garnered into dusty sheaves,   Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leavesFlutter as birds adown the wold,I may have run the glorious race,   And caught the torch while yet aflame,   And called upon the holy nameOf Him who now doth hide His face.Arona.

URBS SACRA ÆTERNA

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;   In the first days thy sword republican   Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;   And now upon thy walls the breezes fan   (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)The hated flag of red and white and green.When was thy glory! when in search for power   Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,   And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,   When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,   The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.Montre Mario.

SONNET

ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPELNay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,   Teach me more clearly of Thy life and loveThan terrors of red flame and thundering.The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:   A bird at evening flying to its nest   Tells me of One who had no place of rest:I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.Come rather on some autumn afternoon,   When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,   And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,Come when the splendid fulness of the moon   Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,   And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

EASTER DAY

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:   The people knelt upon the ground with awe:   And borne upon the necks of men I saw,Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,   And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,   Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.My heart stole back across wide wastes of years   To One who wandered by a lonely sea,   And sought in vain for any place of rest:‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest.   I, only I, must wander wearily,   And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’

E TENEBRIS

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,   For I am drowning in a stormier sea   Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,My heart is as some famine-murdered land   Whence all good things have perished utterly,   And well I know my soul in Hell must lieIf I this night before God’s throne should stand.‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,   Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name   From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,   The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,   The wounded hands, the weary human face.

VITA NUOVA

I stood by the unvintageable sea   Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;   The long red fires of the dying dayBurned in the west; the wind piped drearily;And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:   ‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘my life is full of pain,   And who can garner fruit or golden grainFrom these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!’My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,   Nathless I threw them as my final cast   Into the sea, and waited for the end.When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw   From the black waters of my tortured past   The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!

MADONNA MIA

A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,   With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,   And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tearsLike bluest water seen through mists of rain:Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,   Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,   And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,   Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,   Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice   Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw   The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

THE NEW HELEN

Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy   The sons of God fought in that great emprise?      Why dost thou walk our common earth again?Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,      His purple galley and his Tyrian men   And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes?For surely it was thou, who, like a star   Hung in the silver silence of the night,   Didst lure the Old World’s chivalry and mightInto the clamorous crimson waves of war!Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?   In amorous Sidon was thy temple built      Over the light and laughter of the sea   Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,      Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,   And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kissOf some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned   From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles!No! thou art Helen, and none other one!   It was for thee that young Sarpedôn died,      And Memnôn’s manhood was untimely spent;   It was for thee gold-crested Hector triedWith Thetis’ child that evil race to run,      In the last year of thy beleaguerment;Ay! even now the glory of thy fame   Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,   Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so wellClash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land   Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew,      Where never mower rose at break of day   But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand      Till summer’s red had changed to withered grey?Didst thou lie there by some Lethæan stream   Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,   The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleamFrom shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill   With one who is forgotten utterly,      That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;   Hidden away that never mightst thou seeThe face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine      To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening,   But only Love’s intolerable pain,   Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,Only the bitterness of child-bearing.The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death   Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,      While yet I know the summer of my days;   For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breathTo fill the silver trumpet with thy praise,      So bowed am I before thy mystery;So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel,   That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,   Yet care I not what ruin time may bringIf in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,   But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,      Who flies before the north wind and the night,   So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,Back to the tower of thine old delight,      And the red lips of young Euphorion;Nor shall I ever see thy face again,   But in this poisonous garden-close must stay,   Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,Till all my loveless life shall pass away.O Helen!  Helen! Helen! yet a while,   Yet for a little while, O, tarry here,      Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!   For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smileOf heaven or hell I have no thought or fear,      Seeing I know no other god but thee:No other god save him, before whose feet   In nets of gold the tired planets move,   The incarnate spirit of spiritual loveWho in thy body holds his joyous seat.Thou wert not born as common women are!   But, girt with silver splendour of the foam,      Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise!   And at thy coming some immortal star,Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies,      And waked the shepherds on thine island-home.Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep   Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;   No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.Lily of love, pure and inviolate!   Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!      Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,   Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire,      Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne   For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,   And the white glory of thy loveliness.

THE BURDEN OF ITYS

This English Thames is holier far than Rome,   Those harebells like a sudden flush of seaBreaking across the woodland, with the foam   Of meadow-sweet and white anemoneTo fleck their blue waves, – God is likelier thereThan hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take   Yon creamy lily for their pavilionAre monsignores, and where the rushes shake   A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,His eyes half shut, – he is some mitred oldBishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.The wind the restless prisoner of the trees   Does well for Palæstrina, one would sayThe mighty master’s hands were on the keys   Of the Maria organ, which they playWhen early on some sapphire Easter mornIn a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borneFrom his dark House out to the Balcony   Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy   To toss their silver lances in the air,And stretching out weak hands to East and WestIn vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.Is not yon lingering orange after-glow   That stays to vex the moon more fair than allRome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago   I knelt before some crimson CardinalWho bare the Host across the Esquiline,And now – those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous   With the last shower, sweeter perfume bringThrough this cool evening than the odorous   Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass   Were out of tune now, for a small brown birdSings overhead, and through the long cool grass   I see that throbbing throat which once I heardOn starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves   At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves   Her little lonely bed, and carols blitheTo see the heavy-lowing cattle waitStretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,   And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees   That round and round the linden blossoms play;And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring   While the last violet loiters by the well,And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing   The song of Linus through a sunny dellOf warm Arcadia where the corn is goldAnd the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.And sweet with young Lycoris to recline   In some Illyrian valley far away,Where canopied on herbs amaracine   We too might waste the summer-trancèd dayMatching our reeds in sportive rivalry,While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot   Of some long-hidden God should ever treadThe Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute   Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his headBy the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeedTo see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,   Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler   Of thine own tragedies! do not contemnThese unfamiliar haunts, this English field,For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yieldWhich Grecian meadows know not, many a rose   Which all day long in vales ÆolianA lad might seek in vain for over-grows   Our hedges like a wanton courtesanUnthrifty of its beauty; lilies tooIlissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blueDot the green wheat which, though they are the signs   For swallows going south, would never spreadTheir azure tents between the Attic vines;   Even that little weed of ragged red,Which bids the robin pipe, in ArcadyWould be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegySleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames   Which to awake were sweeter ravishmentThan ever Syrinx wept for; diadems   Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meantFor Cytheræa’s brows are hidden hereUnknown to Cytheræa, and by yonder pasturing steerThere is a tiny yellow daffodil,   The butterfly can see it from afar,Although one summer evening’s dew could fill   Its little cup twice over ere the starHad called the lazy shepherd to his foldAnd be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted goldAs if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae   Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kissThe trembling petals, or young Mercury   Low-flying to the dusky ford of DisHad with one feather of his pinionsJust brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its sunsIs hardly thicker than the gossamer,   Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry, —Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre   Of One I sometime worshipped, but to meIt seems to bring diviner memoriesOf faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where   On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies,The tangle of the forest in his hair,   The silence of the woodland in his eyes,Wooing that drifting imagery which isNo sooner kissed than broken; memories of SalmacisWho is not boy nor girl and yet is both,   Fed by two fires and unsatisfiedThrough their excess, each passion being loth   For love’s own sake to leave the other’s sideYet killing love by staying; memoriesOf Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees,Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf   At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crewFar out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf   And called false Theseus back again nor knewThat Dionysos on an amber pardWas close behind her; memories of what Mæonia’s bardWith sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,   Queen Helen lying in the ivory room,And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy   Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;Of wingèd Perseus with his flawless sword   Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,And all those tales imperishably stored   In little Grecian urns, freightage more richThan any gaudy galleon of SpainBare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,For well I know they are not dead at all,   The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:They are asleep, and when they hear thee call   Will wake and think ’t is very Thessaly,This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool gladeThe yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird   Who from the leafy stillness of thy throneSang to the wondrous boy, until he heard   The horn of Atalanta faintly blownAcross the Cumnor hills, and wanderingThrough Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring, —Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate   That pleadest for the moon against the day!If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate   On that sweet questing, when ProserpinaForgot it was not Sicily and leantAcross the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment, —Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!   If ever thou didst soothe with melodyOne of that little clan, that brotherhood   Which loved the morning-star of TuscanyMore than the perfect sun of RaphaelAnd is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,   Let elemental things take form again,And the old shapes of Beauty walk among   The simple garths and open crofts, as whenThe son of Leto bare the willow rod,And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish God.Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here   Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne,And over whimpering tigers shake the spear   With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,While at his side the wanton BassaridWill throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid!Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,   And steal the moonèd wings of Ashtaroth,Upon whose icy chariot we could win   Cithæron in an hour ere the frothHas over-brimmed the wine-vat or the FaunCeased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawnHas scared the hooting owlet to its nest,   And warned the bat to close its filmy vans,Some Mænad girl with vine-leaves on her breast   Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping PansSo softly that the little nested thrushWill never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rushDown the green valley where the fallen dew   Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew   Trample the loosestrife down along the shore,And where their hornèd master sits in stateBring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face   Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come,The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase   Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom,And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride,After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride.Sing on! and I the dying boy will see   Stain with his purple blood the waxen bellThat overweighs the jacinth, and to me   The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes,And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!Cry out aloud on Itys! memory   That foster-brother of remorse and painDrops poison in mine ear, – O to be free,   To burn one’s old ships! and to launch againInto the white-plumed battle of the wavesAnd fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!O for Medea with her poppied spell!   O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!O for one leaf of that pale asphodel   Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that sheDreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased   From lily to lily on the level mead,Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste   The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,Ere the black steeds had harried her awayDown to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day.O for one midnight and as paramour   The Venus of the little Melian farm!O that some antique statue for one hour   Might wake to passion, and that I could charmThe Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair,Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair!Sing on! sing on!  I would be drunk with life,   Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,I would forget the wearying wasted strife,   The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!Sing on! sing on!  O feathered Niobe,   Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and stealFrom joy its sweetest music, not as we   Who by dead voiceless silence strive to healOur too untented wounds, and do but keepPain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep.Sing louder yet, why must I still behold   The wan white face of that deserted Christ,Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold,   Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,And now in mute and marble miserySits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me?O Memory cast down thy wreathèd shell!   Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene!O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell   Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrongTo vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song!Cease, cease, or if ’t is anguish to be dumb   Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air,Whose jocund carelessness doth more become   This English woodland than thy keen despair,Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy layBack to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,   Endymion would have passed across the meadMoonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard   Pan plash and paddle groping for some reedTo lure from her blue cave that Naiad maidWho for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,   The silver daughter of the silver seaWith the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed   Her wanton from the chase, and DryopeHad thrust aside the branches of her oakTo see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss   Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoonOf tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis   Had bared his barren beauty to the moon,And through the vale with sad voluptuous smileAntinous had wandered, the red lotus of the NileDown leaning from his black and clustering hair,   To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare   High-tuniced limbs unravished ArtemisHad bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deerFrom his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear.Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!   O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill   Come not with such despondent answering!No more thou wingèd Marsyas complain,Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,   No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,   And from the copse left desolate and bareFled is young Bacchus with his revelry,Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melodySo sad, that one might think a human heart   Brake in each separate note, a qualityWhich music sometimes has, being the Art   Which is most nigh to tears and memory;Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,   No woven web of bloody heraldries,But mossy dells for roving comrades made,   Warm valleys where the tired student liesWith half-shut book, and many a winding walkWhere rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.The harmless rabbit gambols with its young   Across the trampled towing-path, where lateA troop of laughing boys in jostling throng   Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved shedsOf the lone Farm a flickering light shines out   Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flockBack to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout   Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.The heron passes homeward to the mere,   The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,Gold world by world the silent stars appear,   And like a blossom blown before the breezeA white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,   She knows Endymion is not far away;’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed   Which has no message of its own to play,So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill   About the sombre woodland seems to clingDying in music, else the air is still,   So still that one might hear the bat’s small wingWander and wheel above the pines, or tellEach tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.And far away across the lengthening wold,   Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold   Marks the long High Street of the little town,And warns me to return; I must not wait,Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.