16 



curious fact that the Cuckoo leaves us just as the glories of the 

 year are beginning — stanzas which, apart from their dominating 

 idea, are full of richly-painted and exquisite bits of observation. 



So, some tempestuous morn in early June, 



When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, 



Before the roses and the longest day— 



When garden walks and all the grassy floor 



With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May 



And chestnut flowers are strewn — 



So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, 



From the wet field, through the vert garden trees. 



Come, with the volleying rain and tossing breeze : 



The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I ! 



Too quick desjjairer, wherefore wilt thou go ? 



Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, 



Soon will the musk carnations break and smell, 



Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon. 



Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell. 



And stocks in fragrant blow ; 



Koses that down the alleys shine afar. 



And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, 



And groups under the dreaming garden trees, 



And the full moon, and the white evening star. 



On the whole, however, Mr. Arnold strays seldom into the 

 region of external nature. When not concerned with narrative, 

 he is in the main contemplative or introspective, He is severely 

 restrained even when dealing with impassioned themes. Perhaps 

 his nearest affinity is with Wordsworth. He has not Words- 

 worth's rapture or his sublimity; but, on the other hand, he has 

 a greater richness and subtlety of intellect, sees life in a more 

 varied way, and has a narrative power which with Wordsworth 

 was non-existent. He reflects, in his poetry, some of the subtlest 

 phases of the thought of the age ; and his verse is largely 

 weighted with melancholy. " But now," he cries — and the cry 

 seems to be heard through most of his poems — 



But now the past is out of date, 



The future not yet born, 

 And who can be alone elate. 



While the world lies forlorn ? 



In another poem he speaks of one 



whom a thirst 

 Ardent, unquenchable, fires. 

 Not with the world to be spent. 

 Not without aim to go round 

 In an eddy of purposeless dust. 



Strange that in .his prose Mr. Arnold should show himself 

 in one of tliese aspects, ardent and unquenchable; and that in 

 his poetry he stands between two faiths, "one dead, the other 

 powerless to be born," and broods with unavailing sadness over 

 the dim riddle of the painful earth ! To the thinker of the 



