University of Virginia Library

ECLOGUE III
FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON

RICHARD AND GODFREY

Richard
Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm
In wandering dimples o'er the shady pool:
The same their chase as when I was at school;
The same the music, where in shallows warm
The current, sunder'd by the bushy isles,
Returns to join the main, and struggles free
Above the willows, gurgling thro' the piles:
Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we!
—What can bring Godfrey to the Muses' bower?

Godfrey
What but brings you? The festal day of the year;
To live in boyish memories for an hour;
See and be seen: tho' you come seldom here.

Richard
Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold
What once was all myself, that kept me away.

Godfrey
You miss new pleasures coveting the old.

Richard
They need have prudence, who in courage lack;
'Twas that I might go on I looked not back.

Godfrey
Of all our company he, who, we say,
Fruited the laughing flower of liberty!

Richard
Ah! had I my desire, so should it be.

Godfrey
Nay, but I know this melancholy mood;
'Twas your poetic fancy when a boy.

Richard
For Fancy cannot live on real food:
In youth she will despise familiar joy
To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real,
Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal.

Godfrey
And so perverteth all. This stream to me
Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly
The water saith ‘Ah me! where have I lept?
Into what garden of life? what banks are these,
What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees?
Where the young sons of heav'n, with shouts of play
Or low delighted speech, welcome the day,
As if the poetry of the earth had slept
To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas!
Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pass
Without a memory on my sullen course
By the black city to the tossing seas!’

Richard
So might this old oak say ‘My heart is sere;
With greater effort every year I force
My stubborn leafage: soon my branch will crack,
And I shall fall or perish in the wrack:
And here another tree its crown will rear,
And see for centuries the boys at play:
And 'neath its boughs, on some fine holiday,
Old men shall prate as these.’ Come see the game.

Godfrey
Yes, if you will. 'Tis all one picture fair.

Richard
Made in a mirror, and who looketh there
Must see himself. Is not a dream the same?

Godfrey
Life is a dream.

Richard
And you, who say it, seem
Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream.