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Title: The Neckan
Author: Matthew Arnold [
More Titles by Arnold]
In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings his plaintive song.
Green rolls beneath the headlands,
Green rolls the Baltic Sea;
And there, below the Neckan's feet,
His wife and children be.
He sings not of the ocean,
Its shells and roses pale;
Of earth, of earth the Neckan sings,
He hath no other tale.
He sits upon the headlands,
And sings a mournful stave
Of all he saw and felt on earth
Far from the kind sea-wave.
Sings how, a knight, he wander'd
By castle, field, and town--
But earthly knights have harder hearts
Than the sea-children own.
Sings of his earthly bridal--
Priest, knights, and ladies gay.
"--And who art thou," the priest began,
"Sir Knight, who wedd'st to-day?"--
"--I am no knight," he answered;
"From the sea-waves I come."--
The knights drew sword, the ladies scream'd,
The surpliced priest stood dumb.
He sings how from the chapel
He vanish'd with his bride,
And bore her down to the sea-halls,
Beneath the salt sea-tide.
He sings how she sits weeping
'Mid shells that round her lie.
"--False Neckan shares my bed," she weeps;
"No Christian mate have I."--
He sings how through the billows
He rose to earth again,
And sought a priest to sign the cross,
That Neckan Heaven might gain.
He sings how, on an evening,
Beneath the birch-trees cool,
He sate and play'd his harp of gold,
Beside the river-pool.
Beside the pool sate Neckan--
Tears fill'd his mild blue eye.
On his white mule, across the bridge,
A cassock'd priest rode by.
"--Why sitt'st thou there, O Neckan,
And play'st thy harp of gold?
Sooner shall this my staff bear leaves,
Than thou shalt Heaven behold."--
But, lo, the staff, it budded!
It green'd, it branch'd, it waved.
"--O ruth of God," the priest cried out,
"This lost sea-creature saved!"
The cassock'd priest rode onwards,
And vanished with his mule;
But Neckan in the twilight grey
Wept by the river-pool.
He wept: "The earth hath kindness,
The sea, the starry poles;
Earth, sea, and sky, and God above--
But, ah, not human souls!"
In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings this plaintive song.
[The end]
Matthew Arnold's poem: Neckan
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