The Gypsy Scholar

"Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;

Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes;

No longer leave the wistful flock unfed,

Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats

Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head.

Sheep grazing on the Dartland Moor

Dartland National Park

Devon, England

But when the fields are still,

And tired men and dogs all gone to rest,

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen

Cross and recross the strips of the moon-blanch'd green;

Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest.

Here, where the reaper was at work of late,

Is this high field's dark corner, where he leaves

His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruise,

And in the sun all morning finds the sheaves.

Then here, at noon, comes back his store to use;

Here will I sit and wait.

Sheep rest near the ancient Stone Rows at Drizzlecombe

an area of Dartmoor in Devon County, England

While to my ear from uplands far away

The bleating of the folded flocks is borne;

With distant cries of reapers in the corn.

All the live murmur of a summer's day.

Excerpt from the poem,

"The Scholar Gypsy"

(1853)

Matthew Arnold

(1822-1888)

English poet

This poem is based on a 17th century Oxford story,

"The Vanity of Dogmatizing" written by

  Joseph Glanvill

(1636-1680)

English writer, philosopher, and clergyman