Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

From ‘Empedocles on Etna’, Act I.

FAR, far from here,

The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay

Among the green Illyrian hills; and there

The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,

And by the sea, and in the brakes.

The grass is cool, the sea-side air

Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers

As virginal and sweet as ours.

And there, they say, two bright and agèd snakes,

Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,

Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore,

In breathless quiet, after all their ills.

Nor do they see their country, nor the place

Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills,

Nor the unhappy palace of their race,

Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.

There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes.

They had stay’d long enough to see,

In Thebes, the billow of calamity

Over their own dear children roll’d,

Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,

For years, they sitting helpless in their home,

A grey old man and woman; yet of old

The Gods had to their marriage come,

And at the banquet all the Muses sang.

Therefore they did not end their days

In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away,

To where the west wind plays,

And murmurs of the Adriatic come

To those untrodden mountain lawns; and there

Placed safely in changed forms, the Pair

Wholly forget their first sad life, and home,

And all that Theban woe, and stray

For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.