But once, years after, in the country-lanes, Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, Met him, and of his way of life inquired; Whereat he answered, that the gypsy-crew, His mates, had arts to rule as they desired The workings of men’s brains, And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. “And I,” he said, “the secret of their art, When fully learned, will to the world impart; But it needs Heaven-sent moments for this skill.” This said, he left them, and returned no more. But rumors hung about the country-side, That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray, The same the gypsies wore. Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors Had found him seated at their entering; But, ’mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. And I myself seem half to know thy looks, And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; And boys who in lone wheat-fields scare the rooks I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place; Or in my boat I lie Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats, Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats. For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground! Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, As the punt’s rope chops round; And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers, And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. And then they land, and thou art seen no more! Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, Or cross a stile into the public way; Oft thou hast given them store Of flowers,--the frail-leafed, white anemone, Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves,-- But none hath words she can report of thee!