Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:
‘I have kept uninfring’d my nature’s law;
The inly-written chart thou gavest me 5
To guide me, I have steer’d by to the end’?
Ah! let us make no claim
On life’s incognizable sea
To too exact a steering of our way!
Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim 10
If some fair coast has lured us to make stay,
Or some friend hail’d us to keep company!
Aye, we would each fain drive
At random, and not steer by rule!
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow’d in vain! 15
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;
Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool.
No! as the foaming swathe
Of torn-up water, on the main, 20
Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar
On either side the black deep-furrow’d path
Cut by an onward-labouring vessel’s prore,
And never touches the ship-side again;
Even so we leave behind, 25
As, charter’d by some unknown Powers,
We stem across the sea of life by night,
The joys which were not for our use design’d,
The friends to whom we had no natural right,
The homes that were not destined to be ours. 30
Despondency
THE THOUGHTS that rain their steady glow
Like stars on life’s cold sea,
Which others know, or say they know —
They never shone for me.
Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky, 5
But they will not remain.
They light me once, they hurry by,
And never come again.
Youth’s Agitations
WHEN I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,
From this poor present self which I am now;
When youth has done its tedious vain expense
Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;
Shall I not joy youth’s heats are left behind, 5
And breathe more happy in an even clime?
Ah no! for then I shall begin to find
A thousand virtues in this hated time.
Then I shall wish its agitations back,
And all its thwarting currents of desire; 10
Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,
And call this hurrying fever, generous fire,
And sigh that one thing only has been lent
To youth and age in common — discontent.
Self-Deception
SAY, what blinds us, that we claim the glory
Of possessing powers not our share? —
Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,
But, before we woke on earth, we were.
Long, long since, undower’d yet, our spirit 5
Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God:
Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit;
Ask’d an outfit for its earthly road.
Then, as now, this tremulous, eager Being
Strain’d, and long’d, and grasp’d each gift it saw. 10
Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing
Stav’d us back, and gave our choice the law.
Ah, whose hand that day through heaven guided
Man’s blank spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who sway’d our choice, and who decided 15
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?
For, alas! he left us each retaining
Shreds of gifts which he refus’d in full.
Still these waste us with their hopeless straining —
Still the attempt to use them proves them null. 20
And on earth we wander, groping, reeling;
Powers stir in us, stir and disappear.
Ah, and he, who placed our master-feeling,
Fail’d to place our master-feeling clear.
We but dream we have our wish’d-for powers. 25
Ends we seek we never shall attain.
Ah, some power exists there, which is ours?
Some end is there, we indeed may gain?
Lines written by a Death-Bed
YES, now the longing is o’erpast,
Which, dogg’d by fear and fought by shame,
Shook her weak bosom day and night,
Consum’d her beauty like a flame,
And dimm’d it like the desert blast. 5
And though the curtains hide her face,
Yet were it lifted to the light
The sweet expression of her brow
Would charm the gazer, till his thought
Eras’d the ravages of time, 10
Fill’d up the hollow cheek, and brought
A freshness back as of her prime —
So healing is her quiet now.
So perfectly the lines express
A placid, settled loveliness; 15
Her youngest rival’s freshest grace.
But ah, though peace indeed is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear;
Though nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow; 20
Yet is a calm like this, in truth,
The crowning end of life and youth?
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light, 25
Its step so firm, its eye so bright,
Because on its hot brow there blows
A wind of promise and repose
From the far grave, to which it goes?
Because it has the hope to come, 30
One day, to harbour in the tomb?
Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath —
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death. 35
It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep.
It hears a voice within it tell —
‘Calm ‘s not life’s crown, though calm is well.’
‘Tis all perhaps which man acquires: 40
But ‘tis not what our youth desires.
TRISTRAM AND ISEULT
CONTENTS
I. Tristram
II. Iseult of Ireland
III. Iseult of Brittany
Memorial Verses
Courage
Self-Dependence
A Summer Night
The Buried Life
A Farewell
Obermann
Consolation
Lines written in Kensington Gardens
The World’s Triumphs
The Second Best
Revolutions
The Youth of Nature
The Youth of Man
Morality
Progress
The Future
I. Tristram
TRISTRAM
IS she not come? The messenger was sure.
Prop me upon the pillows once again —
Raise me, my Page: this cannot long endure.
Christ! what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!
What lights will those out to the northward be? 5
THE PAGE
The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea.
TRISTRAM
Soft — who is that stands by the dying fire?
THE PAGE
Iseult.
TRISTRAM
Ah! not the Iseult I desire.
. . . . .
What Knight is this so weak and pale,
Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, 10
Propt on pillows in his bed,
Gazing seawards for the light
Of some ship that fights the gale
On this wild December nigh
t?
Over the sick man’s feet is spread 15
A dark green forest dress.
A gold harp leans against the bed,
Ruddy in the fire’s light.
I know him by his harp of gold,
Famous in Arthur’s court of old: 20
I know him by his forest dress.
The peerless hunter, harper, knight —
Tristram of Lyoness.
What Lady is this, whose silk attire
Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? 25
The ringlets on her shoulders lying
In their flitting lustre vying
With the clasp of burnish’d gold
Which her heavy robe doth hold.
Her looks are mild, her fingers slight 30
As the driven snow are white;
And her cheeks are sunk and pale.
Is it that the bleak sea-gale
Beating from the Atlantic sea
On this coast of Brittany, 35
Nips too keenly the sweet Flower? —
Is it that a deep fatigue
Hath come on her, a chilly fear,
Passing all her youthful hour
Spinning with her maidens here, 40
Listlessly through the window bars
Gazing seawards many a league
From her lonely shore-built tower,
While the knights are at the wars?
Or, perhaps, has her young heart 45
Felt already some deeper smart,
Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive,
Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? —
Who is this snowdrop by the sea?
I know her by her mildness rare, 50
Her snow-white hands, her golden hair;
I know her by her rich silk dress,
And her fragile loveliness.
The sweetest Christian soul alive,
Iseult of Brittany. 55
Iseult of Brittany? — but where
Is that other Iseult fair,
That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall’s queen?
She, whom Tristram’s ship of yore
From Ireland to Cornwall bore, 60
To Tyntagel, to the side
Of King Marc, to be his bride?
She who, as they voyag’d, quaff’d
With Tristram that spic’d magic draught,
Which since then for ever rolls 65
Through their blood, and binds their souls,
Working love, but working teen? —
There were two Iseults, who did sway
Each her hour of Tristram’s day;
But one possess’d his waning time, 70
The other his resplendent prime.
Behold her here, the patient Flower,
Who possess’d his darker hour.
Iseult of the Snow-White Hand
Watches pale by Tristram’s bed. — 75
She is here who had his gloom,
Where art thou who hadst his bloom?
One such kiss as those of yore
Might thy dying knight restore —
Does the love-draught work no more? 80
Art thou cold, or false, or dead,
Iseult of Ireland?
Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain,
And the knight sinks back on his pillows again:
He is weak with fever and pain, 85
And his spirit is not clear.
Hark! he mutters in his sleep,
As he wanders far from here,
Changes place and time of year,
And his closed eye doth sweep 90
O’er some fair unwintry sea,
Not this fierce Atlantic deep,
As he mutters brokenly —
TRISTRAM
The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel’s sails —
Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, 95
And overhead the cloudless sky of May. —
‘Ah, would I were in those green fields at play,
Not pent on ship-board this delicious day.
Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy,
Reach me my golden cup that stands by thee, 100
And pledge me in it first for courtesy.— ‘
Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch’d like mine?
Child, ‘tis no water this, ‘tis poison’d wine!
Iseult!…
. . . . .
Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! 105
Keep his eyelids! let him seem
Not this fever-wasted wight
Thinn’d and pal’d before his time,
But the brilliant youthful knight
In the glory of his prime, 110
Sitting in the gilded barge,
At thy side, thou lovely charge!
Bending gaily o’er thy hand,
Iseult of Ireland!
And she too, that princess fair, 115
If her bloom be now less rare,
Let her have her youth again —
Let her be as she was then!
Let her have her proud dark eyes,
And her petulant quick replies, 120
Let her sweep her dazzling hand
With its gesture of command,
And shake back her raven hair
With the old imperious air.
As of old, so let her be, 125
That first Iseult, princess bright,
Chatting with her youthful knight
As he steers her o’er the sea,
Quitting at her father’s will
The green isle where she was bred, 130
And her bower in Ireland,
For the surge-beat Cornish strand,
Where the prince whom she must wed
Dwells on proud Tyntagel’s hill,
Fast beside the sounding sea. 135
And that golden cup her mother
Gave her, that her future lord,
Gave her, that King Marc and she,
Might drink it on their marriage day,
And for ever love each other, 140
Let her, as she sits on board,
Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly,
See it shine, and take it up,
And to Tristram laughing say —
‘Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, 145
Pledge me in my golden cup!’
Let them drink it — let their hands
Tremble, and their cheeks be flame,
As they feel the fatal bands
Of a love they dare not name, 150
With a wild delicious pain,
Twine about their hearts again.
Let the early summer be
Once more round them, and the sea
Blue, and o’er its mirror kind 155
Let the breath of the May wind,
Wandering through their drooping sails,
Die on the green fields of Wales.
Let a dream like this restore
What his eye must see no more. 160
TRISTRAM
Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce walks are drear.
Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here?
Were feet like those made for so wild a way?
The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,
Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day. — 165
‘Tristram! — nay, nay — thou must not take my hand —
Tristram — sweet love — we are betray’d — out-plann’d.
Fly — save thyself — save me. I dare not stay.’ —
One last kiss first!— ‘‘Tis vain — to horse — away!’
. . . . .
Ah, sweet saints, his dream doth move 170
Faster surely than it should,
From the fever in his blood.
All the spring-time of his love
Is already gone and past,
And instead thereof is seen 175
Its winter, which endureth still —
Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,
The pleasaunce walks, the weeping queen,
The flying leaves, the straining blast,
And that long, wild kiss — their last. 180
And this rough December night
And his burning fever pain
Mingle with his hurrying dream
Till they rule it, till he seem
The press’d fugitive again, 185
The love-desperate banish’d knight
With a fire in his brain
Flying o’er the stormy main.
Whither does he wander now?
Haply in his dreams the wind 190
Wafts him here, and lets him find
The lovely Orphan Child again
In her castle by the coast,
The youngest, fairest chatelaine,
That this realm of France can boast, 195
Our Snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,
Iseult of Brittany.
And — for through the haggard air,
The stain’d arms, the matted hair
Of that stranger-knight ill-starr’d, 200
There gleam’d something that recall’d
The Tristram who in better days
Was Launcelot’s guest at Joyous Gard —
Welcom’d here, and here install’d,
Tended of his fever here, 205
Haply he seems again to move
His young guardian’s heart with love;
In his exil’d loneliness,
In his stately deep distress,
Without a word, without a tear. — 210
Ah, ‘tis well he should retrace
His tranquil life in this lone place;
His gentle bearing at the side
Of his timid youthful bride;
His long rambles by the shore 215
On winter evenings, when the roar
Of the near waves came, sadly grand,
Through the dark, up the drown’d sand:
Or his endless reveries
In the woods, where the gleams play 220
On the grass under the trees,
Passing the long summer’s day
Idle as a mossy stone
In the forest depths alone;
The chase neglected, and his hound 225
Couch’d beside him on the ground. —
Ah, what trouble’s on his brow?
Hither let him wander now,
Hither, to the quiet hours
Pass’d among these heaths of ours 230
By the grey Atlantic sea.
Hours, if not of ecstasy,
From violent anguish surely free.
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 11
