Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

by Matthew Arnold

In their own tasks all their powers pouring,

  These attain the mighty life you see.’

  O air-born Voice! long since, severely clear,

  A cry like thine in my own heart I hear. 30

  ‘Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he

  Who finds himself, loses his misery.’

  A Summer Night

  IN the deserted moon-blanch’d street

  How lonely rings the echo of my feet!

  Those windows, which I gaze at, frown,

  Silent and white, unopening down,

  Repellent as the world: — but see! 5

  A break between the housetops shows

  The moon, and, lost behind her, fading dim

  Into the dewy dark obscurity

  Down at the far horizon’s rim,

  Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose. 10

  And to my mind the thought

  Is on a sudden brought

  Of a past night, and a far different scene.

  Headlands stood out into the moon-lit deep

  As clearly as at noon; 15

  The spring-tide’s brimming flow

  Heav’d dazzlingly between;

  Houses with long white sweep

  Girdled the glistening bay:

  Behind, through the soft air, 20

  The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away.

  That night was far more fair;

  But the same restless pacings to and fro,

  And the same vainly-throbbing heart was there,

  And the same bright calm moon. 25

  And the calm moonlight seems to say —

  Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast

  That neither deadens into rest

  Nor ever feels the fiery glow

  That whirls the spirit from itself away, 30

  But fluctuates to and fro

  Never by passion quite possess’d

  And never quite benumb’d by the world’s sway? —

  And I, I know not if to pray

  Still to be what I am, or yield, and be 35

  Like all the other men I see.

  For most men in a brazen prison live,

  Where in the sun’s hot eye,

  With heads bent o’er their toil, they languidly

  Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, 40

  Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wall.

  And as, year after year,

  Fresh products of their barren labour fall

  From their tired hands, and rest

  Never yet comes more near, 45

  Gloom settles slowly down over their breast.

  And while they try to stem

  The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,

  Death in their prison reaches them

  Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest. 50

  And the rest, a few,

  Escape their prison, and depart

  On the wide Ocean of Life anew.

  There the freed prisoner, where’er his heart

  Listeth, will sail; 55

  Nor does he know how there prevail,

  Despotic on life’s sea,

  Trade-winds that cross it from eternity.

  A while he holds some false way, undebarr’d

  By thwarting signs, and braves 60

  The freshening wind and blackening waves.

  And then the tempest strikes him, and between

  The lightning bursts is seen

  Only a driving wreck,

  And the pale Master on his spar-strewn deck 65

  With anguish’d face and flying hair

  Grasping the rudder hard,

  Still bent to make some port he knows not where,

  Still standing for some false impossible shore.

  And sterner comes the roar 70

  Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom

  Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom,

  And he too disappears, and comes no more.

  Is there no life, but these alone?

  Madman or slave, must man be one? 75

  Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!

  Clearness divine!

  Ye Heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign

  Of languor, though so calm, and though so great

  Are yet untroubled and unpassionate: 80

  Who though so noble share in the world’s toil,

  And though so task’d keep free from dust and soil:

  I will not say that your mild deeps retain

  A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

  Who have long’d deeply once, and long’d in vain; 85

  But I will rather say that you remain

  A world above man’s head, to let him see

  How boundless might his soul’s horizons be,

  How vast, yet of what clear transparency.

  How it were good to sink there, and breathe free. 90

  How fair a lot to fill

  Is left to each man still.

  The Buried Life

  LIGHT flows our war of mocking words, and yet,

  Behold, with tears my eyes are wet.

  I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll.

  Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,

  We know, we know that we can smile; 5

  But there’s a something in this breast

  To which thy light words bring no rest,

  And thy gay smiles no anodyne.

  Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,

  And turn those limpid eyes on mine, 10

  And let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.

  Alas, is even Love too weak

  To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

  Are even lovers powerless to reveal

  To one another what indeed they feel? 15

  I knew the mass of men conceal’d

  Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d

  They would by other men be met

  With blank indifference, or with blame reprov’d:

  I knew they liv’d and mov’d 20

  Trick’d in disguises, alien to the rest

  Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet

  The same heart beats in every human breast.

  But we, my love — does a like spell benumb

  Our hearts — our voices? — must we too be dumb? 25

  Ah, well for us, if even we,

  Even for a moment, can get free

  Our heart, and have our lips unchain’d:

  For that which seals them hath been deep ordain’d.

  Fate, which foresaw 30

  How frivolous a baby man would be,

  By what distractions he would be possess’d,

  How he would pour himself in every strife,

  And well-nigh change his own identity;

  That it might keep from his capricious play 35

  His genuine self, and force him to obey,

  Even in his own despite, his being’s law,

  Bade through the deep recesses of our breast

  The unregarded River of our Life

  Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; 40

  And that we should not see

  The buried stream, and seem to be

  Eddying about in blind uncertainty,

  Though driving on with it eternally.

  But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, 45

  But often, in the din of strife,

  There rises an unspeakable desire

  After the knowledge of our buried life,

  A thirst to spend our fire and restless force

  In tracking out our true, original course; 50

  A longing to inquire

  Into the mystery of this heart that beats

  So wild, so deep in us, to know

  Whence our thoughts come and where they go.

  And many a man in his own breast then delves, 55

  But deep enough, alas, none ever mines:

  And we have been on many thousand lines,

/>   And we have shown on each talent and power,

  But hardly have we, for one little hour,

  Been on our own line, have we been ourselves; 60

  Hardly had skill to utter one of all

  The nameless feelings that course through our breast,

  But they course on for ever unexpress’d.

  And long we try in vain to speak and act

  Our hidden self, and what we say and do 65

  Is eloquent, is well — but ‘tis not true:

  And then we will no more be rack’d

  With inward striving, and demand

  Of all the thousand nothings of the hour

  Their stupefying power; 70

  Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call:

  Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,

  From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne

  As from an infinitely distant land,

  Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey 75

  A melancholy into all our day.

  Only — but this is rare —

  When a beloved hand is laid in ours,

  When, jaded with the rush and glare

  Of the interminable hours, 80

  Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,

  When our world-deafen’d ear

  Is by the tones of a lov’d voice caress’d, —

  A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast

  And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again: 85

  The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,

  And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

  A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,

  And hears its winding murmur, and he sees

  The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze. 90

  And there arrives a lull in the hot race

  Wherein he doth for ever chase

  That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.

  An air of coolness plays upon his face,

  And an unwonted calm pervades his breast. 95

  And then he thinks he knows

  The Hills where his life rose,

  And the Sea where it goes.

  A Farewell

  MY horse’s feet beside the lake,

  Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,

  Sent echoes through the night to wake

  Each glistening strand, each heath-fring’d bay.

  The poplar avenue was pass’d, 5

  And the roof’d bridge that spans the stream.

  Up the steep street I hurried fast,

  Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.

  I came; I saw thee rise: — the blood

  Came flushing to thy languid cheek. 10

  Lock’d in each other’s arms we stood,

  In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

  Days flew: ah, soon I could discern

  A trouble in thine alter’d air.

  Thy hand lay languidly in mine — 15

  Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

  I blame thee net: — this heart, I know,

  To be long lov’d was never fram’d;

  For something in its depths doth glow

  Too strange, too restless, too untam’d. 20

  And women — things that live and move

  Min’d by the fever of the soul —

  They seek to find in those they love

  Stern strength, and promise of control.

  They ask not kindness, gentle ways; 25

  These they themselves have tried and known:

  They ask a soul that never sways

  With the blind gusts which shake their own.

  I too have felt the load I bore

  In a too strong emotion’s sway; 30

  I too have wish’d, no woman more,

  This starting, feverish heart, away:

  I too have long’d for trenchant force

  And will like a dividing spear;

  Have prais’d the keen, unscrupulous course, 35

  Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.

  But in the world I learnt, what there

  Thou too wilt surely one day prove,

  That will, that energy, though rare,

  Are yet far, far less rare than love. 40

  Go then! till Time and Fate impress

  This truth on thee, be mine no more!

  They will: for thou, I feel, no less

  Than I, wert destin’d to this lore.

  We school our manners, act our parts: 45

  But He, who sees us through and through,

  Knows that the bent of both our hearts

  Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.

  And though we wear out life, alas,

  Distracted as a homeless wind, 50

  In beating where we must not pass,

  In seeking what we shall not find;

  Yet we shall one day gain, life past,

  Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole;

  Shall see ourselves, and learn at last 55

  Our true affinities of soul.

  We shall not then deny a course

  To every thought the mass ignore;

  We shall not then call hardness force,

  Nor lightness wisdom any more. 60

  Then, in the eternal Father’s smile,

  Our sooth’d, encourag’d souls will dare

  To seem as free from pride and guile,

  As good, as generous, as they are.

  Then we shall know our friends: though much 65

  Will have been lost — the help in strife;

  The thousand sweet still joys of such

  As hand in hand face earthly life; —

  Though these be lost, there will be yet

  A sympathy august and pure; 70

  Ennobled by a vast regret,

  And by contrition seal’d thrice sure.

  And we, whose ways were unlike here,

  May then more neighbouring courses ply;

  May to each other be brought near, 75

  And greet across infinity.

  How sweet, unreach’d by earthly jars,

  My sister! to behold with thee

  The hush among the shining stars,

  The calm upon the moonlit sea. 80

  How sweet to feel, on the boon air,

  All our unquiet pulses cease;

  To feel that nothing can impair

  The gentleness, the thirst for peace —

  The gentleness too rudely hurl’d 85

  On this wild earth of hate and fear:

  The thirst for peace a raving world

  Would never let us satiate here.

  Obermann

  IN front the awful Alpine track

  Crawls up its rocky stair;

  The autumn storm-winds drive the rack

  Close o’er it, in the air.

  Behind are the abandon’d baths 5

  Mute in their meadows lone;

  The leaves are on the valley paths;

  The mists are on the Rhone —

  The white mists rolling like a sea.

  I hear the torrents roar. 10

  — Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!

  I feel thee near once more.

  I turn thy leaves: I feel their breath

  Once more upon me roll;

  That air of languor, cold, and death, 15

  Which brooded o’er thy soul.

  Fly hence, poor Wretch, whoe’er thou art,

  Condemn’d to cast about,

  All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,

  For comfort from without: 20

  A fever in these pages burns

  Beneath the calm they feign;

  A wounded human spirit turns

  Here, on its bed of pain.

  Yes, though the virgin mountain air 25

  Fresh through these pages blows,

  Though to these leaves the glaciers spare

  The soul of their white snows,

  Though here a mountain murmur swells

  Of
many a dark-bough’d pine, 30

  Though, as you read, you hear the bells

  Of the high-pasturing kine —

  Yet, through the hum of torrent lone,

  And brooding mountain bee,

  There sobs I know not what ground tone 35

  Of human agony.

  Is it for this, because the sound

  Is fraught too deep with pain,

  That, Obermann! the world around

  So little loves thy strain? 40

  Some secrets may the poet tell,

  For the world loves new ways.

  To tell too deep ones is not well;

  It knows not what he says.

  Yet of the spirits who have reign’d 45

  In this our troubled day,

  I know but two, who have attain’d,

  Save thee, to see their way.

  By England’s lakes, in grey old age,

  His quiet home one keeps; 50

  And one, the strong much-toiling Sage,

  In German Weimar sleeps.

  But Wordsworth’s eyes avert their ken

  From half of human fate;

  And Goethe’s course few sons of men 55

  May think to emulate.

  For he pursued a lonely road,

  His eyes on Nature’s plan;

  Neither made man too much a God,

  Nor God too much a man. 60

  Strong was he, with a spirit free

  From mists, and sane, and clear;

  Clearer, how much! than ours: yet we

  Have a worse course to steer.

  For though his manhood bore the blast 65

  Of Europe’s stormiest time,

  Yet in a tranquil world was pass’d

  His tenderer youthful prime.

  But we, brought forth and rear’d in hours

  Of change, alarm, surprise — 70

  What shelter to grow ripe is ours?

  What leisure to grow wise?

  Like children bathing on the shore,

  Buried a wave beneath,

  The second wave succeeds, before 75

  We have had time to breathe.

  Too fast we live, too much are tried,