by Homer
In a London Square
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
PUT forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
With zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenely on;
Earth, air, and sun and skies combine 5
To promise all that’s kind and fair; —
But thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, contain thyself, and bear.
December days were brief and chill,
The winds of March were wild and drear, 10
And, nearing and receding still,
Spring never would, we thought, be here.
The leaves that burst, the suns that shine,
Had, not the less, their certain date; —
And thou, O human heart of mine, 15
Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Qua Cursum Ventus
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
AS ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, 5
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E’en so — but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged, 10
Brief absence joined anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?
At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered —
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, 15
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides:
To that, and your own selves, be true. 20
But O blithe breeze; and O great seas,
Though ne’er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.
One port, methought, alike they sought, 25
One purpose hold where’er they fare, —
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Where Lies the Land?
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
WHERE lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face 5
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.
On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! 10
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away, 15
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Matthew Arnold
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Forsaken Merman
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
COME, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay;
Now the great winds shoreward blow;
Now the salt tides seaward flow; 5
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray,
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go. 10
Call once yet.
In a voice that she will know:
‘Margaret! Margaret!’
Children’s voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear: 15
Children’s voices, wild with pain.
Surely she will come again.
Call her once and come away.
This way, this way!
‘Mother dear, we cannot stay.’ 20
The wild white horses foam and fret.
Margaret! Margaret!
Come, dear children, come away down.
Call no more.
One last look at the white-wall’d town, 25
And the little grey church on the windy shore.
Then come down.
She will not come though you call all day.
Come away, come away.
Children dear, was it yesterday 30
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 40
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye? 45
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me, 50
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.
She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea. 55
She said, ‘I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
‘Twill be Easter-time in the world — ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.’
I said, ‘Go up, dear heart, through the waves. 60
Say thy prayer and come back to the kind sea-caves.’
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
‘The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan. 65
Long prayers,’ I said, ‘in the world they say.
Come,’ I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall’d town.
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 70
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.
We climb’d on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
‘Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.
Dear heart,’ I said, ‘we are long alone.
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.’
But, ah! she gave me never a look, 80
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more.
Come away, come down. call no more.
Down, down, down; 85
Down to the depths of the sea.
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: ‘O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy. 90
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun.’
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully, 95
Till the shuttle falls from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare; 100
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh 105
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.
Come children, come down.
Come away, away, children.
The hoarse wind blows colder; 110
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar. 115
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing, ‘Here came a mortal, 120
But faithless was she:
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea.’
But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow; 125
When clear falls the moonlight;
When spring-tides are low:
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr’d with broom;
And high rocks throw mildly 130
On the blanch’d sands a gloom:
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry. 135
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side —
And then come back down.
Singing, ‘There dwells a loved one, 140
But cruel is she.
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea.’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Song of Callicles
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
THROUGH the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo! 5
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
Where the moon-silver’d inlets
Send far their light voice 10
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top,
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side, the pigeons 15
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills. 20
— What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom?
What sweet-breathing Presence 25
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night’s balmy prime? —
’Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, The Nine. 30
— The Leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in hollows.
They stream up again.
What seeks on this mountain 35
The glorified train? —
They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road.
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode. 40
— Whose praise do they mention:
Of what is it told? —
What will be for ever.
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father 45
Of all things: and then,
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.
The Day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm; 50
The Night in her silence,
The Stars in their calm.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
To Marguerite
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
YES: in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown.
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing; 10
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour;
O then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent!
For surely once, they feel we were 15
Parts of a single continent.
Now round us spreads the watery plain —
O might our marges meet again!
Who order’d that their longing’s fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool’d? 20
Who renders vain their deep desire? —
A God, a God their severance ruled;
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Requiescat
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
STREW on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew.
In quiet she reposes:
Ah! would that I did too.
Her mirth the world required: 5
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound. 10
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin’d, ample Spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath.
To-night it doth inherit 15
The vasty hall of Death.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Shakespeare
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill
That to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil’d searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the star
s and sunbeams know,
Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure, 10
Didst walk on earth unguess’d at. Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Rugby Chapel
November, 1857
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
COLDLY, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither’d leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace, 5
Silent; — hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows; — but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah! 15
That word, gloom, to my mind
Brings thee back, in the light
Of thy radiant vigor, again;
In the gloom of November we pass’d
Days not dark at thy side; 20
Seasons impair’d not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn evening and think
Of bygone autumns with thee. 25
Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
