Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems Part 13

Faster, faster, O Circe, G.o.ddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession 295 Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!

MORALITY

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides.

But tasks in hours of insight will'd 5 Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.

With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. 10 Not till the hours of light return, All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul, When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, Ask, how _she_ view'd thy self-control, 15 Thy struggling, task'd morality-- Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air.

Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread, Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek, 20 See, on her face a glow is spread, A strong emotion on her cheek!

"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, Whence was it, for it is not mine?

"There is no effort on _my_ brow-- 25 I do not strive, I do not weep; I rush with the swift spheres and glow In joy, and when I will, I sleep.

Yet that severe, that earnest air, I saw, I felt it once--but where? 30

"I knew not yet the gauge of time, Nor wore the manacles of s.p.a.ce; I felt it in some other clime, I saw it in some other place.

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 35 And lay upon the breast of G.o.d."

DOVER BEACH

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5 Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago 15 Heard it on the aegaean, and it brought 16 Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's sh.o.r.e Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25 Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems 30 To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor cert.i.tude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain 35 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

PHILOMELA

Hark! ah, the nightingale-- The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

What triumph! hark!--what pain! 4

O wanderer from a Grecian sh.o.r.e, 5 Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain-- 8 Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn 10 With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy rack'd heart and brain Afford no balm? 15

Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English gra.s.s, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? 18 Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 20 The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? 21 Dost thou once more a.s.say Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25 With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? 27 Listen, Eugenia-- How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! 29 Again--thou hearest? 30 Eternal pa.s.sion!

Eternal pain! 32

HUMAN LIFE

What mortal, when he saw, Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly: "I have kept uninfringed my nature's law; 4 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 incognisable sea, 8 To too exact a steering of our way; Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, 10 If some fair coast have lured us to make stay, Or some friend hail'd us to keep company.

Ay! 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 swath 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, 23 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 27 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

ISOLATION

TO MARGUERITE

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, 1 With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the sh.o.r.eless 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, 7 And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; 10 And lovely notes, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, Across the sounds and channels pour--

Oh! 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-- Oh 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 G.o.d, a G.o.d their severance ruled!

And bade betwixt their sh.o.r.es to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. 24

KAISER DEAD

_April_ 6, 1887