Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 22

Children dear, were we long alone?

"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 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, 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.

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, For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!

Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.

Come away, children, call no more!

Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

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!

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, Till the spindle drops 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; 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; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away children; Come children, come down!

The hoa.r.s.e wind blows coldly; 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.

We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl.

Singing: "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she!

And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow, 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 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.

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, But cruel is she!

She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea."

SONNETS

AUSTERITY OF POETRY

That son of Italy who tried to blow,[9]

Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song, In his light youth amid a festal throng Sate with his bride to see a public show.

Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow Youth like a star; and what to youth belong-- Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.

A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,

'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay!

Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.

Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground Of thought and of austerity within.

A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?-- 'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry Stormily sweet, his t.i.tan-agony; It was the sight of that Lord Arundel

Who struck, in heat, his child he loved so well, And his child's reason flicker'd, and did die.

Painted (he will'd it) in the gallery They hang; the picture doth the story tell.

Behold the stern, mail'd father, staff in hand!

The little fair-hair'd son, with vacant gaze, Where no more lights of sense or knowledge are!

Methinks the woe, which made that father stand Baring his dumb remorse to future days, Was woe than Byron's woe more tragic far.

RACHEL

I

In Paris all look'd hot and like to fade.

Sere, in the garden of the Tuileries, Sere with September, droop'd the chestnut-trees.

'Twas dawn; a brougham roll'd through the streets and made

Halt at the white and silent colonnade Of the French Theatre. Worn with disease, Rachel, with eyes no gazing can appease, Sate in the brougham and those blank walls survey'd.

She follows the gay world, whose swarms have fled To Switzerland, to Baden, to the Rhine; Why stops she by this empty play-house drear?

Ah, where the spirit its highest life hath led, All spots, match'd with that spot, are less divine; And Rachel's Switzerland, her Rhine, is here!

II

Unto a lonely villa, in a dell Above the fragrant warm Provencal sh.o.r.e, The dying Rachel in a chair they bore Up the steep pine-plumed paths of the Estrelle,

And laid her in a stately room, where fell The shadow of a marble Muse of yore, The rose-crown'd queen of legendary lore, Polymnia, full on her death-bed.--'Twas well!

The fret and misery of our northern towns, In this her life's last day, our poor, our pain, Our jangle of false wits, our climate's frowns,

Do for this radiant Greek-soul'd artist cease; Sole object of her dying eyes remain The beauty and the glorious art of Greece.