Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 31

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, 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 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 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

GROWING OLD

What is it to grow old?

Is it to lose the glory of the form, The l.u.s.tre of the eye?

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?

--Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength-- Not our bloom only, but our strength--decay?

Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung?

Yes, this, and more; but not Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be!

'Tis not to have our life Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset-glow, A golden day's decline.

'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirr'd; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.

Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion--none.

It is--last stage of all-- When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY

A VARIATION

Youth rambles on life's arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount, The fount which shall not flow again.

The man mature with labour chops For the bright stream a channel grand, And sees not that the sacred drops Ran off and vanish'd out of hand.

And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones.

The mount is mute, the channel dry; And down he lays his weary bones.

NEW ROME

LINES WRITTEN FOR MISS STORY'S ALb.u.m

The armless Vatican Cupid Hangs down his beautiful head; For the priests have got him in prison, And Psyche long has been dead.

But see, his shaven oppressors Begin to quake and disband!

And _The Times_, that bright Apollo, Proclaims salvation at hand.

"And what," cries Cupid, "will save us?"

Says Apollo: "_Modernise Rome!_ What inns! Your streets, too, how narrow!

Too much of palace and dome!

"O learn of London, whose paupers Are not pushed out by the swells!

Wide streets with fine double trottoirs; And then--the London hotels!"

The armless Vatican Cupid Hangs down his head as before.

Through centuries past it has hung so, And will through centuries more.

PIS-ALLER

"Man is blind because of sin, Revelation makes him sure; Without that, who looks within, Looks in vain, for all's obscure."

Nay, look closer into man!

Tell me, can you find indeed Nothing sure, no moral plan Clear prescribed, without your creed?

"No, I nothing can perceive!

Without that, all's dark for men.

That, or nothing, I believe."-- For G.o.d's sake, believe it then!

THE LAST WORD

Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!

Vain thy onset! all stands fast.

Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!

Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

Let them have it how they will!

Thou art tired; best be still.