Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 68

We would have inward peace, Yet will not look within; We would have misery cease, Yet will not cease from sin; We want all pleasant ends, but will use no harsh means;

We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through; But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.

Yet, even when man forsakes All sin,--is just, is pure, Abandons all which makes His welfare insecure,-- Other existences there are, that clash with ours.

Like us, the lightning-fires Love to have scope and play; The stream, like us, desires An unimpeded way; Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at large.

Streams will not curb their pride The just man not to entomb, Nor lightnings go aside To give his virtues room; Nor is that wind less rough which blows a good man's barge.

Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play; Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away; Allows the proudly-riding and the foundering bark.

And, lastly, though of ours No weakness spoil our lot, Though the non-human powers Of Nature harm us not, The ill deeds of other men make often _our_ life dark.

What were the wise man's plan?-- Through this sharp, toil-set life, To work as best he can, And win what's won by strife.-- But we an easier way to cheat our pains have found.

Scratch'd by a fall, with moans As children of weak age Lend life to the dumb stones Whereon to vent their rage, And bend their little fists, and rate the senseless ground;

So, loath to suffer mute, We, peopling the void air, Make G.o.ds to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear; With G.o.d and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.

Yet grant--as sense long miss'd Things that are now perceived, And much may still exist Which is not yet believed-- Grant that the world were full of G.o.ds we cannot see; All things the world which fill Of but one stuff are spun, That we who rail are still, With what we rail at, one; One with the o'erlabour'd Power that through the breadth and length

Of earth, and air, and sea, In men, and plants, and stones, Hath toil perpetually, And travails, pants, and moans; Fain would do all things well, but sometimes fails in strength.

And patiently exact This universal G.o.d Alike to any act Proceeds at any nod, And quietly declaims the cursings of himself.

This is not what man hates, Yet he can curse but this.

Harsh G.o.ds and hostile Fates Are dreams! this only _is_-- Is everywhere; sustains the wise, the foolish elf.

Nor only, in the intent To attach blame elsewhere, Do we at will invent Stern Powers who make their care To embitter human life, malignant Deities;

But, next, we would reverse The scheme ourselves have spun, And what we made to curse We now would lean upon, And feign kind G.o.ds who perfect what man vainly tries.

Look, the world tempts our eye, And we would know it all!

We map the starry sky, We mine this earthen ball, We measure the sea-tides, we number the sea-sands;

We scrutinise the dates Of long-past human things, The bounds of effaced states, The lines of deceased kings; We search out dead men's words, and works of dead men's hands;

We shut our eyes, and muse How our own minds are made, What springs of thought they use, How righten'd, how betray'd-- And spend our wit to name what most employ unnamed.

But still, as we proceed The ma.s.s swells more and more Of volumes yet to read, Of secrets yet to explore.

Our hair grows grey, our eyes are dimm'd, our heat is tamed;

We rest our faculties, And thus address the G.o.ds: "True science if there is, It stays in your abodes!

Man's measures cannot mete the immeasurable All.

"You only can take in The world's immense design.

Our desperate search was sin, Which henceforth we resign, Sure only that your mind sees all things which befal."

Fools! That in man's brief term He cannot all things view, Affords no ground to affirm That there are G.o.ds who do; Nor does being weary prove that he has where to rest.

Again.--Our youthful blood Claims rapture as its right; The world, a rolling flood Of newness and delight, Draws in the enamour'd gazer to its shining breast;

Pleasure, to our hot grasp, Gives flowers, after flowers; With pa.s.sionate warmth we clasp Hand after hand in ours; Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.

At once our eyes grow clear!

We see, in blank dismay, Year posting after year, Sense after sense decay; Our shivering heart is mined by secret discontent;

Yet still, in spite of truth, In spite of hopes entomb'd, That longing of our youth Burns ever unconsumed, Still hungrier for delight as delights grow more rare.

We pause; we hush our heart, And thus address the G.o.ds: "The world hath fail'd to impart The joy our youth forebodes, Fail'd to fill up the void which in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s we bear.

"Changeful till now, we still Look'd on to something new; Let us, with changeless will, Henceforth look on to you, To find with you the joy we in vain here require!"

Fools! That so often here Happiness mock'd our prayer, I think, might make us fear A like event elsewhere; Make us, not fly to dreams, but moderate desire.

And yet, for those who know Themselves, who wisely take Their way through life, and bow To what they cannot break, Why should I say that life need yield but _moderate_ bliss?

Shall we, with temper spoil'd, Health sapp'd by living ill, And judgment all embroil'd By sadness and self-will, Shall _we_ judge what for man is not true bliss or is?

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes--

That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And, while we dream on this, Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?

Not much, I know, you prize What pleasures may be had, Who look on life with eyes Estranged, like mine, and sad; And yet the village-churl feels the truth more than you,

Who's loath to leave this life Which to him little yields-- His hard-task'd sunburnt wife, His often-labour'd fields, The boors with whom he talk'd, the country-spots he knew.

But thou, because thou hear'st Men scoff at Heaven and Fate, Because the G.o.ds thou fear'st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are!

I say: Fear not! Life still Leaves human effort scope.

But, since life teems with ill, Nurse no extravagant hope: Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair!

_A long pause. At the end of it the notes of a harp below are again heard, and_ CALLICLES _sings:--_

Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; and there The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, And by the sea, and in the brakes.

The gra.s.s is cool, the sea-side air Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers More virginal and sweet than ours.

And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-sh.o.r.e, In breathless quiet, after all their ills; Nor do they see their country, nor the place Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills, Nor the unhappy palace of their race, Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.

There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes!

They had stay'd long enough to see, In Thebes, the billow of calamity Over their own dear children roll'd, Curse upon curse, pang upon pang, For years, they sitting helpless in their home, A grey old man and woman; yet of old The G.o.ds had to their marriage come, And at the banquet all the Muses sang.

Therefore they did not end their days In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away, To where the west-wind plays, And murmurs of the Adriatic come To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there Placed safely in changed forms, the pair Wholly forget their first sad life, and home, And all that Theban woe, and stray For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.

_Empedocles_

That was my harp-player again!--where is he?

Down by the stream?