Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 7

Some exile's, mindful how the past was glad?

Some angel's, in an alien planet born?

--No exile's dream was ever half so sad, Nor any angel's sorrow so forlorn.

Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore; But in disdainful silence turn away, Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more?

Or do I wait, to hear some gray-hair'd king Unravel all his many-colour'd lore; Whose mind hath known all arts of governing, Mused much, loved life a little, loathed it more?

Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope, Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give.

--Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, Foreseen thy harvest--yet proceed'st to live.

O meek antic.i.p.ant of that sure pain Whose sureness gray-hair'd scholars hardly learn!

What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain?

What heavens, what earth, what sun shalt thou discern?

Ere the long night, whose stillness brooks no star, Match that funereal aspect with her pall, I think, thou wilt have fathom'd life too far, Have known too much----or else forgotten all.

The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps; Hath sown with cloudless pa.s.sages the tale Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps.

Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use, Not daily labour's dull, Lethaean spring, Oblivion in lost angels can infuse Of the soil'd glory, and the trailing wing.

And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may, In the throng'd fields where winning comes by strife; And though the just sun gild, as mortals pray, Some reaches of thy storm-vext stream of life; Though that blank sunshine blind thee; though the cloud That sever'd the world's march and thine, be gone; Though ease dulls grace, and Wisdom be too proud To halve a lodging that was all her own--

Once, ere the day decline, thou shalt discern, Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain!

Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return, And wear this majesty of grief again.

A QUESTION

TO FAUSTA

Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows Like the wave; Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.

Love lends life a little grace, A few sad smiles; and then, Both are laid in one cold place, In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die Like spring flowers; Our vaunted life is one long funeral.

Men dig graves with bitter tears For their dead hopes; and all, Mazed with doubts and sick with fears, Count the hours.

We count the hours! These dreams of ours, False and hollow, Do we go hence and find they are not dead?

Joys we dimly apprehend, Faces that smiled and fled, Hopes born here, and born to end, Shall we follow?

IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure, At first imagined lay The sacred world; and by procession sure From those still deeps, in form and colour drest, Seasons alternating, and night and day, The long-mused thought to north, south, east, and west, Took then its all-seen way;

O waking on a world which thus-wise springs!

Whether it needs thee count Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things Ages or hours--O waking on life's stream!

By lonely pureness to the all-pure fount (Only by this thou canst) the colour'd dream Of life remount!

Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, And faint the city gleams; Rare the lone pastoral huts--marvel not thou!

The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams; Alone the sun arises, and alone Spring the great streams.

But, if the wild unfather'd ma.s.s no birth In divine seats hath known; In the blank, echoing solitude if Earth, Rocking her obscure body to and fro, Ceases not from all time to heave and groan, Unfruitful oft, and at her happiest throe Forms, what she forms, alone;

O seeming sole to awake, thy sun-bathed head Piercing the solemn cloud Round thy still dreaming brother-world outspread!

O man, whom Earth, thy long-vext mother, bare Not without joy--so radiant, so endow'd (Such happy issue crown'd her painful care)-- Be not too proud!

Oh when most self-exalted most alone, Chief dreamer, own thy dream!

Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown, Who hath a monarch's hath no brother's part; Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem.

--Oh, what a spasm shakes the dreamer's heart!

"_I, too, but seem._"

THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST

TO CRITIAS

"Why, when the world's great mind Hath finally inclined, Why," you say, Critias, "be debating still?

Why, with these mournful rhymes Learn'd in more languid climes, Blame our activity Who, with such pa.s.sionate will, Are what we mean to be?"

Critias, long since, I know (For Fate decreed it so), Long since the world hath set its heart to live; Long since, with credulous zeal It turns life's mighty wheel, Still doth for labourers send Who still their labour give, And still expects an end.

Yet, as the wheel flies round, With no ungrateful sound Do adverse voices fall on the world's ear.

Deafen'd by his own stir The rugged labourer Caught not till then a sense So glowing and so near Of his omnipotence.

So, when the feast grew loud In Susa's palace proud, A white-robed slave stole to the Great King's side.

He spake--the Great King heard; Felt the slow-rolling word Swell his attentive soul; Breathed deeply as it died, And drain'd his mighty bowl.

HORATIAN ECHO[4]

(TO AN AMBITIOUS FRIEND)

Omit, omit, my simple friend, Still to enquire how parties tend, Or what we fix with foreign powers.

If France and we are really friends, And what the Russian Czar intends, Is no concern of ours.

Us not the daily quickening race Of the invading populace Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd.

Mourn will we not your closing hour, Ye imbeciles in present power, Doom'd, pompous, and absurd!