But sentenc’d him, as the law is,
To die by stoning on the spot.
Now the King charg’d us secretly:
‘Ston’d must he be, the law stands so: 115
Yet, if he seek to fly, give way:
Forbid him not, but let him go.’
So saying, the King took a stone,
And cast it softly: but the man,
With a great joy upon his face, 120
Kneel’d down, and cried not, neither ran.
So they, whose lot it was, cast stones;
That they flew thick and bruis’d him sore:
But he prais’d Allah with loud voice,
And remain’d kneeling as before. 125
My lord had cover’d up his face:
But when one told him, ‘He is dead,’
Turning him quickly to go in,
‘Bring thou to me his corpse,’ he said.
And truly, while I speak, O King, 130
I hear the bearers on the stair.
Wilt thou they straightway bring him in?
— Ho! enter ye who tarry there!
THE VIZIER
O King, in this I praise thee not.
Now must I call thy grief not wise. 135
Is he thy friend, or of thy blood,
To find such favour in thine eyes?
Nay, were he thine own mother’s son,
Still, thou art king, and the Law stands.
It were not meet the balance swerv’d, 140
The sword were broken in thy hands.
But being nothing, as he is,
Why for no cause make sad thy face?
Lo, I am old: three kings, ere thee,
Have I seen reigning in this place. 145
But who, through all this length of time,
Could bear the burden of his years,
If he for strangers pain’d his heart
Not less than those who merit tears?
Fathers we must have, wife and child; 150
And grievous is the grief for these:
This pain alone, which must be borne,
Makes the head white, and bows the knees.
But other loads than this his own
One man is not well made to bear. 155
Besides, to each are his own friends,
To mourn with him, and show him care.
Look, this is but one single place,
Though it be great: all the earth round,
If a man bear to have it so, 160
Things which might vex him shall be found.
Upon the Russian frontier, where
The watches of two armies stand
Near one another, many a man,
Seeking a prey unto his hand, 165
Hath snatch’d a little fair-hair’d slave:
They snatch also, towards Mervè,
The Shiah dogs, who pasture sheep,
And up from thence to Orgunjè.
And these all, labouring for a lord, 170
Eat not the fruit of their own hands:
Which is the heaviest of all plagues,
To that man’s mind, who understands.
The kaffirs also (whom God curse!)
Vex one another, night and day: 175
There are the lepers, and all sick:
There are the poor, who faint alway.
All these have sorrow, and keep still,
Whilst other men make cheer, and sing.
Wilt thou have pity on all these? 180
No, nor on this dead dog, O King!
THE KING
O Vizier, thou art old, I young.
Clear in these things I cannot see.
My head is burning; and a heat
Is in my skin which angers me. 185
But hear ye this, ye sons of men!
They that bear rule, and are obey’d,
Unto a rule more strong than theirs
Are in their turn obedient made.
In vain therefore, with wistful eyes 190
Gazing up hither, the poor man,
Who loiters by the high-heap’d booths,
Below there, in the Registàn,
Says, ‘Happy he, who lodges there!
With silken raiment, store of rice, 195
And for this drought, all kinds of fruits,
Grape syrup, squares of colour’d ice,
‘With cherries serv’d in drifts of snow.’
In vain hath a king power to build
Houses, arcades, enamell’d mosques; 200
And to make orchard closes, fill’d
With curious fruit trees, bought from far;
With cisterns for the winter rain;
And in the desert, spacious inns
In divers places; — if that pain 205
Is not more lighten’d, which he feels,
If his will be not satisfied:
And that it be not, from all time
The Law is planted, to abide.
Thou wert a sinner, thou poor man! 210
Thou wert athirst; and didst not see,
That, though we snatch what we desire,
We must not snatch it eagerly.
And I have meat and drink at will,
And rooms of treasures, not a few. 215
But I am sick, nor heed I these:
And what I would, I cannot do.
Even the great honour which I have,
When I am dead, will soon grow still.
So have I neither joy, nor fame. 220
But what I can do, that I will.
I have a fretted brick-work tomb
Upon a hill on the right hand,
Hard by a close of apricots,
Upon the road of Samarcand: 225
Thither, O Vizier, will I bear
This man my pity could not save;
And, plucking up the marble flags,
There lay his body in my grave.
Bring water, nard, and linen rolls. 230
Wash off all blood, set smooth each limb.
Then say; ‘He was not wholly vile,
Because a king shall bury him.’
SONNETS
CONTENTS
Shakespeare
To the Duke of Wellington
Written in Butler’s Sermons
Written in Emerson’s Essays
To an Independent Preacher
To George Cruikshank, Esq.
To a Republican Friend
To a Republican Friend (Continued)
Religious Isolation
To my Friends
A Modern Sappho
The New Sirens
The Voice
To Fausta
Desire
Stanzas on a Gipsy Child by the Sea-shore
The Hayswater Boat
The Forsaken Merman
The World and the Quietist
In utrumque paratus
Resignation
Arnold, 1870
Shakespeare
OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill
That to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5
Making the Heaven of Heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil’d searching of mortality:
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure, 10
Didst walk on Earth unguess’d at. Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
To the Duke of Wellington
ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED
BECAUSE thou hast believ’d, the wheels of life
Stand never idle, but go always round:
Not by their hands, who vex the pat
ient ground,
Mov’d only; but by genius, in the strife
Of all its chafing torrents after thaw, 5
Urg’d; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand,
The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand:
And, in this vision of the general law,
Hast labour’d with the foremost, hast become
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm; 10
For this, thy track, across the fretful foam
Of vehement actions without scope or term,
Call’d History, keeps a splendour: due to wit,
Which saw one clue to life, and follow’d it.
Written in Butler’s Sermons
AFFECTIONS, Instincts, Principles, and Powers,
Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control —
So men, unravelling God’s harmonious whole,
Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see, 5
Spring the foundations of the shadowy throne
Where man’s one Nature, queen-like, sits alone,
Centred in a majestic unity;
And rays her powers, like sister islands, seen
Linking their coral arms under the sea: 10
Or cluster’d peaks, with plunging gulfs between
Spann’d by aërial arches, all of gold;
Whereo’er the chariot wheels of Life are roll’d
In cloudy circles, to eternity.
Written in Emerson’s Essays
‘O MONSTROUS, dead, unprofitable world,
That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way.
A voice oracular hath peal’d to-day,
To-day a hero’s banner is unfurl’d.
Hast thou no lip for welcome?’ So I said. 5
Man after man, the world smil’d and pass’d by:
A smile of wistful incredulity
As though one spake of noise unto the dead:
Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful; and full
Of bitter knowledge. Yet the Will is free: 10
Strong is the Soul, and wise, and beautiful:
The seeds of godlike power are in us still:
Gods are we, Bards, Saints, Heroes, if we will. —
Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery?
To an Independent Preacher
WHO PREACHED THAT WE SHOULD BE ‘IN HARMONY WITH NATURE’
‘IN harmony with Nature’? Restless fool,
Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee,
When true, the last impossibility;
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool: —
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, 5
And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
Nature is cruel; man is sick of blood:
Nature is stubborn; man would fain adore:
Nature is fickle; man hath need of rest:
Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave; 10
Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.
Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast friends.
Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!
To George Cruikshank, Esq.
ON SEEING FOR THE FIRST TIME HIS PICTURE OF ‘THE BOTTLE’, IN THE COUNTRY
ARTIST, whose hand, with horror wing’d, hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,
Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn: 5
Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude,
Like comets on the heavenly solitude?
Shall breathless glades, cheer’d by shy Dian’s horn,
Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul
Breasts her own griefs: and, urg’d too fiercely, says: 10
‘Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man
May be by man effac’d: man can control
To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.
Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.’
To a Republican Friend
GOD knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz’d and practis’d by too few,
But priz’d, but lov’d, but eminent in you,
Man’s fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries 5
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true —
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at the long heart-wasting show
Wherein earth’s great ones are disquieted: 10
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed: —
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.
To a Republican Friend (Continued)
YET, when I muse on what life is, I seem
Rather to patience prompted, than that proud
Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,
France, fam’d in all great arts, in none supreme.
Seeing this Vale, this Earth, whereon we dream, 5
Is on all sides o’ershadow’d by the high
Uno’erleap’d Mountains of Necessity,
Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.
Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,
When, bursting through the network superpos’d 10
By selfish occupation — plot and plan,
Lust, avarice, envy — liberated man,
All difference with his fellow man compos’d,
Shall be left standing face to face with God.
Religious Isolation
TO THE SAME
CHILDREN (as such forgive them) have I known,
Ever in their own eager pastime bent
To make the incurious bystander, intent
On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own;
Too fearful or too fond to play alone. 5
Do thou, whom light in thine own inmost soul
(Not less thy boast) illuminates, control
Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown.
What though the holy secret which moulds thee
Moulds not the solid Earth? though never Winds 10
Have whisper’d it to the complaining Sea,
Nature’s great law, and law of all men’s minds?
To its own impulse every creature stirs:
Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.
To my Friends
WHO RIDICULED A TENDER LEAVE-TAKING
LAUGH, my Friends, and without blame
Lightly quit what lightly came:
Rich to-morrow as to-day
Spend as madly as you may.
I, with little land to stir, 5
Am the exacter labourer.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
But my Youth reminds me— ‘Thou
Hast liv’d light as these live now: 10
As these are, thou too wert such:
Much hast had, hast squander’d much.’
Fortune’s now less frequent heir,
Ah! I husband what’s grown rare.
Ere the parting hour go by, 15
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Young, I said: ‘A face is gone
If too hotly mus’d upon:
And our best impressions are
Those that do themselves repair.’ 20
Many a face I then let by,
Ah! is faded utterly.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Marguerite says: ‘As last year went, 25
So the coming year’ll be spent:
Some day next year, I shall be,
Entering heedless, kiss’d by thee.’
Ah! I hope — yet, once away,
What may chain us, who can say? 30
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that lilac kerchief, bound
Her soft face, her hair around:
Tied under the archest chin 35
Mockery ever ambush’d in.
Let the fluttering fringes streak
All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory! 40
Paint that figure’s pliant grace
As she towards me lean’d her face,
Half refus’d and half resign’d,
Murmuring, ‘Art thou still unkind?’
Many a broken promise then 45
Was new made — to break again.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,
Eager tell-tales of her mind: 50
Paint, with their impetuous stress
Of inquiring tenderness,
Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie
An angelic gravity.
Ere the parting hour go by, 55
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
What, my Friends, these feeble lines
Show, you say, my love declines?
To paint ill as I have done,
Proves forgetfulness begun? 60
Time’s gay minions, pleas’d you see,
Time, your master, governs me.
Pleas’d, you mock the fruitless cry
‘Quick, thy tablets, Memory!’
Ah! too true. Time’s current strong 65
Leaves us true to nothing long.
Yet, if little stays with man,
Ah! retain we all we can!
If the clear impression dies,
Ah! the dim remembrance prize! 70
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 3