Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

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by Matthew Arnold


  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 10

  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; 15

  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 20

  Spring the great streams.

  But, if the wild unfather’d mass no birth

  In divine seats hath known:

  In the blank, echoing solitude, if Earth,

  Rocking her obscure body to and fro, 25

  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-bath’d head

  Piercing the solemn cloud 30

  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! 35

  O 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. 40

  O what a spasm shakes the dreamer’s heart ——

  ‘I too but seem!’

  Resignation

  TO FAUSTA

  To die be given us, or attain!

  Fierce work it were, to do again.

  So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray’d

  At burning noon: so warriors said,

  Scarf’d with the cross, who watch’d the miles 5

  Of dust that wreath’d their struggling files

  Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows

  Round Alpine summits eddying rose,

  The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun,

  Crouch’d on his saddle, when the sun 10

  Went lurid down o’er flooded plains

  Through which the groaning Danube strains

  To the drear Euxine: so pray all,

  Whom labours, self-ordain’d, enthrall;

  Because they to themselves propose 15

  On this side the all-common close

  A goal which, gain’d, may give repose.

  So pray they: and to stand again

  Where they stood once, to them were pain;

  Pain to thread back and to renew 20

  Past straits, and currents long steer’d through.

  But milder natures, and more free;

  Whom an unblam’d serenity

  Hath freed from passions, and the state

  Of struggle these necessitate; 25

  Whom schooling of the stubborn mind

  Hath made, or birth hath found, resign’d;

  These mourn not, that their goings pay

  Obedience to the passing day:

  These claim not every laughing Hour 30

  For handmaid to their striding power;

  Each in her turn, with torch uprear’d,

  To await their march; and when appear’d,

  Through the cold gloom, with measur’d race,

  To usher for a destin’d space, 35

  (Her own sweet errands all foregone)

  The too imperious Traveller on.

  These, Fausta, ask not this: nor thou,

  Time’s chafing prisoner, ask it now.

  We left, just ten years since, you say, 40

  That wayside inn we left to day:

  Our jovial host, as forth we fare,

  Shouts greeting from his easy chair;

  High on a bank our leader stands,

  Reviews and ranks his motley bands; 45

  Makes clear our goal to every eye,

  The valley’s western boundary.

  A gate swings to: our tide hath flow’d

  Already from the silent road.

  The valley pastures, one by one, 50

  Are threaded, quiet in the sun:

  And now beyond the rude stone bridge

  Slopes gracious up the western ridge.

  Its woody border, and the last

  Of its dark upland farms is past; 55

  Cool farms, with open-lying stores,

  Under their burnish’d sycamores:

  All past: and through the trees we glide

  Emerging on the green hill-side.

  There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign, 60

  Our wavering, many-colour’d line;

  There winds, upstreaming slowly still

  Over the summit of the hill.

  And now, in front, behold outspread

  Those upper regions we must tread; 65

  Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells,

  The cheerful silence of the fells.

  Some two hours’ march, with serious air,

  Through the deep noontide heats we fare:

  The red-grouse, springing at our sound, 70

  Skims, now and then, the shining ground;

  No life, save his and ours, intrudes

  Upon these breathless solitudes.

  O joy! again the farms appear;

  Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer: 75

  There springs the brook will guide us down,

  Bright comrade, to the noisy town.

  Lingering, we follow down: we gain

  The town, the highway, and the plain.

  And many a mile of dusty way, 80

  Parch’d and road-worn, we made that day;

  But, Fausta, I remember well

  That, as the balmy darkness fell,

  We bath’d our hands, with speechless glee,

  That night, in the wide-glimmering Sea. 85

  Once more we tread this self-same road

  Fausta, which ten years since we trod:

  Alone we tread it, you and I;

  Ghosts of that boisterous company.

  Here, where the brook shines, near its head, 90

  In its clear, shallow, turf-fring’d bed;

  Here, whence the eye first sees, far down,

  Capp’d with faint smoke, the noisy town;

  Here sit we, and again unroll,

  Though slowly, the familiar whole. 95

  The solemn wastes of heathy hill

  Sleep in the July sunshine still:

  The self-same shadows now, as then,

  Play through this grassy upland glen:

  The loose dark stones on the green way 100

  Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay:

  On this mild bank above the stream,

  (You crush them) the blue gentians gleam.

  Still this wild brook, the rushes cool,

  The sailing foam, the shining pool. — 105

  These are not chang’d: and we, you say,

  Are scarce more chang’d, in truth, than they.

  The Gipsies, whom we met below,

  They too have long roam’d to and fro.

  They ramble, leaving, where they pass, 110

  Their fragments on the cumber’d grass.

  And often to some kindly place,

  Chance guides the migratory race

  Where, though long wanderings intervene,

  They recognize a former scene. 115

  The dingy tents are pitch’d: the fires

  Give to the wind their wavering spires;

  In dark knots crouch round the wild flame

  Their children, as when first they came;

  They see their shackled beasts again 120<
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  Move, browsing, up the grey-wall’d lane.

  Signs are not wanting, which might raise

  The ghosts in them of former days:

  Signs are not wanting, if they would;

  Suggestions to disquietude. 125

  For them, for all, Time’s busy touch,

  While it mends little, troubles much:

  Their joints grow stiffer; but the year

  Runs his old round of dubious cheer:

  Chilly they grow; yet winds in March, 130

  Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch:

  They must live still; and yet, God knows,

  Crowded and keen the country grows:

  It seems as if, in their decay,

  The Law grew stronger every day. 135

  So might they reason; so compare,

  Fausta, times past with times that are.

  But no: — they rubb’d through yesterday

  In their hereditary way;

  And they will rub through, if they can, 140

  To-morrow on the self-same plan;

  Till death arrives to supersede,

  For them, vicissitude and need.

  The Poet, to whose mighty heart

  Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart, 145

  Subdues that energy to scan

  Not his own course, but that of Man.

  Though he move mountains; though his day

  Be pass’d on the proud heights of sway;

  Though he hath loos’d a thousand chains; 150

  Though he hath borne immortal pains;

  Action and suffering though he know;

  — He hath not liv’d, if he lives so.

  He sees, in some great-historied land,

  A ruler of the people stand; 155

  Sees his strong thought in fiery flood

  Roll through the heaving multitude;

  Exults: yet for no moment’s space

  Envies the all-regarded place.

  Beautiful eyes meet his; and he 160

  Bears to admire uncravingly:

  They pass; he, mingled with the crowd,

  Is in their far-off triumphs proud.

  From some high station he looks down,

  At sunset, on a populous town; 165

  Surveys each happy group that fleets,

  Toil ended, through the shining streets,

  Each with some errand of its own; —

  And does not say, I am alone.

  He sees the gentle stir of birth 170

  When Morning purifies the earth;

  He leans upon a gate, and sees

  The pastures, and the quiet trees.

  Low woody hill, with gracious bound,

  Folds the still valley almost round; 175

  The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn,

  Is answer’d from the depth of dawn;

  In the hedge straggling to the stream,

  Pale, dew-drench’d, half-shut roses gleam:

  But where the further side slopes down 180

  He sees the drowsy new-wak’d clown

  In his white quaint-embroider’d frock

  Make, whistling, towards his mist-wreath’d flock;

  Slowly, behind the heavy tread,

  The wet flower’d grass heaves up its head. — 185

  Lean’d on his gate, he gazes: tears

  Are in his eyes, and in his ears

  The murmur of a thousand years:

  Before him he sees Life unroll,

  A placid and continuous whole; 190

  That general Life, which does not cease,

  Whose secret is not joy, but peace;

  That Life, whose dumb wish is not miss’d

  If birth proceeds, if things subsist:

  The Life of plants, and stones, and rain: 195

  The Life he craves; if not in vain

  Fate gave, what Chance shall not control,

  His sad lucidity of soul.

  You listen: — but that wandering smile,

  Fausta, betrays you cold the while. 200

  Your eyes pursue the bells of foam

  Wash’d, eddying, from this bank, their home.

  Those Gipsies, so your thoughts I scan,

  Are less, the Poet more, than man.

  They feel not, though they move and see: 205

  Deeply the Poet feels; but he

  Breathes, when he will, immortal air,

  Where Orpheus and where Homer are.

  In the day’s life, whose iron round

  Hems us all in, he is not bound. 210

  He escapes thence, but we abide.

  Not deep the Poet sees, but wide.

  The World in which we live and move

  Outlasts aversion, outlasts love:

  Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, 215

  Remorse, grief, joy: — and were the scope

  Of these affections wider made,

  Man still would see, and see dismay’d,

  Beyond his passion’s widest range

  Far regions of eternal change. 220

  Nay, and since death, which wipes out man,

  Finds him with many an unsolv’d plan,

  With much unknown, and much untried,

  Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried,

  Still gazing on the ever full 225

  Eternal mundane spectacle;

  This World in which we draw our breath,

  In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.

  Blame thou not therefore him, who dares

  Judge vain beforehand human cares. 230

  Whose natural insight can discern

  What through experience others learn.

  Who needs not love and power, to know

  Love transient, power an unreal show.

  Who treads at ease life’s uncheer’d ways: — 235

  Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise.

  Rather thyself for some aim pray

  Nobler than this — to fill the day.

  Rather, that heart, which burns in thee,

  Ask, not to amuse, but to set free. 240

  Be passionate hopes not ill resign’d

  For quiet, and a fearless mind.

  And though Fate grudge to thee and me

  The Poet’s rapt security,

  Yet they, believe me, who await 245

  No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate.

  They, winning room to see and hear,

  And to men’s business not too near,

  Through clouds of individual strife

  Draw homewards to the general Life. 250

  Like leaves by suns not yet uncurl’d:

  To the wise, foolish; to the world,

  Weak: yet not weak, I might reply,

  Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye,

  To whom each moment in its race, 255

  Crowd as we will its neutral space,

  Is but a quiet watershed

  Whence, equally, the Seas of Life and Death are fed.

  Enough, we live: — and if a life,

  With large results so little rife, 260

  Though bearable, seem hardly worth

  This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth;

  Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,

  The solemn hills around us spread,

  This stream that falls incessantly, 265

  The strange-scrawl’d rocks, the lonely sky,

  If I might lend their life a voice,

  Seem to bear rather than rejoice.

  And even could the intemperate prayer

  Man iterates, while these forbear, 270

  For movement, for an ampler sphere,

  Pierce Fate’s impenetrable ear;

  Not milder is the general lot

  Because our spirits have forgot,

  In action’s dizzying eddy whirl’d, 275

  The something that infects the world.

  EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, AND OTHER POEMS

  Eager to become financially stable enough to marry and support a family, Arnold no longer wished to work as a
private secretary and so sought the position of Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools. He was appointed in April 1851 and two months later he married Frances Lucy, the daughter of Sir William Wightman, Justice of the Queen’s Bench.

  Arnold often described his duties as a school inspector as “drudgery”, although he appreciated the benefit of regular work. Working as an inspector required him to travel constantly across the country. Initially, Arnold was responsible for inspecting Nonconformist schools across a broad swath of central England. He spent many dreary hours during the 1850s in railway waiting-rooms and small-town hotels, and longer hours still in listening to children reciting their lessons and parents reciting their grievances. Nevertheless, it also meant that he was among the first generation of the railway age, travelling across more of England than any man of letters had ever done. Although his duties were later confined to a smaller area, Arnold knew the society of provincial England better than most of the metropolitan authors and politicians of the day.

  In 1852, Arnold published his second volume of poems, Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. The title piece concerns the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, who was a citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily. Empedocles’ philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements. He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, he supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Empedocles is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to record his ideas in verse. Empedocles’ death was mythologised by various ancient writers and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments. In Arnold’s poetic drama the narrative concerns the philosopher’s last hours before he jumps to his death in the crater of the Mount Etna.

  Frances Lucy, the poet’s wife, 1883

  CONTENTS

  Empedocles on Etna

  The River

  Excuse

  Indifference

  Too Late

  On the Rhine

  Longing

  The Lake

  Parting

  Absence

  Destiny

  To Marguerite, in Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis

  Human Life

  Despondency

  Youth’s Agitations

  Self-Deception

  Lines written by a Death-Bed

  A seventeenth century engraving of Empedocles

 

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