Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold
Page 10
And we shall feel our powers of effort flag,
And rally them for one last fight, and fail;
And we shall sink in the impossible strife,
And be astray for ever.
Slave of sense 390
I have in no wise been; but slave of thought? —
And who can say: — I have been always free,
Lived ever in the light of my own soul? —
I cannot! I have lived in wrath and gloom,
Fierce, disputations, ever at war with man, 395
Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light.
But I have not grown easy in these bonds —
But I have not denied what bonds these were!
Yea, I take myself to witness,
That I have loved no darkness, 400
Sophisticated no truth,
Nursed no delusion,
Allow’d no fear!
And therefore, O ye elements, I know —
Ye know it too — it hath been granted me 405
Not to die wholly, not to be all enslav’d.
I feel it in this hour! The numbing cloud
Mounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free!
Is it but for a moment?
Ah! boil up, ye vapours! 410
Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!
My soul glows to meet you.
Ere it flag, ere the mists
Of despondency and gloom
Rush over it again, 415
Receive me! Save me!He plunges into the crater.
CALLICLES (from below)
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-cloth’d frame. 420
Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silver’d inlets 425
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks; 430
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets, 435
Asleep on the hills.
— What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom? 440
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night’s balmy prime? —
‘Tis Apollo comes leading 445
His choir, the Nine.
— The leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again! 450
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train? —
They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus, 455
Their endless abode!
— Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told? —
What will be for ever;
What was from of old. 460
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.
The day in his hotness, 465
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.
The River
STILL glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars’ shade;
Silent the swans beside us float:
None speaks, none heeds — ah, turn thy head.
Let those arch eyes now softly shine, 5
That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland:
Ah, let them rest, those eyes, on mine;
On mine let rest that lovely hand.
My pent-up tears oppress my brain,
My heart is swoln with love unsaid: 10
Ah, let me weep, and tell my pain,
And on thy shoulder rest my head.
Before I die, before the soul,
Which now is mine, must re-attain
Immunity from my control, 15
And wander round the world again:
Before this teas’d o’erlabour’d heart
For ever leaves its vain employ,
Dead to its deep habitual smart,
And dead to hopes of future joy. 20
Excuse
I TOO have suffer’d: yet I know
She is not cold, though she seems so:
She is not cold, she is not light;
But our ignoble souls lack might.
She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, 5
While we for hopeless passion die;
Yet she could love, those eyes declare,
Were but men nobler than they are.
Eagerly once her gracious ken
Was turn’d upon the sons of men. 10
But light the serious visage grew —
She look’d, and smiled, and saw them through.
Our petty souls, our strutting wits,
Our labour’d puny passion-fits —
Ah, may she scorn them still, till we 15
Scorn them as bitterly as she!
Yet oh, that Fate would let her see
One of some worthier race than we;
One for whose sake she once might prove
How deeply she who scorns can love. 20
His eyes be like the starry lights —
His voice like sounds of summer nights —
In all his lovely mien let pierce
The magic of the universe.
And she to him will reach her hand, 25
And gazing in his eyes will stand,
And know her friend, and weep for glee,
And cry — Long, long I’ve look’d for thee. —
Then will she weep — with smiles, till then,
Coldly she mocks the sons of men. 30
Till then her lovely eyes maintain
Their gay, unwavering, deep disdain.
Indifference
I MUST not say that thou wert true,
Yet let me say that thou wert fair.
And they that lovely face who view,
They will not ask if truth be there.
Truth — what is truth? Two bleeding hearts 5
Wounded by men, by Fortune tried,
Outwearied with their lonely parts,
Vow to beat henceforth side by side.
The world to them was stern and drear;
Their lot was but to weep and moan. 10
Ah, let them keep their faith sincere,
For neither could subsist alone!
But souls whom some benignant breath
Has charm’d at birth from gloom and care,
These ask no love — these plight no faith, 15
For they are happy as they are.
The world to them may homage make,
And garlands for their forehead weave.
And what the world can give, they take:
But they bring more than they receive. 20
They smile upon the world: their ears
To one demand alone are coy.
They will not give us love and tears —
They bring us light, and warmth, and joy.
It was not love that heav’d thy breast, 25
Fair child! it was the bliss within.
Adieu! and say that one, at least,
Was just to what he did not win.
Too Late
EACH on his own strict line we move,
And some find death ere they find love.
So far apart their lives are thrown
&n
bsp; From the twin soul that halves their own.
And sometimes, by still harder fate, 5
The lovers meet, but meet too late.
— Thy heart is mine! — True, true! ah true!
— Then, love, thy hand! — Ah no! adieu!
On the Rhine
VAIN is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moon-lit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go:
But ah, not yet! not yet! 5
Vain is the agony of grief.
‘Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt — thou lov’st me not!
But is despair relief? 10
Awhile let me with thought have done;
And as this brimm’d unwrinkled Rhine
And that far purple mountain line
Lie sweetly in the look divine
Of the slow-sinking sun; 15
So let me lie, and calm as they
Let beam upon my inward view
Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue —
Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey. 20
Ah Quiet, all things feel thy balm!
Those blue hills too, this river’s flow,
Were restless once, but long ago.
Tam’d is their turbulent youthful glow:
Their joy is in their calm. 25
Longing
COME to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, 5
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world; and be
As kind to others as to me.
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth. 10
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say — My love! why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay 15
The hopeless longing of the day.
The Lake
AGAIN I see my bliss at hand;
The town, the lake are here.
My Marguerite smiles upon the strand
Unalter’d with the year.
I know that graceful figure fair, 5
That cheek of languid hue;
I know that soft enkerchief’d hair,
And those sweet eyes of blue.
Again I spring to make my choice;
Again in tones of ire 10
I hear a God’s tremendous voice —
‘Be counsell’d, and retire!’
Ye guiding Powers, who join and part,
What would ye have with me?
Ah, warn some more ambitious heart, 15
And let the peaceful be!
Parting
YE storm-winds of Autumn
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side 5
Thin-sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellowing arms; —
Ye are bound for the mountains —
Ah, with you let me go 10
Where your cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air —
How deep is their stillness! 15
Ah! would I were there!
But on the stairs what voice is this I hear,
Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear?
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn? 20
Or was it from some sun-fleck’d mountain-brook
That the sweet voice its upland clearness took?
Ah! it comes nearer —
Sweet notes, this way!
Hark! fast by the window 25
The rushing winds go,
To the ice-cumber’d gorges,
The vast seas of snow.
There the torrents drive upward
Their rock-strangled hum, 30
There the avalanche thunders
The hoarse torrent dumb.
— I come, O ye mountains!
Ye torrents, I come!
But who is this, by the half-open’d door, 35
Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor?
The sweet blue eyes — the soft, ash-colour’d hair —
The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear —
The lovely lips, with their arch smile, that tells
The unconquer’d joy in which her spirit dwells — 40
Ah! they bend nearer —
Sweet lips, this way!
Hark! the wind rushes past us —
Ah! with that let me go
To the clear waning hill-side 45
Unspotted by snow,
There to watch, o’er the sunk vale,
The frore mountain wall,
Where the nich’d snow-bed sprays down
Its powdery fall. 50
There its dusky blue clusters
The aconite spreads;
There the pines slope, the cloud-strips
Hung soft in their heads.
No life but, at moments, 55
The mountain-bee’s hum.
— I come, O ye mountains!
Ye pine-woods, I come!
Forgive me! forgive me!
Ah, Marguerite, fain 60
Would these arms reach to clasp thee: —
But see! ‘tis in vain.
In the void air towards thee
My strain’d arms are cast.
But a sea rolls between us — 65
Our different past.
To the lips, ah! of others,
Those lips have been prest,
And others, ere I was,
Were clasp’d to that breast; 70
Far, far from each other
Our spirits have grown.
And what heart knows another?
Ah! who knows his own?
Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! 75
I come to the wild.
Fold closely, O Nature!
Thine arms round thy child.
To thee only God granted
A heart ever new: 80
To all always open;
To all always true.
Ah, calm me! restore me!
And dry up my tears
On thy high mountain platforms, 85
Where Morn first appears,
Where the white mists, for ever,
Are spread and upfurl’d;
In the stir of the forces
Whence issued the world. 90
Absence
IN this fair stranger’s eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love, I see.
I shudder: for the passing day
Had borne me far from thee.
This is the curse of life: that not 5
A nobler calmer train
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot
Our passions from our brain;
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok’d souls to fill, 10
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.
I struggle towards the light; and ye,
Once-long’d-for storms of love!
If with the light ye cannot be, 15
I bear that ye remove.
I struggle towards the light; but oh,
While yet the night is chill,
Upon Time’s barren, stormy flow,
Stay with me, Marguerite, still! 20
Destiny
WHY each is striving, from of old,
To love more deeply than h
e can?
Still would be true, yet still grows cold?
— Ask of the Powers that sport with man!
They yok’d in him, for endless strife, 5
A heart of ice, a soul of fire;
And hurl’d him on the Field of Life,
An aimless unallay’d Desire.
To Marguerite, in Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis
YES: in the sea of life enisl’d,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing; 10
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour;
Oh then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were 15
Parts of a single continent.
Now round us spreads the watery plain —
Oh might our marges meet again!
Who order’d, that their longing’s fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool’d? 20
Who renders vain their deep desire? —
A God, a God their severance rul’d;
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.
Human Life
WHAT mortal, when he saw,
Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend,