To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye;
But I may stand far off, and gaze,
And watch thee pass unconscious by,
And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts,
Mixt with the idlers on the pier. — 30
Ah, might I always rest unseen,
So I might have thee always near!
To-morrow hurry through the fields
Of Flanders to the storied Rhine!
To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close 35
Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.
Dover Beach
THE SEA is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits; — on the French coast, the light
Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch’d sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling, 10
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago 15
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25
Retreating to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems 30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain 35
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The Terrace at Berne
TEN years! — and to my waking eye
Once more the roofs of Berne appear;
The rocky banks, the terrace high,
The stream — and do I linger here?
The clouds are on the Oberland, 5
The Jungfrau snows look faint and far;
But bright are those green fields at hand,
And through those fields comes down the Aar,
And from the blue twin lakes it comes,
Flows by the town, the church-yard fair, 10
And ‘neath the garden-walk it hums,
The house — and is my Marguerite there?
Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush
Of startled pleasure floods thy brow,
Quick through the oleanders brush, 15
And clap thy hands, and cry: ‘Tis thou!
Or hast thou long since wander’d back,
Daughter of France! to France, thy home;
And flitted down the flowery track
Where feet like thine too lightly come? 20
Doth riotous laughter now replace
Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare,
Thy cheek’s soft hue, and fluttering lace
The kerchief that enwound thy hair?
Or is it over? — art thou dead? — 25
Dead? — and no warning shiver ran
Across my heart, to say thy thread
Of life was cut, and closed thy span!
Could from earth’s ways that figure slight
Be lost, and I not feel ‘twas so? 30
Of that fresh voice the gay delight
Fail from earth’s air, and I not know?
Or shall I find thee still, but changed,
But not the Marguerite of thy prime?
With all thy being re-arranged, 35
Pass’d through the crucible of time;
With spirit vanish’d, beauty waned,
And hardly yet a glance, a tone,
A gesture — anything — retain’d
Of all that was my Marguerite’s own? 40
I will not know! — for wherefore try
To things by mortal course that live
A shadowy durability
For which they were not meant, to give?
Like driftwood spars which meet and pass 45
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, alas!
Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.
I knew it when my life was young,
I feel it still, now youth is o’er! 50
The mists are on the mountains hung,
And Marguerite I shall see no more.
Stanzas composed at Carnac
MAY 6, 1859
FAR on its rocky knoll descried
Saint Michael’s chapel cuts the sky.
I climb’d; — beneath me, bright and wide,
Lay the lone coast of Brittany.
Bright in the sunset, weird and still, 5
It lay beside the Atlantic wave,
As if the wizard Merlin’s will
Yet charm’d it from his forest grave.
Behind me on their grassy sweep,
Bearded with lichen, scrawl’d and grey, 10
The giant stones of Carnac sleep,
In the mild evening of the May.
No priestly stern procession now
Streams through their rows of pillars old;
No victims bleed, no Druids bow; 15
Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.
From bush to bush the cuckoo flies,
The orchis red gleams everywhere;
Gold broom with furze in blossom vies,
The blue-bells perfume all the air. 20
And o’er the glistening, lonely land,
Rise up, all round, the Christian spires.
The church of Carnac, by the strand,
Catches the westerning sun’s last fires.
And there across the watery way, 25
See, low above the tide at flood,
The sickle-sweep of Quiberon bay
Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!
And beyond that, the Atlantic wide! —
All round, no soul, no boat, no hail! 30
But, on the horizon’s verge descried,
Hangs, touch’d with light, one snowy sail!
Ah, where is he, who should have come
Where that far sail is passing now,
Past the Loire’s mouth, and by the foam 35
Of Finistère’s unquiet brow,
Home, round into the English wave? —
He tarries where the Rock of Spain
Mediterranean waters lave;
He enters not the Atlantic main. 40
Oh, could he once have reach’d this air
Freshen’d by plunging tides, by showers!
Have felt this breath he loved, of fair
Cool northern fields, and grass, and flowers!
He long’d for it — press’d on! — In vain. 45
At the Straits fail’d that spirit brave.
The South was parent of his pain,
The South is mistress of his grave.
Fragment of Chorus of a Dejaneira
O FRIVOLOUS mind of man,
Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts,
Though man bewails you not,
How I bewail you!
Little in your prosperity 5
Do you seek counsel of the Gods.
Proud, ignorant
, self-adored, you live alone.
In profound silence stern
Among their savage gorges and cold springs
Unvisited remain 10
The great oracular shrines.
Thither in your adversity
Do you betake yourselves for light,
But strangely misinterpret all you hear.
For you will not put on 15
New hearts with the inquirer’s holy robe,
And purged, considerate minds.
And him on whom, at the end
Of toil and dolour untold,
The Gods have said that repose 20
At last shall descend undisturb’d,
Him you expect to behold
In an easy old age, in a happy home;
No end but this you praise.
But him, on whom, in the prime 25
Of life, with vigour undimm’d,
With unspent mind, and a soul
Unworn, undebased, undecay’d,
Mournfully grating, the gates
Of the city of death have for ever closed — 30
Him, I count him, well-starr’d.
Palladium
SET where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high ‘mid rock and wood;
And Hector was in Ilium, far below,
And fought, and saw it not, but there it stood.
It stood; and sun and moonshine rain’d their light 5
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.
Backward and forward roll’d the waves of fight
Round Troy; but while this stood, Troy could not fall.
So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.
Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; 10
Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;
We visit it by moments, ah! too rare.
Men will renew the battle in the plain
To-morrow; red with blood will Xanthus be;
Hector and Ajax will be there again; 15
Helen will come upon the wall to see.
Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,
And fluctuate ‘twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,
And fancy that we put forth all our life,
And never know how with the soul it fares. 20
Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,
Upon our life a ruling effluence send;
And when it fails, fight as we will, we die,
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.
Early Death and Fame
FOR him who must see many years,
I praise the life which slips away
Out of the light and mutely; which avoids
Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife,
Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal, 5
Insincere praises; which descends
The quiet mossy track to age.
But, when immature death
Beckons too early the guest
From the half-tried banquet of life, 10
Young, in the bloom of his days;
Leaves no leisure to press,
Slow and surely, the sweets
Of a tranquil life in the shade;
Fuller for him be the hours! 15
Give him emotion, though pain!
Let him live, let him feel: I have lived!
Heap up his moments with life,
Triple his pulses with fame!
Youth and Calm
‘TIS death! and peace, indeed, is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There’s nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow.
But is a calm like this, in truth, 5
The crowning end of life and youth,
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light,
Its step so firm, its eye so bright, 10
Because on its hot brow there blows
A wind of promise and repose
From the far grave, to which it goes;
Because it has the hope to come,
One day, to harbour in the tomb? 15
Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath —
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death!
It dreams a rest, if not more deep, 20
More grateful than this marble sleep.
It hears a voice within it tell:
Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well.
‘Tis all perhaps which man acquires,
But ‘tis not what our youth desires. 25
Growing Old
WHAT is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forgo her wreath?
Yes, but not this alone. 5
Is it to feel our strength —
Not our bloom only, but our strength — decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung? 10
Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, ‘tis not what in youth we dream’d ‘twould be!
‘Tis not to have our life
Mellow’d and soften’d as with sunset glow,
A golden day’s decline! 15
‘Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirr’d;
And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,
The years that are no more! 20
It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain. 25
It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion — none. 30
It is — last stage of all —
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man. 35
The Progress of Poesy
A Variation
YOUTH rambles on life’s arid mount,
And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,
And brings the water from the fount,
The fount which shall not flow again.
The man mature with labour chops 5
For the bright stream a channel grand,
And sees not that the sacred drops
Ran off and vanish’d out of hand.
And then the old man totters nigh
And feebly rakes among the stones. 10
The mount is mute, the channel dry;
And down he lays his weary bones.
A Nameless Epitaph
THIS sentence have I left behind:
An aching body, and a mind
Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind,
Too keen to rest, too weak to find,
That travails sore, and brings forth wind, 5
Are God’s worst portion to mankind.
Another
Ask not my name, O friend!
That Being only, which hath known each man
From the beginning, can
Remember each unto the end. 10
The Last Word
CREEP into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast;
Thou thyself must break at last.
Let the long contention cease! 5
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired; best be still!<
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They out-talk’d thee, hiss’d thee, tore thee.
Better men fared thus before thee; 10
Fired their ringing shot and pass’d,
Hotly charged — and broke at last.
Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall, 15
Find thy body by the wall.
A Wish
I ASK not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune’s favour’d sons, not me.
I ask not each kind soul to keep 5
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.
I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to my life denied; 10
Ask but the folly of mankind,
Then, then at last, to quit my side.
Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom — 15
All, that makes death a hideous show!
Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head and give
The ill he cannot cure a name. 20
Nor fetch, to take the accustom’d toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath
The future and its viewless things — 25
That undiscover’d mystery
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 39