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Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

Page 42

by Matthew Arnold


  Deep have embreathed at its core! 230

  Made it a ray of thy thought!

  Made it a beat of thy joy!

  Obermann once more

  GLION? —— Ah, twenty years, it cuts

  All meaning from a name!

  White houses prank where once were huts!

  Glion! but not the same,

  And yet I know not. All unchanged 5

  The turf, the pines, the sky!

  The hills in their old order ranged!

  The lake, with Chillon by!

  And ‘neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff

  And stony mounts the way, 10

  Their crackling husk-heaps burn, as if

  I left them yesterday.

  Across the valley, on that slope.

  The huts of Avant shine —

  Its pines under their branches ope 15

  Ways for the tinkling kine.

  Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,

  Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,

  Invite to rest the traveller there

  Before he climb the pass — 20

  The gentian-flower’d pass, its crown

  With yellow spires aflame,

  Whence drops the path to Alliere down

  And walls where Byron came,

  By their green river who doth change 25

  His birth-name just below —

  Orchard, and croft, and full-stored grange

  Nursed by his pastoral flow.

  But stop! — to fetch back thoughts that stray

  Beyond this gracious bound, 30

  The cone of Jaman, pale and grey,

  See, in the blue profound!

  Ah, Jaman! delicately tall

  Above his sun-warm’d firs —

  What thoughts to me his rocks recall! 35

  What memories he stirs!

  And who but thou must be, in truth,

  Obermann! with me here?

  Thou master of my wandering youth,

  But left this many a year! 40

  Yes, I forget the world’s work wrought,

  Its warfare waged with pain!

  An eremite with thee, in thought

  Once more I slip my chain

  And to thy mountain-chalet come 45

  And lie beside its door

  And hear the wild bee’s Alpine hum

  And thy sad, tranquil lore.

  Again I feel its words inspire

  Their mournful calm — serene, 50

  Yet tinged with infinite desire

  For all that might have been,

  The harmony from which man swerved

  Made his life’s rule once more!

  The universal order served! 55

  Earth happier than before!

  While thus I mused, night gently ran

  Down over hill and wood.

  Then, still and sudden, Obermann

  On the grass near me stood. 60

  Those pensive features well I knew,

  On my mind, years before,

  Imaged so oft, imaged so true!

  A shepherd’s garb he wore,

  A mountain-flower was in his hand, 65

  A book was in his breast;

  Bent on my face, with gaze that scann’d

  My soul, his eyes did rest.

  ‘And is it thou,’ he cried, ‘so long

  Held by the world which we 70

  Loved not, who turnest from the throng

  Back to thy youth and me?

  ‘And from thy world, with heart opprest,

  Choosest thou now to turn? —

  Ah me, we anchorites knew it best! 75

  Best can its course discern!

  ‘Thou fledd’st me when the ungenial earth,

  Thou soughtest, lay in gloom.

  Return’st thou in her hour of birth,

  Of hopes and hearts in bloom? 80

  ‘Wellnigh two thousand years have brought

  Their load, and gone away,

  Since last on earth there lived and wrought

  A world like ours to-day.

  ‘Like ours it look’d in outward air! 85

  Its head was clear and true,

  Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,

  No pause its action knew;

  ‘Stout was its arm, each pulse and bone

  Seem’d puissant and alive — 90

  But, ah, its heart, its heart was stone,

  And so it could not thrive!

  ‘On that hard Pagan world disgust

  And secret loathing fell.

  Deep weariness and sated lust 95

  Made human life a hell.

  ‘In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,

  The Roman noble lay;

  He drove abroad, in furious guise.

  Along the Appian way; 100

  ‘He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,

  And crown’d his hair with flowers —

  No easier nor no quicker pass’d

  The impracticable hours.

  ‘The brooding East with awe beheld 105

  Her impious younger world;

  The Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d,

  And on her head was hurl’d.

  ‘The East bow’d low before the blast,

  In patient, deep disdain. 110

  She let the legions thunder past.

  And plunged in thought again.

  ‘So well she mused, a morning broke

  Across her spirit grey.

  A conquering, new-born joy awoke, 115

  And fill’d her life with day.

  ‘“Poor world,” she cried, “so deep accurst!

  That runn’st from pole to pole

  To seek a draught to slake thy thirst —

  Go, seek it in thy soul!” 120

  ‘She heard it, the victorious West!

  In crown and sword array’d.

  She felt the void which mined her breast,

  She shiver’d and obey’d.

  ‘She veil’d her eagles, snapp’d her sword, 125

  And laid her sceptre down;

  Her stately purple she abhorr’d,

  And her imperial crown;

  ‘She broke her flutes, she stopp’d her sports,

  Her artists could not please; 130

  She tore her books, she shut her courts,

  She fled her palaces;

  ‘Lust of the eye and pride of life

  She left it all behind,

  And hurried, torn with inward strife, 135

  The wilderness to find.

  ‘Tears wash’d the trouble from her face!

  She changed into a child.

  ‘Mid weeds and wrecks she stood — a place

  Of ruin — but she smiled! 140

  ‘Oh, had I lived in that great day,

  How had its glory new

  Fill’d earth and heaven, and caught away

  My ravish’d spirit too!

  ‘No cloister-floor of humid stone 145

  Had been too cold for me;

  For me no Eastern desert lone

  Had been too far to flee.

  ‘No thoughts that to the world belong

  Had stood against the wave 150

  Of love which set so deep and strong

  From Christ’s then open grave.

  ‘No lonely life had pass’d too slow

  When I could hourly see

  That wan, nail’d Form, with head droop’d low, 155

  Upon the bitter tree;

  ‘Could see the Mother with the Child

  Whose tender winning arts

  Have to his little arms beguiled

  So many wounded hearts! 160

  ‘And centuries came, and ran their course,

  And unspent all that time

  Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force,

  And still was at its prime.

  ‘Ay, ages long endured his span 165

  Of life, ‘tis true received,

  That gracious Child, that thorn-cro
wn’d Man!

  He lived while we believed.

  ‘While we believed, on earth he went,

  And open stood his grave. 170

  Men call’d from chamber, church, and tent,

  And Christ was by to save.

  ‘Now he is dead. Far hence he lies

  In the lorn Syrian town,

  And on his grave, with shining eyes, 175

  The Syrian stars look down.

  ‘In vain men still, with hoping new,

  Regard his death-place dumb,

  And say the stone is not yet to,

  And wait for words to come. 180

  ‘Ah, from that silent sacred land,

  Of sun, and arid stone,

  And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,

  Comes now one word alone!

  ‘From David’s lips this word did roll, 185

  ‘Tis true and living yet:

  No man can save his brother’s soul,

  Nor pay his brother’s debt.

  ‘Alone, self-poised, henceforward man

  Must labour; must resign 190

  His all too human creeds, and scan

  Simply the way divine.

  ‘But slow that tide of common thought,

  Which bathed our life, retired.

  Slow, slow the old world wore to naught, 195

  And pulse by pulse expired.

  ‘Its frame yet stood without a breach

  When blood and warmth were fled;

  And still it spake its wonted speech —

  But every word was dead. 200

  ‘And oh, we cried, that on this corse

  Might fall a freshening storm!

  Rive its dry bones, and with new force

  A new-sprung world inform!

  ‘Down came the storm! In ruin fell 205

  The outworn world we knew.

  It pass’d, that elemental swell!

  Again appear’d the blue.

  ‘The sun shone in the new-wash’d sky —

  And what from heaven saw he? 210

  Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,

  Float in a rolling sea.

  ‘Upon them ply the race of man

  All they before endeavour’d;

  They come and go, they work and plan, 215

  And know not they are sever’d.

  ‘Poor fragments of a broken world

  Whereon we pitch our tent!

  Why were ye too to death not hurl’d

  When your world’s day was spent? 220

  ‘The glow of central fire is done

  Which with its fusing flame

  Knit all your parts, and kept you one; —

  But ye, ye are the same!

  ‘The past, its mask of union on, 225

  Had ceased to live and thrive.

  The past, its mask of union gone,

  Say, is it more alive?

  ‘Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,

  Your social order too. 230

  Where tarries he, the power who said:

  See, I make all things new?

  ‘The millions suffer still, and grieve;

  And what can helpers heal

  With old-world cures men half believe 235

  For woes they wholly feel?

  ‘And yet they have such need of joy!

  And joy whose grounds are true!

  And joy that should all hearts employ

  As when the past was new! 240

  ‘Ah, not the emotion of that past,

  Its common hope, were vain!

  A new such hope must dawn at last,

  Or man must toss in pain.

  ‘But now the past is out of date, 245

  The future not yet born —

  And who can be alone elate,

  While the world lies forlorn?

  ‘Then to the wilderness I fled.

  There among Alpine snows 250

  And pastoral huts I hid my head,

  And sought and found repose.

  ‘It was not yet the appointed hour.

  Sad, patient, and resign’d,

  I watch’d the crocus fade and flower, 255

  I felt the sun and wind.

  ‘The day I lived in was not mine —

  Man gets no second day.

  In dreams I saw the future shine,

  But ah, I could not stay! 260

  ‘Action I had not, followers, fame.

  I pass’d obscure, alone.

  The after-world forgets my name,

  Nor do I wish it known.

  ‘Gloom-wrapt within, I lived and died, 265

  And knew my life was vain.

  With fate I murmur not, nor chide;

  At Sèvres by the Seine

  ‘(If Paris that brief flight allow)

  My humble tomb explore; 270

  It bears: Eternity, be thou

  My refuge! and no more.

  ‘But thou, whom fellowship of mood

  Did make from haunts of strife

  Come to my mountain solitude 275

  And learn my frustrate life;

  ‘O thou, who, ere thy flying span

  Was past of cheerful youth,

  Didst seek the solitary man

  And love his cheerless truth — 280

  ‘Despair not thou as I despair’d,

  Nor be cold gloom thy prison!

  Forward the gracious hours have fared,

  And see! the sun is risen.

  ‘He melts the icebergs of the past, 285

  A green, new earth appears.

  Millions, whose life in ice lay fast,

  Have thoughts, and smiles, and tears.

  ‘The world’s great order dawns in sheen

  After long darkness rude, 290

  Divinelier imaged, clearer seen,

  With happier zeal pursued.

  ‘With hope extinct and brow composed

  I mark’d the present die;

  Its term of life was nearly closed, 295

  Yet it had more than I.

  ‘But thou, thought to the world’s new hour

  Thou come with aspect marr’d,

  Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power,

  Which best beseem its bard; 300

  ‘Though more than half thy years be past,

  And spent thy youthful prime;

  Though, round thy firmer manhood cast,

  Hang weeds of our sad time,

  ‘Whereof thy youth felt all the spell, 305

  And traversed all the shade —

  Though late, though dimm’d, though weak, yet tell

  Hope to a world new-made!

  ‘Help it to reach our deep desire,

  The dream which fill’d our brain, 310

  Fix’d in our soul a thirst like fire

  Immedicable pain!

  ‘Which to the wilderness drove out

  Our life, to Alpine snow;

  And palsied all our deed with doubt 315

  And all our word with woe —

  ‘What still of strength is left, employ,

  That end to help men gain:

  One mighty wave of thought and joy

  Lifting mankind amain! 320

  The vision ended; I awoke

  As out of sleep, and no

  Voice moved — only the torrent broke

  The silence, far below.

  Soft darkness on the turf did lie; 325

  Solemn, o’er hut and wood,

  In the yet star-sown nightly sky,

  The peak of Jaman stood.

  Still in my soul the voice I heard

  Of Obermann — away 330

  I turn’d; by some vague impulse stirr’d,

  Along the rocks of Naye

  And Sonchaud’s piny flanks I gaze

  And the blanch’d summit bare

  Of Malatrait, to where in haze 335

  The Valais opens fair,

  And the domed Velan with his snows

  Behind the upcrowding hills

  Doth all the heavenly
opening close

  Which the Rhone’s murmur fills — 340

  And glorious there, without a sound,

  Across the glimmering lake,

  High in the Valais depth profound,

  I saw the morning break.

  The Poems

  The poet’s father was the headmaster of Rugby School, Warwickshire. In 1837 Matthew Arnold enrolled in the fifth form and in 1838 he came under the direct tutelage of his father.

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  SONNET: ONE LESSON, NATURE, LET ME LEARN OF THEE

  MYCERINUS

  SONNET. TO A FRIEND

  THE STRAYED REVELLER

  FRAGMENT OF AN ‘ANTIGONE’

  THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA

  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

  EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA

  THE RIVER

  EXCUSE

  INDIFFERENCE

  TOO LATE

  ON THE RHINE

  LONGING

  THE LAKE

  PARTING

  ABSENCE

  DESTINY

 

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