by Homer
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
Sudden. For fifteen years, 30
We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone, 35
Lacking the shelter of thee.
O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar, 40
In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!
Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past, 45
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live —
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground, 50
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
Twixt vice and virtue; reviv’st, 55
Succorest! — this was thy work;
This was thy life upon earth.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth? —
Most men eddy about 60
Here and there — eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl’d in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving 65
Nothing; and then they die —
Perish; — and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild 70
Of the midmost Ocean, have swell’d,
Foam’d for a moment, and gone.
And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent, 75
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die 80
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave!
We, we have chosen our path —
Path to a clear-purposed goal, 85
Path of advance! — but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o’er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth —
Then on the height, comes the storm. 90
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock, the cataracts reply,
Lightnings dazzle our eyes.
Roaring torrents have breach’d
The track, the stream-bed descends 95
In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep — the spray
Boils o’er its borders! aloft
The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin; alas, 100
Havoc is made in our train!
Friends who set forth at our side,
Falter, are lost in the storm.
We, we only are left!
With frowning foreheads, with lips 105
Sternly compress’d, we strain on,
On — and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn ‘mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host 110
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs —
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks:
Whom in our party we bring? 115
Whom we have left in the snow?
Sadly we answer: We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm.
Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120
Stripp’d, without friends, as we are.
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side.
But thou would’st not alone
Be saved, my father! alone 125
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we
Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die. 130
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet, 135
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing — to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!
Therefore to thee it was given 140
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.
And through thee I believe 145
In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honor’d and blest
By former ages, who else —
Such, so soulless, so poor,
Is the race of men whom I see — 150
Seem’d but a dream of the heart,
Seem’d but a cry of desire.
Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past,
Not like the men of the crowd 155
Who all round me to-day
Bluster or cringe, and make life
Hideous, and arid, and vile;
But souls temper’d with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good, 160
Helpers and friends of mankind.
Servants of God! — or sons
Shall I not call you? because
Not as servants ye knew
Your Father’s innermost mind, 165
His, who unwillingly sees
One of his little ones lost —
Yours is the praise, if mankind
Hath not as yet in its march
Fainted, and fallen, and died! 170
See! In the rocks of the world
Marches the host of mankind,
A feeble, wavering line.
Where are they tending? — A God
Marshall’d them, gave them their goal. 175
Ah, but the way is so long!
Years they have been in the wild!
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them, their host 180
Threatens to break, to dissolve.
— Ah, keep, keep them combined!
Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive;
Sole they shall stray; in the rocks 185
Stagger for ever in vain.
Die one by one in the waste.
Then, in such hour of need
Of your fainting, dispirited race
Ye, like angels, appear, 190
Radiant with ardor divine!
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow. 195
Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave! 200
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line, 205
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the City of God.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Memorial Verses
April, 1850
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease.
But one such death remain’d to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb —
We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb. 5
When Byron’s eyes were shut in death,
We bow’d our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder’s roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw 10
Of passion with eternal law;
And yet with reverential awe
We watch’d the fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife.
When Goethe’s death was told, we said: 15
Sunk, then, is Europe’s sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear; 20
And struck his finger on the place,
And said:Thou ailest here, and here!
He look’d on Europe’s dying hour
Of fitful dream and feverish power;
His eye plunged down the weltering strife, 25
The turmoil of expiring life —
He said: The end is everywhere,
Art still has truth, take refuge there!
And he was happy, if to know
Causes of things, and far below 30
His feet to see the lurid flow
Of terror, and insane distress,
And headlong fate, be happiness.
And Wordsworth! — Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!
For never has such soothing voice 35
Been to your shadowy world convey’d,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.
Wordsworth has gone from us — and ye, 40
Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!
He too upon a wintry clime
Had fallen — on this iron time
Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
He found us when the age had bound 45
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 50
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o’er the sun-lit fields again;
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth returned; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead, 55
Spirits dried up and closely furl’d,
The freshness of the early world.
Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man’s prudence and man’s fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course 60
Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force;
But where will Europe’s latter hour
Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel; 65
Others will strengthen us to bear —
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly —
But who, like him, will put it by? 70
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
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 sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw 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 Ægæan, 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.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Better Part
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
LONG fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare!
“Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more, when we have done our span.” 5
“Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”
So answerest thou; but why not rather say:
“Hath man no second life? — Pitch this one high! 10
Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see? —
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!”
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Worldly Place
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
EVEN in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 5
And drudge under some foolish master’s ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen —
Match’d with a palace, is not this a hell?
Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; 10
And when my ill-school’d spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I’ll stop, and say: “There were no succor here!
The aids to noble life are all within.”
List of Poe
ms in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Last Word
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
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.
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 sank 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!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
George Meredith
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Love in the Valley
George Meredith (1828 — 1909)
UNDER yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
Couch’d with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her, 5
Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow,
Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me:
Then would she hold me and never let me go?
Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow,
Swift as the swallow along the river’s light 10
Circleting the surface to meet his mirror’d winglets,
Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.
Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops,
Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun,
She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, 15
Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!