Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

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Title: Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold
Author: Matthew Arnold
Release Date: January 7, 2009 [eBook #27739]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF MATTHEW
ARNOLD***
E-text prepared by Clare Boothby, Carla Foust, J. C. Byers, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcriber's note:
Printer errors have been corrected and are listed at the end. The author's spelling has been retained.
POETICAL WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD
_First Complete Edition printed September 1890.
Reprinted November and December 1890. July 1891._
POETICAL WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD
London
MacMillan And Co.
and New York
1891
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
EARLY POEMS
SONNETS-- PAGE
QUIET WORK 1
TO A FRIEND 2
SHAKESPEARE 2
WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS 3
WRITTEN IN BUTLER'S SERMONS 4
TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 4
2
IN HARMONY WITH NATURE 5
TO GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 6
TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848 6
CONTINUED 7
RELIGIOUS ISOLATION 8
MYCERINUS 8
THE CHURCH OF BROU--
I. THE CASTLE 13
II. THE CHURCH 17
III. THE TOMB 18
A MODERN SAPPHO 20
REQUIESCAT 21
YOUTH AND CALM 22
A MEMORY-PICTURE 23
A DREAM 25
THE NEW SIRENS 26
THE VOICE 36
YOUTH'S AGITATIONS 37
THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS 38
STAGIRIUS 38
HUMAN LIFE 40
TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SEA-SHORE 41
A QUESTION 44
IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS 45
THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST 46
HORATIAN ECHO 47
THE SECOND BEST 49
CONSOLATION 50
RESIGNATION 52
NARRATIVE POEMS
SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 65
THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA 92
BALDER DEAD--
1. SENDING 101
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2. JOURNEY TO THE DEAD 111
3. FUNERAL 121
TRISTRAM AND ISEULT--
1. TRISTRAM 138
2. ISEULT OF IRELAND 150
3. ISEULT OF BRITTANY 158
SAINT BRANDAN 165
THE NECKAN 167
THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 170
SONNETS
AUSTERITY OF POETRY 177
A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD 177
RACHEL: I, II, III 178
WORLDLY PLACE 180
EAST LONDON 180
WEST LONDON 181
EAST AND WEST 181
THE BETTER PART 182
THE DIVINITY 183
IMMORTALITY 183
THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID 184
MONICA'S LAST PRAYER 184
LYRIC POEMS
SWITZERLAND--
1. MEETING 189
2. PARTING 189
3. A FAREWELL 192
4. ISOLATION. TO MARGUERITE 195
5. TO MARGUERITE--CONTINUED 197
6. ABSENCE 198
7. THE TERRACE AT BERNE 199
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THE STRAYED REVELLER 201
FRAGMENT OF AN "ANTIGONE" 211
FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A "DEJANEIRA" 214
EARLY DEATH AND FAME 215
PHILOMELA 216
URANIA 217
EUPHROSYNE 218
CALAIS SANDS 219
FADED LEAVES--
1. THE RIVER 221
2. TOO LATE 222
3. SEPARATION 222
4. ON THE RHINE 223
5. LONGING 224
DESPONDENCY 224
SELF-DECEPTION 225
DOVER BEACH 226
GROWING OLD 227
THE PROGRESS OF POESY 228
NEW ROME 229
PIS-ALLER 230
THE LAST WORD 230
THE LORD'S MESSENGERS 231
A NAMELESS EPITAPH 232
BACCHANALIA; OR, THE NEW AGE 232
EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOÖN 236
PERSISTENCY OF POETRY 243
A CAUTION TO POETS 243
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THE YOUTH OF NATURE 243
THE YOUTH OF MAN 247
PALLADIUM 251
PROGRESS 252
REVOLUTIONS 254
SELF-DEPENDENCE 255
MORALITY 256
A SUMMER NIGHT 257
THE BURIED LIFE 260
LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 263
A WISH 265
THE FUTURE 267
ELEGIAC POEMS
THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY 273
THYRSIS 281
MEMORIAL VERSES 289
STANZAS IN MEMORY OF EDWARD QUILLINAN 292
STANZAS FROM CARNAC 292
A SOUTHERN NIGHT 294
HAWORTH CHURCHYARD 299
EPILOGUE 303
RUGBY CHAPEL 304
HEINE'S GRAVE 311
STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE 318
STANZAS IN MEMORY OF THE AUTHOR OF "OBERMANN" 325
OBERMANN ONCE MORE 332
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DRAMATIC POEMS
MEROPE, A TRAGEDY 347
EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 436
LATER POEMS
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 479
GEIST'S GRAVE 485
POOR MATTHIAS 488
KAISER DEAD 495
NOTES 501
EARLY POEMS
SONNETS
QUIET WORK
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--
Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!
Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!
Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone.
TO A FRIEND
Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind?--
He much, the old man, who, clearest-soul'd of men,
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,[1]
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.
Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,
That halting slave, who in Nicopolis
Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son
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Clear'd Rome of what most shamed him. But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole;
The mellow glory of the Attic stage,
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.
SHAKESPEARE
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS
"O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world,
That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way!
A voice oracular hath peal'd to-day,
To-day a hero's banner is unfurl'd;
Hast thou no lip for welcome?"--So I said.
Man after man, the world smiled and pass'd by;
A smile of wistful incredulity
As though one spake of life unto the dead--
Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful, and full
Of bitter knowledge. Yet the will is free;
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful;
The seeds of godlike power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!--
Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery?
WRITTEN IN BUTLER'S SERMONS
Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers,
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Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control--
So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole,
Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see,
Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne
Where man's one nature, queen-like, sits alone,
Centred in a majestic unity;
And rays her powers, like sister-islands seen
Linking their coral arms under the sea,
Or cluster'd peaks with plunging gulfs between
Spann'd by aërial arches all of gold,
Whereo'er the chariot wheels of life are roll'd
In cloudy circles to eternity.
TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED
Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life
Stand never idle, but go always round;
Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground,
Moved only; but by genius, in the strife
Of all its chafing torrents after thaw,
Urged; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand,
The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand;
And, in this vision of the general law,
Hast labour'd, but with purpose; hast become
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm--
For this, thy track, across the fretful foam
Of vehement actions without scope or term,
Call'd history, keeps a splendour; due to wit,
Which saw one clue to life, and follow'd it.
IN HARMONY WITH NATURE
TO A PREACHER
"In harmony with Nature?" Restless fool,
Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee,
When true, the last impossibility--
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more,
And in that _more_ lie all his hopes of good.
Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood;
Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore;
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Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;
Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave;
Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.
Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast friends.
Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!
TO GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
ON SEEING, IN THE COUNTRY, HIS PICTURE OF
"THE BOTTLE"
Artist, whose hand, with horror wing'd, hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf! and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,
Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn--
Say, what shall calm us when such guests intrude
Like comets on the heavenly solitude?
Shall breathless glades, cheer'd by shy Dian's horn,
Cold-bubbling springs, or caves?--Not so! The soul
Breasts her own griefs; and, urged too fiercely, says:
"Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man
May be by man effaced; man can control
To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.
Know thou the worst! So much, not more, he _can_."
TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848
God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, prized and practised by too few,
But prized, but loved, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life; if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true
(And for such doing they require not eyes);
If sadness at the long heart-wasting show
Wherein earth's great ones are disquieted;
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed--
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.
CONTINUED
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Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem
Rather to patience prompted, than that proud
Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud--
France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme;
Seeing this vale, this earth, whereon we dream,
Is on all sides o'ershadow'd by the high
Uno'erleap'd Mountains of Necessity,
Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.
Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,
When, bursting through the network superposed
By selfish occupation--plot and plan,
Lust, avarice, envy--liberated man,
All difference with his fellow-mortal closed,
Shall be left standing face to face with God.
RELIGIOUS ISOLATION
TO THE SAME FRIEND
Children (as such forgive them) have I known,
Ever in their own eager pastime bent
To make the incurious bystander, intent
On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own--
Too fearful or too fond to play alone.
Do thou, whom light in thine own inmost soul
(Not less thy boast) illuminates, control
Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown.
What though the holy secret, which moulds thee,
Mould not the solid earth? though never winds
Have whisper'd it to the complaining sea,
Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds?--
To its own impulse every creature stirs;
Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers!
MYCERINUS[2]
"Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due; Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.
"I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My crime--that, rapt in reverential awe,
I sate obedient, in the fiery prime
Of youth, self-govern'd, at the feet of Law;