Matthew Arnold
¶[1822-1888}
608 the Forsaken Merman
¶COME, dear children, let us away;Down and away below.Now my brothers call from the bay;Now the great winds shoreward blow;Now the salt tides seaward flow;Now the wild white horses play,Champ and chafe and toss in the spray,Children dear, let us away.This way, this way!
¶Call her once before you go.Call once yet.In a voice that she will know:'Margaret! Margaret!'Children's voices should be dear(Call once more) to a mother's ear:Children's voices, wild with pain.Surely she will come again.Call her once and come away.This way, this way!'Mother dear, we cannot stay.'The wild white horses foam and fret.Margaret! Margaret!
¶Come, dear children, come away down.Call no more.One last look at the white-wall'd town,And the little grey church on the windy shore.Then come down.She will not come though you call all day.Come away, come away.
¶Children dear, was it yesterdayWe heard the sweet bells over the bay?In the caverns where we lay,[1124]Through the surf and through the swell,The far-off sound of a silver bell?Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,Where the winds are all asleep;Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;Where the salt weed sways in the stream;Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,Dry their mail, and bask in the brine;Where great whales come sailing by,Sail and sail, with unshut eye,Round the world for ever and aye?When did music come this way?Children dear, was it yesterday?
¶Children dear, was it yesterday(Call yet once) that she went away?Once she sate with you and me,On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,And the youngest sate on her knee.She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.She said, 'I must go, for my kinsfolk prayIn the little grey church on the shore to-day.'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves.Say thy prayer and come back to the kind sea-caves.'She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bayChildren dear, was it yesterday?
¶Children dear, were we long alone?'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say.Come,' I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.We went up the beach, by the sandy downWhere the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town.Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,To the little grey church on the windy hill.[1125]From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone.The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'But, ah! she gave me never a look,For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book.Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.Come away, children, call no more.Come away, come down, call no more.Down, down, down;Down to the depths of the sea.She sits at her wheel in the humming town,Singing most joyfully.Hark what she sings: 'O joy, O joy,For the humming street, and the child with its toy.For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.For the wheel where I spun,And the blessed light of the sun.'
¶And so she sings her fill,Singing most joyfully,Till the shuttle falls from her hand, .And the whizzing wheel stands still.She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;And over the sand at the sea;And her eyes are set in a stare;And anon there breaks a sigh,And anon there drops a tear,From a sorrow-clouded eye,And a heart sorrow-laden,A long, long sighFor the cold strange eyes of a little MermaidehAnd the gleam of her golden hair.
¶Come children, come down.Come away, away, children.The hoarse wind blows colder;[1126]Lights shine in the town.She will start from her slumberWhen gusts shake the door;She will hear the winds howling,Will hear the waves roar.We shall see, while above usThe waves roar and whirl,A ceiling of amber,A pavement of pearl.Singing, 'Here came a mortal,But faithless was she:And alone dwell for everThe kings of the sea.'
¶But, children, at midnight,When soft the winds blow;When clear falls the moonlight;When spring-tides are low:When sweet airs come seawardFrom heaths starr'd with broom;And high rocks throw mildlyOn the blanch'd sands a gloom:Up the still, glistening beaches,Up the creeks we will hie;Over banks of bright seaweedThe ebb-tide leaves dry.We will gaze, from the sand-hills,At the white, sleeping town;At the church on the hill-side—And then come back down.Singing, 'There dwells a loved one,But cruel is she.She left lonely for everThe kings of the sea.'
The Song of Callicles
¶THROUGH the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame.All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.[1127]Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee.But, where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea.
¶Where the moon-silver'd inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,O speed, and rejoice!
¶On the sward at the cliff-top,Lie strewn the white flocks;On the cliff-side, the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.
¶In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lull'd by the rills,Lie wrapt in their blankets,Asleep on the hills.
¶—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flower'd broom?
¶They are lost in the hollows.They stream up again.What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?—[1128]They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road.Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.
700 To MARGUERITE
¶YES: in the sea of life enisled,With echoing straits between us thrown.Dotting the shoreless watery wild,We mortal millions live alone.The islands feel the enclasping flow,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;And lovely notes, from shore to shore,Across the sounds and channels pour;
¶O then a longing like despairIs to their farthest caverns sent!For surely once, they feel we wereParts of a single continent.Now round us spreads the watery plain—O might our marges meet again![1129]Who order'd that their longing's fireShould be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?Who renders vain their deep desire?—A God, a God their severance ruled;And bade betwixt their shores to beThe unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.
70/ Requiescat
¶Her mirth the world required:She bathed it in smiles of glee.But her heart was tired, tired,And now they let her be.
¶Her life was turning, turning,In mazes of heat and sound.But for peace her soul was yearning,And now peace laps her round.
¶Her cabin'd, ample Spirit,It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.To-night it doth inheritThe vasty hall of Death.
702 Shakespeare
¶OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hillThat 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 baseTo 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,[1130]Didst walk on earth unguess'd at. Better so!All pains the immortal spirit must endure,All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
7 0 j RUGBY CHAPEL
¶November, 185JCOLDLY, sadly descendsThe autumn-evening. The fieldStrewn with its dank yellow driftsOf wither'd leaves, and the elms,Fade into dimness apace,Silent;—hardly a shoutFrom a few boys late at their play!The lights come out in the street,In the school-room windows;—but cold,Solemn, unlighted, austere,Through the gathering darkness, ariseThe chapel-walls, in whose boundThou, my father! art laid.
¶There thou dost lie, in the gloomOf the autumn evening. But ah!That word, gloom, to my mindBrings thee back, in the lightOf thy radiant vigor, again;In the gloom of November we pass'dDays not dark at thy side;Seasons impair'd not the rayOf thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.Such thou wast! and I standIn the autumn evening and thinkOf bygone autumns with thee.
¶Fifteen years have gone roundSince thou arosest to tread,In the summer-morning, the roadOf death, at a call unforeseen,Sudden. For fifteen years,We who till then in thy shade[1131]Rested as under the boughsOf a mighty oak, have enduredSunshine and rain as we might,Bare, unshaded, alone,Lacking the shelter of thee.
¶O strong soul, by what shoreTarriest thou now? For that force,Surely, has not been left vain!Somewhere, surely, afar,In the sounding labor-house vastOf being, is practised that strength,Zealous, beneficent, firm!
¶Yes, in some far-shining sphere,Conscious or not of the past,Still thou performest the wordOf the Spirit in whom thou dost live-Prompt, unwearied, as here!Still thou upraisest with zealThe humble good from the ground,Sternly repressest the bad!Still, like a trumpet, dost rouseThose who with half-open eyesTread the border-land dimTwixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,Succorest!—this was thy work;This was thy life upon earth.
¶What is the course of the lifeOf mortal men on the earth?—Most men eddy aboutHere and there—eat and drink,Chatter and love and hate,Gather and squander, are raisedAloft, are hurl'd in the dust,Striving blindly, achievingNothing; and then they die—Perish;—and no one asksWho or what they have been,[1132]More than he asks what waves,In the moonlit solitudes mildOf the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,Foam'd for a moment, and gone.
¶And there are some, whom a thirstArdent, unquenchable, fires,Not with the crowd to be spent,Not without aim to go roundIn an eddy of purposeless dust,Effort unmeaning and vain.Ah yes! some of us striveNot without action to dieFruitless, but something to snatchFrom dull oblivion, nor allGlut the devouring grave!We, we have chosen our path—Path to a clear-purposed goal,Path of advance!—but it leadsA long, steep journey, through sunkGorges, o'er mountains in snow.Cheerful, with friends, we set forth—Then on the height, comes the storm.Thunder crashes from rockTo rock, the cataracts reply,Lightnings dazzle our eyes.Roaring torrents have breach'dThe track, the stream-bed descendsIn the place where the wayfarer oncePlanted his footstep—the sprayBoils o'er its borders! aloftThe unseen snow-beds dislodgeTheir hanging ruin; alas,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 lipsSternly compress'd, we strain on,On—and at nightfall at last[1133]Come to the end of our way,To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;Where the gaunt and taciturn hostStands on the threshold, the windShaking his thin white hairs—Holds his lantern to scanOur storm-beat figures, and asks:Whom in our party we bring?Whom we have left in the snow ?
¶Sadly we answer: We bringOnly ourselves! we lostSight of the rest in the storm.Hardly ourselves we fought through,Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.Friends, companions, and train,The avalanche swept from our side.
¶But thou would'st not aloneBe saved, my father! aloneConquer and come to thy goal,Leaving the rest in the wild.We were weary, and weFearful, and we in our marchFain to drop down and to die.Still thou turnedst, and stillBeckonedst the trembler, and stillGavest the weary thy hand.
¶If, in the paths of the world,Stones might have wounded thy feet,Toil or dejection have triedThy spirit, of that we sawNothing—to us thou wast stillCheerful, and helpful, and firm!Therefore to thee it was givenMany to save with thyself;And, at the end of thy day,O faithful shepherd! to come,Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.[1134]And through thee I believeIn the noble and great who are gone;Pure souls honor'd and blestBy former ages, who else—Such, so soulless, so poor,Is the race of men whom I see—Seem'd but a dream of the heart,Seem'd but a cry of desire.Yes! I believe that there livedOthers like thee in the past,Not like the men of the crowdWho all round me to-dayBluster or cringe, and make lifeHideous, and arid, and vile;But souls temper'd with fire,Fervent, heroic, and good,Helpers and friends of mankind.
¶Servants of God!—or sonsShall I not call you? becauseNot as servants ye knewYour Father's innermost mind,His, who unwillingly seesOne of his little ones lost—Yours is the praise, if mankindHath not as yet in its marchFainted, and fallen, and died!
¶See! In the rocks of the worldMarches the host of mankind,A feeble, wavering line.Where are they tending?—A GodMarshall'd them, gave them their goal.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 hostThreatens to break, to dissolve.—Ah, keep, keep them combined![1135]Else, of the myriads who fillThat army, not one shall arrive;Sole they shall stray; in the rocksStagger for ever in vain.Die one by one in the waste.
¶Then, in such hour of needOf your fainting, dispirited raceYe, like angels, appear,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.Ye alight in our van! at your voice,Panic, despair, flee away.Ye move through the ranks, recallThe stragglers, refresh the outworn,Praise, re-inspire the brave!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,Stablish, continue our march,On, to the bound of the waste,On, to the City of God.
704 Memorial Verses
¶April, i85oGOETHE 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.
¶When Byron's eyes were shut in death,We bow'd our head and held our breath.He taught us little; but our soulHad felt him like the thunder's roll.[1136]With shivering heart the strife we sawOf passion with eternal law;And yet with reverential aweWe watch'd the fount of fiery lifeWhich served for that Titanic strife.
¶When Goethe's death was told, we said: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;And struck his finger on the place,And said: Thou attest here, and here!He look'd on Europe's dying hourOf fitful dream and feverish power;His eye plunged down the weltering strife,The turmoil of expiring life—He said: The end is everywhere,Art still has truth, ta\e refuge there!And he was happy, if to knowCauses of things, and far belowHis feet to see the lurid flowOf terror, and insane distress,And headlong fate, be happiness.
¶And Wordsworth!—Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!For never has such soothing voiceBeen to your shadowy world convey'd,Since erst, at morn, some wandering shadeHeard the clear song of Orpheus comeThrough Hades, and the mournful gloom.Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye,Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!He too upon a wintry climeHad fallen—on this iron timeOf doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.He found us when the age had boundOur souls in its benumbing round;He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.[1137]He laid us as we lay at birthOn the cool flowery lap of earth,Smiles broke from us and we had ease;The hills were round us, and the breezeWent o'er the sun-lit fields again;Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.Our youth returned; for there was shedOn spirits that had long been dead,Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,The freshness of the early world.
¶Ah! since dark days still bring to lightMan's prudence and man's fiery might,Time may restore us in his courseGoethe's sage mind and Byron's force;But where will Europe's latter hourAgain find Wordsworth's healing power?Others will teach us how to dare,And against fear our breast to steel;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?
¶Keep fresh the grass upon his graveO Rotha, with thy living wave!Sing him thy best! for few or noneHears thy voice right, now he is gone.
705 Dover Beach
¶THE sea is calm to-night,The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits;—on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,[1138]Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand.Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in.
¶Sophocles long agoHeard it on the ^gatan, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
¶The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo 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 plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The Better Part
¶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.""Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?[1139]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 highlSits 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 tryIf we then, too, can be such men as he!"
707 Worldly Place
¶EVEN in a palace, life may be led well!So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling denOf common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,Our freedom for a little bread we sell,And drudge under some foolish master's kenWho 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;And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflameSome 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."
708 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!Geese are swans, and swans are geese.Let them have it how they will!Thou art tired; best be still.