Matthew Arnold

What poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating, The world, in its turn, will not take

Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd, Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream, Under o'erhanging pines; the morning sun,

My Horse's feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake,

They are gone: all is still: Foolish heart, dost thou quiver? Nothing moves on the lawn but the quick lilac shade. Far up gleams the house, and beneath flows the river.

This sentence have I left behind: An aching body, and a mind Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind,

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell? 'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry Stormily sweet, his Titan agony;

The sandy spits, the shore-lock'd lakes, Melt into open, moonlit sea; The soft Mediterranean breaks

In the deserted, moon-blanched street, How lonely rings the echo of my feet! Those windows, which I gaze at, frown,

I ask not that my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath

In this fair stranger's eyes of grey Thine eyes, my love, I see. I shudder: for the passing day

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here There is such matter for all feeling. - Childe Harold.

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;

CALLICLES (front below) Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame;

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame; All Etna heaves fiercely

That son of Italy who tried to blow, Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song, In his light youth amid a festal throng

The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again;

I The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill,

I SENDING So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round

Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; and there

A thousand knights have rein'd their steeds To watch this line of sand-hills run, Along the never silent Strait,

Mist clogs the sunshine. Smoky dwarf houses Hem me round everywhere;

True, we must tame our rebel will: True, we must bow to Nature's law: Must bear in silence many an ill;

SYNOPSIS Introduction - The mountains and the sea the cradles of Freedom contrasted with the birth-place of Cromwell His childhood and youth The germs of his future character probably formed during his life of inaction Cromwell at the moment of his intended embarkation Retrospect of his past life and profligate youth    Temptations held out by the prospect of a life of rest in America How far such rest was allowable Vision of his future life Different persons represented in it Charles the First Cromwell himself His victories and maritime glory Pym Strafford Laud Hampden Falkland Milton    Charles the First Cromwell on his death-bed His character Dispersion of the vision Conclusion. Schrecklich ist es, deiner Wahrheit

Thou, who dost dwell alone; Thou, who dost know thine own; Thou, to whom all are known,

The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life's cold sea, Which others know, or say they know

Why each is striving, from of old, To love more deeply than he can? Still would be true, yet still grows cold?

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light

For him who must see many years, I praise the life which slips away Out of the light and mutely; which avoids

In the bare midst of Anglesey they show Two springs which close by one another play, And, 'Thirteen hundred years agone,' they say,

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen

PERSONS: EMPEDOCLES. PAUSANIAS, a Physician.

One Morn as through Hyde Park we walk'd. My friend and I, by chance we talk'd Of Lessing's famed Laoco'n;

I too have suffer'd: yet I know She is not cold, though she seems so: She is not cold, she is not light;

I THE RIVER Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat

THE CHORUS Well hath he done who hath seiz'd happiness. For little do the all-containing Hours,

O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts, Though man bewails you not,

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have lived light in the spring,

The gods held talk together, group'd in knots, Round Balder's corpse, which they had thither borne; And Hermod came down towards them from the gate.

What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye?

Where, under Loughrigg, the stream Of Rotha sparkles, the fields Are green, in the house of one

A region desolate and wild. Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child

'Henri Heine', , 'tis here! The black tombstone, the name Carved there, no more! and the smooth,

Omit, omit, my simple friend, Still to inquire how parties tend, Or what we fix with foreign powers.

What mortal, when he saw, Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, Patience! in another life, we say

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure, At first imagin'd lay The sacred world; and by procession sure

I must not say that thou wert true, Yet let me say that thou wert fair. And they that lovely face who view,

A year had flown, and o'er the sea away, In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay; In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old

Raise the light, my page! that I may see her. Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen! Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever;

We were apart; yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be. I bade it keep the world away,

Forth from the East, up the ascent of Heaven, Day drove his courser with the Shining Mane; And in Valhalla, from his gable perch,

Yes, now the longing is o'erpast, Which, dogg'd by fear and fought by shame, Shook her weak bosom day and night,

In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand; And at its end, to stay the eye,

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay

CALLICLES (from below) As the sky-brightening south-wind clears the day, And makes the mass'd clouds roll,

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. But one such death remain'd to come;

Silent, the Lord of the world Eyes from the heavenly height, Girt by his far-shining train,

'Oh could thy grave at home, at Carthage, be!' Care not for that, and lay me where I fall. Everywhere heard will be the judgment-call.

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still,

"Not by the justice that my father spurn'd, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,

In front the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack

Glion? Ah, twenty years, it cuts All meaning from a name! White houses prank where once were huts.

Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moon-lit snow

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below,

Ye storm-winds of Autumn Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle

Hark! ah, the nightingale The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

'Man is blind because of sin; 'Revelation makes him sure. 'Without that, who looks within,

In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. I have, in the present collection, omitted the Poem from which the volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, having survived his fellows, living on into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists to prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there entered much that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared: the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of Faust. The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, if consistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle, in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our love of Poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is not interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind; that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, precise, and firm.

And they remember With piercing untold anguish The proud boasting of their youth.

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught. He saw a fire in his disciples' eyes; 'The old law', they said, 'is wholly come to naught!

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one

I In paris all look'd hot and like to fade. Brown in the garden of the Tuileries,

Children (as such forgive them) have I known, Ever in their own eager pastime bent To make the incurious bystander, intent

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes;

To die be given us, or attain! Fierce work it were, to do again. So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray'd

Before Man parted for this earthly strand, While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, God put a heap of letters in his hand,

Murmur of living! Stir of existence! Soul of the world!

Coldly, sadly descends The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts

Saint Brandan sails the northern main; The brotherhood of saints are glad. He greets them once, he sails again;

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share? Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,

Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me

Stop Not to me, at this bitter departing, Speak of the sure consolations of Time. Fresh be the wound, still-renew'd be its smarting,

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask, Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson that in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties serv'd in one,

Not in sunk Spain's prolong'd death agony; Not in rich England, bent but to make pour The flood of the world's commerce on her shore;

Thou, who dost dwell alone, Thou, who dost know thine own, Thou, to whom all are known

I saw him sensitive in frame, I knew his spirits low; And wish'd him health, success, and fame:

Far on its rocky knoll descried Saint Michael's chapel cuts the sky. I climb'd; beneath me, bright and wide,

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused With rain, where thick the crocus blows, Past the dark forges long disused,

In front the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack,

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;

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,    Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!    I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.   

Down the Savoy valleys sounding, Echoing round this castle old, 'Mid the distant mountain chalets

Upon the glistening leaden roof Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines; The stream goes leaping by.

I. The Castle Down the Savoy valleys sounding,

'Yes, write it in the rock!' Saint Bernard said, 'Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! ''Tis God himself becomes apparent, when

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! Now my brothers call from the bay,

A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time;

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save. So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian Sect which cried:

I THE LAST GLEN Hist! once more!

A region desolate and wild, Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child

Again I see my bliss at hand; The town, the lake are here. My Marguerite smiles upon the strand

Hist! once more! Listen, Pausanias!'Aye, 'tis Callicles! I know those notes among a thousand.    Hark!

Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast.

In summer, on the headlands, The Baltic Sea along, Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,

In the cedar shadow sleeping, Where cool grass and fragrant glooms Oft at noon have lur'd me, creeping

In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise,

A long pause, during which EMPEDOCLES remains motionless, plunged in thought. The night deepens. He moves forward and gazes round him, and proceeds: And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal,

Youth rambles on life's arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount,

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars' shade; Silent the swans beside us float

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,

Moderate tasks and moderate leisure, Quiet living, strict-kept measure Both in suffering and in pleasure

HUSSEIN O most just Vizier, send away The cloth-merchants, and let them be,

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame. All Etna heaves fiercely

And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven,

Faster, faster, O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild, thronging train

Ten years! and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high,

So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair! In your high church, 'mid the still mountain air, Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come.

As the kindling glances, Queen-like and clear, Which the bright moon lances

Why, when the World's great mind Hath finally inclin'd, Why, you say, Critias, be debating still?

So far as I conceive the World's rebuke To him address'd who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took,

We, O Nature, depart: Thou survivest us: this, This, I know, is the law.

Rais'd are the dripping oars Silent the boat: the lake, Lovely and soft as a dream,

Where I am, thou ask'st, and where I wended When my fleeting shadow pass'd from thee? Am I not concluded now, and ended?

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks,

Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,

Douglas, Isle of Man Who taught this pleading to unpractis'd eyes? Who hid such import in an infant's gloom?

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few, But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few, But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,

'In harmony with Nature'? Restless fool, Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, When true, the last impossibility;

Joy comes and goes: hope ebbs and flows, Like the wave. Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.

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

We were apart: yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be; I bade it keep the world away,

'Yes: in the sea of life enisl'd, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

Laugh, my Friends, and without blame Lightly quit what lightly came: Rich to-morrow as to-day

Because thou hast believ'd, the wheels of life Stand never idle, but go always round: Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground,

Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem Rather to patience prompted, than that prowl Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,

Each on his own strict line we move, And some find death ere they find love. So far apart their lives are thrown

Tristram Is she not come? The messenger was sure. Prop me upon the pillows once again

I TRISTRAM Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure,

He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke and fire break forth with a loud noise, and CALLICLES is heard below singing: The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere! In the court of Gods, in the city of men,

Crouch'd on the pavement close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side

Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den

Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole.

'O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world, That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way. A voice oracular hath peal'd to-day,

'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There's nothing can dismarble now

'When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, From this poor present self which I am now; When youth has done its tedious vain expense