The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems

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Title: Poems

Author: Matthew Arnold

Release date: June 26, 2017 [eBook #54985]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***

P O E M S

BY

MATTHEW   ARNOLD.


NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION.


colophon


NEW YORK:
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
No. 13 Astor Place.

CONTENTS.

EARLY POEMS.
 PAGE
Sonnets:—
Quiet Work"1
To a Friend"2
Shakspeare"2
Written in Emerson’s Essays"3
Written in Butler’s Sermons"3
To the Duke of Wellington"4
“In Harmony with Nature”5
To George Cruikshank"5
To a Republican Friend, 1848"6
Continued"7
Religious Isolation"7
Mycerinus8
The Church of Brou:—
  I. The Castle"12
 II. The Church"16
III. The Tomb"18
A Modern Sappho19
Requiescat21
Youth and Calm22
A Memory-Picture23
The New Sirens25
The Voice34
Youth’s Agitations36
The World’s Triumphs36
Stagirius37
Human Life39
To a Gypsy Child by the Seashore40
A Question43
In Utrumque Paratus43
The World and the Quietist45
The Second Best46
Consolation47
Resignation49
NARRATIVE POEMS.
Sohrab and Rustum59
The Sick King in Bokhara86
Balder Dead:—
  I. Sending"94
 II. Journey to the Dead"104
III. Funeral"114
Tristram and Iseult:—
  I. Tristram"131
 II. Iseult of Ireland"143
III. Iseult of Brittany"150
Saint Brandan157
The Neckan160
The Forsaken Merman162
SONNETS.
Austerity of Poetry167
A Picture at Newstead167
Rachel: I., II., III168
Worldly Place170
East London170
West London171
East and West171
The Better Part172
The Divinity172
Immortality173
The Good Shepherd with the Kid173
Monica’s Last Prayer174
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC POEMS.
Switzerland
  I. Meeting"175
 II. Parting"176
III. A Farewell"179
 IV. Isolation. To Marguerite"182
  V. To Marguerite. Continued"183
 VI. Absence"184
VII. The Terrace at Berne"185
The Strayed Reveller187
Fragment of an “Antigone”197
Fragment of Chorus of a “Dejaneira”201
Early Death and Fame202
Philomela202
Urania204
Euphrosyne205
Calais Sands206
Faded Leaves:—
  I. The River"207
 II. Too Late"208
III. Separation"208
 IV. On the Rhine"209
  V. Longing"209
Despondency210
Self-Deception210
Dover Beach211
Growing Old213
The Progress of Poesy214
Pis Aller214
The Last Word215
A Nameless Epitaph215
Empedocles on Etna216
Bacchanalia; or, The New Age254
Epilogue to Lessing’s Laocoön258
Persistency of Poetry264
A Caution to Poets264
The Youth of Nature265
The Youth of Man269
Palladium273
Progress273
Revolutions275
Self-Dependence276
Morality277
A Summer Night278
The Buried Life281
Lines written in Kensington Gardens284
A Wish286
The Future288
ELEGIAC POEMS.
The Scholar-Gypsy291
Thyrsis299
Memorial Verses307
Stanzas in Memory of Edward Quillinan310
Stanzas from Carnac311
A Southern Night312
Haworth Churchyard317
Epilogue321
Rugby Chapel321
Heine’s Grave328
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse335
Stanzas in Memory of the Author of “Obermann”342
Obermann Once More348
Notes361

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 unsevered from tranquillity;
 Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows
 Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose,
 Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
 Man’s senseless uproar mingling with his toil,
 Still do thy quiet ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
 Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
 Laborers 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-souled 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
 Cleared 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.

SHAKSPEARE.

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 foiled searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
 Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure,
 Didst tread on earth unguessed 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 pealed to-day,
 To-day a hero’s banner is unfurled;
Hast thou no lip for welcome?”—So I said.
 Man after man, the world smiled and passed 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,
 Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control,—
 So men, unravelling God’s harmonious whole,
 Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
Vain labor! 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 clustered peaks with plunging gulfs between,
Spanned by aërial arches all of gold,
 Whereo’er the chariot-wheels of life are rolled
 In cloudy circles to eternity.

TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED.