Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Arnold Matthew

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       Will the fire joy hath wasted,

       Mused on, warm the heart anew?

       —Or, are those old thoughts returning,

       Guests the dull sense never knew,

       Stars, set deep, yet inly burning,

       Germs, your untrimm'd passion overgrew?

      Once, like us, you took your station

       Watchers for a purer fire;

       But you droop'd in expectation,

       And you wearied in desire.

       When the first rose flush was steeping

       All the frore peak's awful crown,

       Shepherds say, they found you sleeping

       In some windless valley, farther down.

      Then you wept, and slowly raising

       Your dozed eyelids, sought again,

       Half in doubt, they say, and gazing

       Sadly back, the seats of men;—

       Snatch'd a turbid inspiration

       From some transient earthly sun,

       And proclaim'd your vain ovation

       For those mimic raptures you had won. …

       With a sad, majestic motion,

       With a stately, slow surprise,

       From their earthward-bound devotion

       Lifting up your languid eyes—

       Would you freeze my too loud boldness,

       Dumbly smiling as you go,

       One faint frown of distant coldness

       Flitting fast across each marble brow?

      Do I brighten at your sorrow,

       O sweet Pleaders?—doth my lot

       Find assurance in to-morrow

       Of one joy, which you have not?

       O, speak once, and shame my sadness!

       Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain,

       Mock'd and baffled by your gladness,

       Mar the music of your feasts in vain!

      Scent, and song, and light, and flowers!

       Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow—

       Come, bind up those ringlet showers!

       Roses for that dreaming brow!

       Come, once more that ancient lightness,

       Glancing feet, and eager eyes!

       Let your broad lamps flash the brightness

       Which the sorrow-stricken day denies!

      Through black depths of serried shadows,

       Up cold aisles of buried glade;

       In the midst of river-meadows

       Where the looming kine are laid;

       From your dazzled windows streaming,

       From your humming festal room,

       Deep and far, a broken gleaming

       Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.

      Where I stand, the grass is glowing;

       Doubtless you are passing fair!

       But I hear the north wind blowing,

       And I feel the cold night-air.

       Can I look on your sweet faces,

       And your proud heads backward thrown,

       From this dusk of leaf-strewn places

       With the dumb woods and the night alone?

      Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses—

       Mad delight, and frozen calms—

       Mirth to-day and vine-bound tresses,

       And to-morrow—folded palms;

       Is this all? this balanced measure?

       Could life run no happier way?

       Joyous, at the height of pleasure,

       Passive at the nadir of dismay?

      But, indeed, this proud possession,

       This far-reaching, magic chain,

       Linking in a mad succession

       Fits of joy and fits of pain—

       Have you seen it at the closing?

       Have you track'd its clouded ways?

       Can your eyes, while fools are dozing,

       Drop, with mine, adown life's latter days?

      When a dreary dawn is wading

       Through this waste of sunless greens,

       When the flushing hues are fading

       On the peerless cheek of queens;

       When the mean shall no more sorrow,

       And the proudest no more smile;

       As old age, youth's fatal morrow,

       Spreads its cold light wider all that while?

      Then, when change itself is over,

       When the slow tide sets one way,

       Shall you find the radiant lover,

       Even by moments, of to-day?

       The eye wanders, faith is failing—

       O, loose hands, and let it be!

       Proudly, like a king bewailing,

       O, let fall one tear, and set us free!

      All true speech and large avowal

       Which the jealous soul concedes;

       All man's heart which brooks СКАЧАТЬ