Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Arnold Matthew

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       A thousand virtues in this hated time!

      Then I shall wish its agitations back,

       And all its thwarting currents of desire;

       Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,

       And call this hurrying fever, generous fire;

      And sigh that one thing only has been lent

       To youth and age in common—discontent.

THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS

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      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,

       But from their weakness who would work her rue.

      "Behold," she cries, "so many rages lull'd,

       So many fiery spirits quite cool'd down;

       Look how so many valours, long undull'd,

       After short commerce with me, fear my frown!

      "Thou too, when thou against my crimes wouldst cry,

       Let thy foreboded homage check thy tongue!"—

       The world speaks well; yet might her foe reply:

       "Are wills so weak?—then let not mine wait long!

      "Hast thou so rare a poison?—let me be

       Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me!"

STAGIRIUS[3]

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      Thou, who dost dwell alone—

       Thou, who dost know thine own—

       Thou, to whom all are known

       From the cradle to the grave—

       Save, oh! save.

       From the world's temptations,

       From tribulations,

       From that fierce anguish

       Wherein we languish,

       From that torpor deep

       Wherein we lie asleep,

       Heavy as death, cold as the grave,

       Save, oh! save.

      When the soul, growing clearer,

       Sees God no nearer;

       When the soul, mounting higher,

       To God comes no nigher;

       But the arch-fiend Pride

       Mounts at her side,

       Foiling her high emprise,

       Sealing her eagle eyes,

       And, when she fain would soar,

       Makes idols to adore,

       Changing the pure emotion

       Of her high devotion,

       To a skin-deep sense

       Of her own eloquence;

       Strong to deceive, strong to enslave—

       Save, oh! save.

      From the ingrain'd fashion

       Of this earthly nature

       That mars thy creature;

       From grief that is but passion,

       From mirth that is but feigning,

       From tears that bring no healing,

       From wild and weak complaining,

       Thine old strength revealing,

       Save, oh! save.

       From doubt, where all is double;

       Where wise men are not strong,

Where comfort turns to trouble, Where just men suffer wrong; Where sorrow treads on joy, Where sweet things soonest cloy, Where faiths are built on dust, Where love is half mistrust, Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea— Oh! set us free. O let the false dream fly, Where our sick souls do lie Tossing continually! O where thy voice doth come Let all doubts be dumb, Let all words be mild, All strifes be reconciled, All pains beguiled! Light bring no blindness, Love no unkindness, Knowledge no ruin, Fear no undoing! From the cradle to the grave, Save, oh! save.

HUMAN LIFE

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      What mortal, when he saw,

       Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,

       Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:

       "I have kept uninfringed my nature's law;

       The inly-written chart thou gavest me,

       To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"?

      Ah! let us make no claim,

On life's incognisable sea, To too exact a steering of our way; Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, If some fair coast have lured us to make stay, Or some friend hail'd us to keep company.

      Ay! we would each fain drive

       At random, and not steer by rule.

       Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain

       Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,

       We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;

       Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.

      No! as the foaming swath

       Of torn-up water, on the main,

       Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar

       On either side the black deep-furrow'd path

       Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,

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