Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Arnold Matthew

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       Play through this grassy upland glen;

       The loose dark stones on the green way

       Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay;

       On this mild bank above the stream,

       (You crush them!) the blue gentians gleam.

       Still this wild brook, the rushes cool,

       The sailing foam, the shining pool!

       These are not changed; and we, you say,

       Are scarce more changed, in truth, than they.

      The gipsies, whom we met below,

       They, too, have long roam'd to and fro;

       They ramble, leaving, where they pass,

       Their fragments on the cumber'd grass.

       And often to some kindly place

       Chance guides the migratory race,

       Where, though long wanderings intervene,

       They recognise a former scene.

       The dingy tents are pitch'd; the fires

       Give to the wind their wavering spires;

       In dark knots crouch round the wild flame

       Their children, as when first they came;

       They see their shackled beasts again

       Move, browsing, up the gray-wall'd lane.

       Signs are not wanting, which might raise

       The ghost in them of former days—

       Signs are not wanting, if they would;

       Suggestions to disquietude.

       For them, for all, time's busy touch,

       While it mends little, troubles much.

       Their joints grow stiffer—but the year

       Runs his old round of dubious cheer;

       Chilly they grow—yet winds in March,

       Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch;

       They must live still—and yet, God knows,

       Crowded and keen the country grows;

       It seems as if, in their decay,

       The law grew stronger every day.

       So might they reason, so compare,

       Fausta, times past with times that are.

       But no!—they rubb'd through yesterday

       In their hereditary way,

       And they will rub through, if they can,

       To-morrow on the self-same plan,

       Till death arrive to supersede,

       For them, vicissitude and need.

      The poet, to whose mighty heart

       Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart,

       Subdues that energy to scan

       Not his own course, but that of man.

       Though he move mountains, though his day

       Be pass'd on the proud heights of sway,

       Though he hath loosed a thousand chains,

       Though he hath borne immortal pains,

       Action and suffering though he know—

       He hath not lived, if he lives so.

       He sees, in some great-historied land,

       A ruler of the people stand,

       Sees his strong thought in fiery flood

       Roll through the heaving multitude

       Exults—yet for no moment's space

       Envies the all-regarded place.

       Beautiful eyes meet his—and he

       Bears to admire uncravingly;

       They pass—he, mingled with the crowd,

       Is in their far-off triumphs proud.

       From some high station he looks down,

       At sunset, on a populous town;

       Surveys each happy group, which fleets,

       Toil ended, through the shining streets,

       Each with some errand of its own—

       And does not say: I am alone. He sees the gentle stir of birth When morning purifies the earth; He leans upon a gate and sees The pastures, and the quiet trees. Low, woody hill, with gracious bound, Folds the still valley almost round; The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn, Is answer'd from the depth of dawn; In the hedge straggling to the stream, Pale, dew-drench'd, half-shut roses gleam; But, where the farther side slopes down, He sees the drowsy new-waked clown In his white quaint-embroider'd frock Make, whistling, tow'rd his mist-wreathed flock— Slowly, behind his heavy tread, The wet, flower'd grass heaves up its head. Lean'd on his gate, he gazes—tears Are in his eyes, and in his ears The murmur of a thousand years. Before him he sees life unroll, A placid and continuous whole— That general life, which does not cease, Whose secret is not joy, but peace; That life, whose dumb wish is not miss'd If birth proceeds, if things subsist; The life of plants, and stones, and rain, The life he craves—if not in vain Fate gave, what chance shall not control, His sad lucidity of soul.

      You listen—but that wandering smile,

       Fausta, betrays you cold the while!

       Your eyes pursue the bells of foam

       Wash'd, eddying, from this bank, their home.

       Those gipsies, so your thoughts I scan, Are less, the poet more, than man. They feel not, though they move and see; Deeper the poet feels; but he Breathes, when he will, immortal air, Where Orpheus and where Homer are. In the day's life, whose iron round Hems us all in, he is not bound; He leaves his kind, o'erleaps their pen, And flees the common life of men. He escapes thence, but we abide— Not deep the poet sees, but wide.