Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 36

Not till the hours of light return, All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul, When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, Ask, how _she_ view'd thy self-control, Thy struggling, task'd morality-- Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air, Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread, Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek, See, on her face a glow is spread, A strong emotion on her cheek!

"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, Whence was it, for it is not mine?

"There is no effort on _my_ brow-- I do not strive, I do not weep; I rush with the swift spheres and glow In joy, and when I will, I sleep.

Yet that severe, that earnest air, I saw, I felt it once--but where?

"I knew not yet the gauge of time, Nor wore the manacles of s.p.a.ce; I felt it in some other clime, I saw it in some other place.

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, And lay upon the breast of G.o.d."

A SUMMER NIGHT

In the deserted, moon-blanch'd street, How lonely rings the echo of my feet!

Those windows, which I gaze at, frown, Silent and white, unopening down, Repellent as the world;--but see, A break between the housetops shows The moon! and, lost behind her, fading dim Into the dewy dark obscurity Down at the far horizon's rim, Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose!

And to my mind the thought Is on a sudden brought Of a past night, and a far different scene.

Headlands stood out into the moonlit deep As clearly as at noon; The spring-tide's br.i.m.m.i.n.g flow Heaved dazzlingly between; Houses, with long white sweep, Girdled the glistening bay; Behind, through the soft air, The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away, The night was far more fair-- But the same restless pacings to and fro, And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, And the same bright, calm moon.

And the calm moonlight seems to say: _Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,_ _Which neither deadens into rest,_ _Nor ever feels the fiery glow_ _That whirls the spirit from itself away,_ _But fluctuates to and fro,_ _Never by pa.s.sion quite possess'd_ _And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?_-- And I, I know not if to pray Still to be what I am, or yield and be Like all the other men I see.

For most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.

And as, year after year, Fresh products of their barren labour fall From their tired hands, and rest Never yet comes more near, Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; And while they try to stem The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, Death in their prison reaches them, Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.

And the rest, a few, Escape their prison and depart On the wide ocean of life anew.

There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart Listeth, will sail; Nor doth he know how there prevail, Despotic on that sea, Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.

Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves.

And then the tempest strikes him; and between The lightning-bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguish'd face and flying hair Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible sh.o.r.e.

And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?

Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!

Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great, Are yet untroubled and unpa.s.sionate; Who, though so n.o.ble, share in the world's toil, And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!

I will not say that your mild deeps retain A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain-- But I will rather say that you remain A world above man's head, to let him see How boundless might his soul's horizons be, How vast, yet of what clear transparency!

How it were good to abide there, and breathe free; How fair a lot to fill Is left to each man still!

THE BURIED LIFE

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.

Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile!

But there's a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, And thy gay smiles no anodyne.

Give me thy hand, and hush awhile, And turn those limpid eyes on mine, And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the ma.s.s of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb Our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we, Even for a moment, can get free Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd; For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which foresaw How frivolous a baby man would be---- By what distractions he would be possess'd, How he would pour himself in every strife, And well-nigh change his own ident.i.ty---- That it might keep from his capricious play His genuine self, and force him to obey Even in his own despite his being's law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast The unregarded river of our life Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying at large in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us--to know Whence our lives come and where they go.

And many a man in his own breast then delves, But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.

And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown, on each, spirit and power; But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves-- Hardly had skill to utter one of all The nameless feelings that course through our breast, But they course on for ever unexpress'd.

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!

And then we will no more be rack'd With inward striving, and demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their stupefying power; Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!

Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, From the soul's subterranean depth upborne As from an infinitely distant land, Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all our day.

Only--but this is rare-- When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafen'd ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd-- A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

A man becomes aware of his life's flow, And hears its winding murmur; and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race Wherein he doth for ever chase That flying and elusive shadow, rest.

An air of coolness plays upon his face, And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.

And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes.

LINES

WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS

In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand; And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his, Across the girdling city's hum.

How green under the boughs it is!

How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade To take his nurse his broken toy; Sometimes a thrush flit overhead Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pa.s.s, What endless, active life is here!

What blowing daisies, fragrant gra.s.s!