Pis-Aller

Man is blind because of sin;
Revelation makes him sure.
Without that, who looks within,
Looks in vain, for alls obscure.

Nay, look closer into man!
Tell me, can you find indeed
Nothing sure, no moral plan
Clear prescribed, without your creed?

No, I nothing can perceive;
Without that, alls dark for men.
That, or nothing, I believe.
For Gods sake, believe it then!

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He is best remembered for his poetry, including works like 'Dover Beach,' and his influence on literary and social criticism. Arnold's work often grappled with the social issues and the loss of faith in the modern age, making him a central figure in the transition from Romanticism to Modernism in literature.

Matthew Arnold

Isolation - To Marguerite

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Worldly Place

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Immortality

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

A Southern Night

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Progress

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught.
He saw a fire in his disciples eyes;
The old law, they said, is wholly come to naught!
Behold the new world rise!

Was it, the Lord then said, with scorn ye saw
The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees?
I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these!

Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas!
Think not that I to annul the law have willd;
No jot, no tittle from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfilld.

So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago.
And what then shall be said to those to-day,
Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new worlds way?

Religious fervours! ardour misapplied!
Hence, hence, they cry, ye do but keep man blind!

Matthew Arnold

Anti-Desperation

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurnst all simpler fare!
Christ, some one says, was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;

We live no more, when we have done our span.
Well, then, for Christ, thou answerest, who can care?
From sin, which heaven records not, why forbear
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!

So answerest thou; but why not rather say
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?

More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!

Matthew Arnold

Self-Deception

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory
Of possessing powers not our share?
Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,
But, before we woke on earth, we were.

Long, long since, undowerd yet, our spirit
Roamd, ere birth, the treasuries of God
Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit;
Askd an outfit for its earthly road.

Then, as now, this tremulous, eager Being
Straind, and longd, and graspd each gift it saw.
Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing
Stavd us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah, whose hand that day through heaven guided
Mans blank spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who swayd our choice, and who decided
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining
Shreds of gifts w...

Matthew Arnold

The Better Part

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more when we have done our span."
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,
"Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see?
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!"

Matthew Arnold

A Summer Night

In the deserted, moon-blanched 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 brimming flow
Heaved dazzlingly between;
Houses, with long wide sweep,
Girdled the glistening bay;
Behind, through the soft air,
The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away.
That night was far more fair...

Matthew Arnold

Stagyrus - later titled Desire

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 worlds 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 emprize,
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,

Matthew Arnold