The Second Best

Moderate tasks and moderate leisure,
Quiet living, strict-kept measure
Both in suffering and in pleasure
Tis for this thy nature yearns.

But so many books thou readest,
But so many schemes thou breedest,
But so many wishes feedest,
That thy poor head almost turns.

And (the worlds so madly jangled,
Human things so fast entangled)
Natures wish must now be strangled
For that best which she discerns.

So it must be! yet, while leading
A straind life, while overfeeding,
Like the rest, his wit with reading,
No small profit that man earns,

Who through all he meets can steer him,
Can reject what cannot clear him,
Cling to what can truly cheer him!
Who each day more surely learns

That an impulse, from the distance
Of his deepest, best existence,
To the words Hope, Light, Persistence,
Strongly stirs and truly burns!

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

The Neckan

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Self-Dependence

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Morality

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

The Last Glen

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.

Quiet Work

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity.

Of toil unsever'd from tranquility!
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

Matthew Arnold

The World And The Quietist

Why, when the Worlds great mind
Hath finally inclind,
Why, you say, Critias, be debating still?
Why, with these mournful rhymes
Learnd in more languid climes,
Blame our activity,
Who, with such passionate will,
Are, what we mean to be?

Critias, long since, I know,
(For Fate decreed it so,)
Long since the World hath set its heart to live.
Long since with credulous zeal
It turns Lifes mighty wheel;
Still doth for labourers send,
Who still their labour give;
And still expects an end.

Yet, as the wheel flies round,
With no ungrateful sound
Do adverse voices fall on the Worlds ear.
Deafend by his own stir
The rugged Labourer
Caught not till then a sense
So glowing and so near
Of his omnipotence.

So, wh...

Matthew Arnold

To A Gipsy Child By The Sea-Shore

Douglas, Isle of Man


Who taught this pleading to unpractisd eyes?
Who hid such import in an infants gloom?
Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise?
What clouds thy forehead, and fore-dates thy doom?

Lo! sails that gleam a moment and are gone;
The swinging waters, and the clusterd pier.
Not idly Earth and Ocean labour on,
Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.

But thou, whom superfluity of joy
Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain,
Nor weariness, the full-fed souls annoy;
Remaining in thy hunger and thy pain:

Thou, drugging pain by patience; half averse
From thine own mothers breast, that knows not thee;
With eyes that sought thine eyes thou didst converse,
And that soul-searching vision fell on me.<...

Matthew Arnold

Morality

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
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...

Matthew Arnold

From The Hymn Of Empedocles

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;

That we must feign a bliss
Of doubtful future date,
And while we dream on this
Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?

Not much, I know, you prize
What pleasures may be had,
Who look on life with eyes
Estranged, like mine, and sad:
And yet the village churl feels the truth more than you;

Who 's loth to leave this life
Which to him little yields:
His hard-task'd sunburnt wife,
His often-labour'd fields;
The boors with whom he talk'd, the country spots he knew.

But thou, because thou hear'st
Me...

Matthew Arnold

Courage

True, we must tame our rebel will:
True, we must bow to Natures law:
Must bear in silence many an ill;
Must learn to wait, renounce, withdraw.

Yet now, when boldest wills give place,
When Fate and Circumstance are strong,
And in their rush the human race
Are swept, like huddling sheep, along;

Those sterner spirits let me prize,
Who, though the tendence of the whole
They less than us might recognize,
Kept, more than us, their strength of soul.

Yes, be the second Cato praisd!
Not that he took the course to die
But that, when gainst himself he raisd
His arm, he raisd it dauntlessly.

And, Byron! let us dare admire,
If not thy fierce and turbid song,
Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire,
Thy fiery courage still was strong....

Matthew Arnold