The Worlds Triumphs

So far as I conceive the Worlds rebuke
To him addressd 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 lulld,
So many fiery spirits quite coold down:
Look how so many valours, long undulld,
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.

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

In Utrumque Paratus

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Pis-Aller

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Stanzas From The Grande Chartreuse

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

The Church

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.

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

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

To George Cruikshank, Esq.

Artist, whose hand, with horror wingd, hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,
Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn:
Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude,
Like comets on the heavenly solitude?
Shall breathless glades, cheerd by shy Dians horn.
Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul
Breasts her own griefs: and, urgd too fiercely, says:
Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man
May be by man effacd: man can control
To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.
Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.

Matthew Arnold

Obermann

In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack
Close oer it, in the air.

Behind are the abandond baths
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley paths;
The mists are on the Rhone,

The white mists rolling like a sea.
I hear the torrents roar.
Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!
I feel thee near once more.

I turn thy leaves: I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded oer thy soul.

Fly hence, poor Wretch, whoeer thou art,
Condemnd to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without:

A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spir...

Matthew Arnold

The New Sirens - A Palinode

In the cedar shadow sleeping,
Where cool grass and fragrant glooms
Oft at noon have lurd me, creeping
From your darkend palace rooms:
I, who in your train at morning
Strolld and sang with joyful mind,
Heard, at evening, sounds of warning;
Heard the hoarse boughs labour in the wind.

Who are they, O pensive Graces,
For I dreamd they wore your forms
Who on shores and sea-washd places
Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?
Who, when ships are that way tending,
Troop across the flushing sands.
To all reefs and narrows wending,
With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands

Yet I see, the howling levels
Of the deep are not your lair;
And your tragic-vaunted revels
Are less lonely than they were.
In a Tyrian galley steering
Fro...

Matthew Arnold

Alaric at Rome

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
There is such matter for all feeling.
- Childe Harold.


I
Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,
Oblivions dreary fountain, where art thou:
Why speedst thou not thy deathlike wave to shed
Oer humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:
Or times stern hand, why blots it not away
The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?

II
There are, whose glory passeth not away
Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:
Others there are as deathless full as they,
Who for themselves a monument have made
By their own cringesa lesson to all eyes
Of wonder to the foolof warning to the wise.

III
Yes, there are stories registered on high,
Yes, there are stains times fingers...

Matthew Arnold

The Worlds Triumphs

Suggested Poems

The Worlds Triumphs