Theklas Answer

Where I am, thou askst, and where I wended
When my fleeting shadow passd from thee?
Am I not concluded now, and ended?
Have not life and love been granted me?

Ask, where now those nightingales are singing,
Who, of late, on the soft nights of May,
Set thine ears with soul-fraught music ringing
Only, while their love livd, lasted they.

Find I him, from whom I had to sever?
Doubt it not, we met, and we are one.
There, where what is joind, is joind for ever,
There, where tears are never more to run.

There thou too shalt live with us together,
When thou too hast borne the love we bore:
There, from sin deliverd, dwells my Father,
Trackd by Murders bloody sword no more.

There he feels, it was no dream deceiving
Lurd him starwards to uplift his eye:
God doth match his gifts to mans believing;
Believe, and thou shalt find the Holy nigh.

All thou augurest here of lovely seeming
There shall find fulfilment in its day:
Dare, O Friend, be wandering, dare be dreaming;
Lofty thought lies oft in childish play.

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 Tomb

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Obermann

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

The Terrace At Berne

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Isolation - To Marguerite

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

English

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Thekla. A Spirit Voice.

Whither was it that my spirit wended
When from thee my fleeting shadow moved?
Is not now each earthly conflict ended?
Say, have I not lived, have I not loved?

Art thou for the nightingales inquiring
Who entranced thee in the early year
With their melody so joy-inspiring?
Only whilst they loved they lingered here.

Is the lost one lost to me forever?
Trust me, with him joyfully I stray
There, where naught united souls can sever,
And where every tear is wiped away.

And thou, too, wilt find us in yon heaven,
When thy love with our love can compare;
There my father dwells, his sins forgiven,
Murder foul can never reach him there.

And he feels that him no vision cheated
When he gazed upon the stars on high;
For as each one metes, to...

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A Farewell

My Horse's feet beside the lake,
Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,
Sent echoes through the night to wake,
Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.

The poplar avenue was passd,
And the roofed bridge that spans the stream,
Up the steep street I hurried fast,
Led by thy tapers starlike beam.

I came! I saw thee rise:, the blood
Poured flushing to thy languid cheek.
Locked in each others arms we stood,
In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

Days flew; ah, soon I could discern
A trouble in thine altered air.
Thy hand lay languidly in mine,
Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

I blame thee not:, This heart, I know,
To be long lovd was never framd,
For something in its depths doth glow
Too strange, too r...

Matthew Arnold

Faded Leaves

I

THE RIVER

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars shade;
Silent the swans beside us float
None speaks, none heeds, ah, turn thy head.

Let those arch eyes now softly shine,
That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland:
Ah, let them rest, those eyes, on mine;
On mine let rest that lovely hand.

My pent-up tears oppress my brain,
My heart is swoln with love unsaid:
Ah, let me weep, and tell my pain,
And on thy shoulder rest my head.

Before I die, before the soul,
Which now is mine, must re-attain
Immunity from my control,
And wander round the world again:

Before this teasd oerlabourd heart
For ever leaves its vain employ,
Dead to its deep habitual smart,
And dead to hopes o...

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

A Southern Night

The sandy spits, the shore-lockd lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.

Dotting the fields of corn and vine
Like ghosts, the huge, gnarld olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain-line!
While by the strand

Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the lighthouse beacons bright
Far in the bay.

Ah, such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vext heart deplore!

But now that trouble is forgot;
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,
Possess me quite.

The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave
There where Gibraltars cann...

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

Theklas Answer

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Theklas Answer