To a Republican Friend, 1848 - Continued

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem
Rather to patience prompted, than that prowl
Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,
France, famd in all great arts, in none supreme.
Seeing this Vale, this Earth, whereon we dream,
Is on all sides oershadowd by the high
Unoerleapd Mountains of Necessity,
Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.
Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,
When, bursting through the network superposd
By selfish occupation, plot and plan,
Lust, avarice, envy liberated man,
All difference with his fellow man composd,
Shall be left standing face to face with God

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

Resignation

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

On The Rhine

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

The Buried Life

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

Austerity Of Poetry

Matthew Arnold, Simple Poetry

English

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To A Republican Friend, 1848

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, prizd and practisd by too few,
But prizd, but lovd, but eminent in you,
Mans fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at the long heart-wasting show
Wherein earths great ones are disquieted:
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed:
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share

Matthew Arnold

To A Republican Friend

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at teh long heart-wasting show
Wherein earth's great ones are disquieted:
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed:
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.

Matthew Arnold

Resignation

To die be given us, or attain!
Fierce work it were, to do again.
So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, prayd
At burning noon: so warriors said,
Scarfd with the cross, who watchd the miles
Of dust that wreathd their struggling files
Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows
Round Alpine summits eddying rose,
The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun,
Crouchd on his saddle, when the sun
Went lurid down oer flooded plains
Through which the groaning Danube strains
To the drear Euxine: so pray all,
Whom labours, self-ordaind, enthrall;
Because they to themselves propose
On this side the all-common close
A goal which, gaind, may give repose.
So pray they: and to stand again
Where they stood once, to them were pain;
Pain to thread back and to renew
Past ...

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

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

Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XXXVII. - Desultory Stanzas - Upon Receiving The Preceding Sheets From The Press

Is then the final page before me spread,
Nor further outlet left to mind or heart?
Presumptuous Book! too forward to be read,
How can I give thee licence to depart?
One tribute more: unbidden feelings start
Forth from their coverts; slighted objects rise;
My spirit is the scene of such wild art
As on Parnassus rules, when lightning flies,
Visibly leading on the thunder's harmonies.

All that I saw returns upon my view,
All that I heard comes back upon my ear,
All that I felt this moment doth renew;
And where the foot with no unmanly fear
Recoiled--and wings alone could travel--there
I move at ease; and meet contending themes
That press upon me, crossing the career
Of recollections vivid as the dreams
Of midnight, cities, plains, forests, and mighty s...

William Wordsworth