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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13364-0.txt b/13364-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11e2461 --- /dev/null +++ b/13364-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8890 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13364 *** + +MATTHEW ARNOLD'S + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + + +EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES + +BY + +JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN + +HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION +HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE + + + + +1905 + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE + + INTRODUCTION + A Short Life of Arnold + Arnold the Poet + Arnold the Critic + Chronological List of Arnold's Works + Contemporary Authors + Bibliography + + SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS + + NARRATIVE POEMS + + Sohrab and Rustum + Saint Brandan + The Forsaken Merman + Tristram and Iseult + + + LYRICAL POEMS + + The Church of Brou + Requiescat + Consolation + A Dream + Lines written in Kensington Gardens + The Strayed Reveller + Morality + Dover Beach + Philomela + Human Life + Isolation--To Marguerite + Kaiser Dead + The Last Word + Palladium + Revolutions + Self-Dependence + A Summer Night + Geist's Grave + Epilogue--To Lessing's Laocoön + + + SONNETS + + Quiet Work + Shakespeare + Youth's Agitations + Austerity of Poetry + Worldly Place + East London + West London + + + ELEGIAC POEMS + + Memorial Verses + The Scholar-Gipsy + Thyrsis + Rugby Chapel + + + NOTES + + INDEX + + * * * * * + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD + +Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham, +Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. +Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and +in later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of Mary +Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect. + +Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from the +eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story of Arnold's life +is soon told. As a boy he lived the life of the normal English lad, +with its healthy routine of task and play. He was at school at both +Laleham and Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention +as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was elected to +an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, and the next year +matriculated for his university work. Arnold's career at Oxford was a +memorable one. While here he was associated with such men as John Duke +Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, John Henry Newman, +Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, closest of all, with Arthur Hugh +Clough, whose early death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac +poem--_Thyrsis_. Among this brilliant company Arnold moved with ease, +the recognized favorite. Having taken the Newdigate prize for English +verse, and also having won a scholarship, he was graduated with +honors in 1844, and in March of the following year had the additional +distinction of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning glory of +an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics for a short time at +Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the post of private secretary to the +Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, which position he +occupied until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools +by the Committee on Education. The same year he married Frances Lucy +Wightman, daughter of Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the +Queen's Bench. + +Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the history of +England's public schools. For more than thirty-five years he served as +inspector and commissioner, which offices he filled with efficiency. +As inspector he was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike +by teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his appearance +to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the admission of a ray +of light when a shutter is suddenly opened in a darkened room. +All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing children, and kindly sympathetic +teachers, more than excellence in grade reports. In connection with +the duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently on +the Continent to inquire into foreign methods of primary and secondary +education. Here he found much that was worth while, and often carried +back to London larger suggestions and ideas than the national mind was +ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, the school system of +England was extensively revised and improved. He resigned his position +under the Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years before +his death. + +In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His first volume of +verse, _The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems_, appeared (1848), and +although quietly received, slowly won its way into public favor. The +next year the narrative poem, _The Sick King in Bokhara_, came out, +and was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under the title of +_Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems_. By this time Arnold's reputation +as a poet was established, and in 1857 he was elected Professor of +Poetry at Oxford, where he began his career as a lecturer, in which +capacity he twice visited America. _Merope, a Tragedy_ (1856) and a +volume under the title of _New Poems_ (1869) finish the list of his +poetical works, with the exception of occasional verses. + +Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist wholly of +critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly with the greater +issues of his day. As will be seen by their titles (see page xxxviii +of this volume), the subject-matter of these essays is of very great +scope, embracing in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and +popular religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence on +public thought and stamped himself as one of the ablest critics and +reformers of the last century. Arnold's life was thus one of many +widely diverse activities and was at all times deeply concerned with +practical as well as with literary affairs; and on no side was it +deficient in human sympathies and relations. He won respect and +reputation while he lived, and his works continue to attract men's +minds, although with much unevenness. It has been said of him that, of +all the modern poets, except Goethe, he was the best critic, and of +all the modern critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet. +He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter returning +from America, April 15, 1888. By his death the world lost an acute and +cultured critic, a refined writer, an earnest educational reformer, +and a noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham. + +Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been made the subject +for a biography. By means of his letters, his official reports, +and statements of his friends, however, one is able to trace the +successive stages of his career, as he steadily grew in honor and +public usefulness. Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus +presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The subjoined +appreciations have been selected with a view of giving the student a +glimpse of Arnold as he appeared to unprejudiced minds. + +One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: "His perfect +self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, the humorous turn which +he could give to any subject that he handled, his gaiety, audacity, +and unfailing command of words, made him one of the most popular and +successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known." + +"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams +and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford: there was no +harm in them: they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his +voice and wave of his arm were Jove-like."--PROFESSOR MAX MÃœLLER. + +"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired +and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was +a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of this world he +indeed was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing what +is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, he set himself to +make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The +'uncrumpling fern, the eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing +at our sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the +vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks, +whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him. + + * * * * * + +"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, he was of the +earth earthy.... His mind was based on the plainest possible things. +What he hated most was the fantastic--the far-fetched, all-elaborated +fancies and strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track of +human experience, and the broader the better. He was a plain-sailing +man. This is his true note."--MR. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. + +"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to +his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof +from all the bustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on; +he bore life's disappointments--and he was disappointed in some +reasonable hopes--with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden +upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily +load to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and +most active interest in the well-being of his country and his +countrymen."--MR. JOHN MORLEY. + +In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks of the poet's +personality as revealed by his letters in the following beautiful +manner: "Few who did not know Arnold could have been prepared for +the revelation of a nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every +relation of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional +constancy and plainness.... Every one must take delight in the mental +association with Arnold in the scenes of his existence ... and in his +family affections. A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, +fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with +it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so +continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy +appreciation and leave the charm of memory. + +"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither resolve nor +effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, and he never failed, +seemingly, in act or word of sympathy, in little or great things; and +when to this one adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where +he habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity of his +home, the gift that these letters bring may be appreciated. That gift +is the man himself, but set in the atmosphere of home, with sonship +and fatherhood, sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years +fully accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood--a sweet and +wholesome English home, with all the cloud and sunshine of the English +world drifting over its roof-trees, and the soil of England beneath +its stones, and English duties for the breath of its being. To add +such a home to the household rights of English Literature is perhaps +something from which Arnold would have shrunk, but it endears his +memory." + + "It may be overmuch + He shunned the common stain and smutch, + From soilure of ignoble touch + Too grandly free, + Too loftily secure in such + Cold purity; + But he preserved from chance control + The fortress of his established soul, + In all things sought to see the whole; + Brooked no disguise, + And set his heart upon the goal, + Not on the prize." + + --MR. WILLIAM WATSON, _In Laleham Churchyard_. + + + +ARNOLD THE POET + +Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. No other author +of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals +so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of +his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is +always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase; +and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse, +however, there is a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual +quality. True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical +courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness of phrase and +manner; and is, in equal degree, the output of a singularly sane and +noble nature; but here the comparison ends; for, while his prose +is often stormy and contentious, his poetry has always about it an +atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference is not far +to seek. His poetry, written in early manhood, reflects his inner +self, the more lovable side of his nature; while his prose presents +the critic and the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and +permitting at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he +endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment with themselves +and their surroundings. + +With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's poetical career +began and ended inside of twenty years. The reason for this can only +be conjectured, and need not be dwelt upon here. But although his +poetic life was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking +well up among the literary productions of the last century. As a +popular poet, however, he will probably never class with Tennyson or +Longfellow. His poems are too coldly classical and too unattractive in +subject to appeal to the casual reader, who is, generally speaking, +inclined toward poetry of the emotions rather than of the +intellect--Arnold's usual kind. That he recognized this himself, +witness the following quiet statements made in letters to his friends: +"My poems are making their way, I think, though slowly, and are +perhaps never to make way very far. There must always be some people, +however, to whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm.... +They represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last +quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day, as +people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind +is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it." Time +has verified the accuracy of this judgment. In short, Arnold has made +a profound rather than a wide impression. To a few, however, of each +generation, he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"--a poet with a +purpose and a message. + +=Arnold's Poetic Culture=.--Obviously, the sources of Arnold's culture +were classical. As one critic has tersely said, "He turned over his +Greek models by day and by night." Here he found his ideal standards, +and here he brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his +thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood +congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles, +"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he +called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and +consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy +appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other +poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets +have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well +satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious +sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of +measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, +and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the +substance of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his +art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic +art, I seem, to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted +in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, +and not hostile criticism." And again: "The radical difference between +the poetic theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them, +the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, +was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the +value of separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of +an action. They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems +which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, +and not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have +critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached +expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself. +I verily believe that the majority of them do not believe that there +is such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a poem at +all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will permit the poet to +select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is, +they permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity." + +Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his ideas of that +unity which gratifies the poetical sense, and has approached very +close to his Greek models in numerous instances; most notably so in +his great epic or narrative poem, _Sohrab and Rustum_, which is dealt +with elsewhere in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do better +than to quote for our consideration at this time, a fine synthesis +of Mr. Arthur Galton. He says: "In Matthew Arnold's style and in his +manner, he seems to me to recall the great masters, and this in a +striking and in an abiding way.... To recall them at all is a rare +gift, but to recall them naturally, and with no strained sense nor +jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly rare that it is +almost enough in itself to place a writer among the great masters; to +proclaim that he is one of them. To recall them at all is a rare gift, +though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets recall them too; +but with these, with every one of them, it is the exception when they +resemble the great masters. They have their own styles, which abide +with them; it is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they +break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal style. +Just the contrary of this is true of Matthew Arnold. It is his own, +his usual, and his most natural style which recalls the great masters; +and only when he does not write like himself, does he cease to +resemble them.... No man who attains to this great style can fail to +have a distinguished function; and Matthew Arnold, like Milton, will +be 'a leaven and a power,' because he, too, has made the great style +current in English. With his desire for culture and for perfection, +there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his nature, his +training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. To convey the message +of those ancients whom he loved so well, in that English tongue which +he was taught by them to use so perfectly;--to serve as an eternal +protest against charlatanism and vulgarity;--is exactly the mission +he would have chosen for himself.... The few writers of our language, +therefore, who give us 'an ideal of excellence, the most high and the +most rare,' have an important function; we should study their works +continually, and it should be a matter of passionate concern with us, +that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect models, should +abide with us forever." The Greeks recognized three kinds of +poetry,--Lyric, Dramatic, and Epic. Arnold tried all three. First, +then, as a lyricist. + +=Arnold as a Lyricist=.--Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of +the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, hence it is subjective. +The action is usually vapid, the verse musical, the time quick. Unlike +the Epic and Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the +poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of +verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in +vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay +or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is +soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental qualities +of the poet's mind and temperament. Though by no means lacking in +emotional sensibility, Arnold was too intellectually self-conscious to +be carried away by the impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With +him the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. With +the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at least, reversed. The poet +throws off intellectual restraint, and "lets his illumined being +o'errun" with music and song. This Arnold could not or would not +do. Then, too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically. +This, combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues a not too +discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked genius in inventing verse +forms, and hence found himself under the necessity of employing or +adapting those already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior +to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly his own. Again, +considerable portions of his lyric verse consist merely of prose, cut +into lines of different length, in imitation of the unrhymed measures +of the Greek poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these +rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick drawn by a +city gamin sharply across the area railings,--a not inapt comparison. +That they were not always successful, witness the following stanza +from _Merope_:-- + + "Thou confessest the prize + In the rushing, blundering, mad, + Cloud-enveloped, obscure, + Unapplauded, unsung + Race of Calamity, mine!" + +Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, Arnold +was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at times, in those same uneven +measures in which are found his most signal failures--the unrhymed +Pindaric. _Philomela_ written in this style is one of the most +exquisite bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put it, +"It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." In urbanity of +phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it is unsurpassed and shows +Arnold at his best. _Rugby Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of +Man_, and _A Dream_ are good examples of his longer efforts in this +verse form. In the more common lyric measures, Arnold was, at times, +equally successful. Saintsbury, commenting on _Requiescat_, says that +the poet has "here achieved the triple union of simplicity, pathos, +and (in the best sense) elegance"; and adds that there is not a +false note in the poem. He also speaks enthusiastically of the +"honey-dropping trochees" of the _New Sirens_, and of the "chiselled +and classic perfection" of the lines of _Resignation_. Herbert W. +Paul, writing of _Mycerinus_, declares that no such verse has been +written in England since Wordsworth's _Laodamia_; and continues, +"The poem abounds in single lines of haunting charm." Among his more +successful longer lyrics are _The Sick King in Bokhara, Switzerland, +Faded Leaves_, and _Tristram and Iseult_, and _Epilogue to Lessing's +Laocoön_, included in this volume. + +=Arnold as a Dramatist=.--The drama is imitated human action, and is +intended to exhibit a picture of human life by means of dialogue, +acting, and stage accessories. In nature, it partakes of both lyric +and epic, thus uniting sentiment and action with narration. Characters +live and act before us, and speak in our presence, the interest being +kept up by constantly shifting situations tending toward some striking +result. As a dramatist, Arnold achieved no great success. Again the +fundamental qualities of his mind stood in the way. An author so +subjective, so absorbed in self-scrutiny and introspection as he, +is seldom able to project himself into the minds of others to any +considerable extent. His dramas are brilliant with beautiful phrases, +his pictures of landscapes and of nature in her various aspects +approach perfection; but in the main, he fails to handle his plots in +a dramatic manner and, as a result, does not secure the totality of +impression so vital to the drama. Frequently, too, his characters are +tedious, and in their dialogue manage to be provokingly unnatural or +insipid. They also lack in individuality and independence in speech +and action. Many of his situations, likewise, are at fault. For +instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters as Ulysses and +Circe playing the subordinate roles assigned to them in _The Strayed +Reveller_. A true dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a +blunder. _Merope_ is written in imitation of the Greek tragedians. It +has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, and a classic brevity +of style; but it is frigid and artificial, and fails in the most +essential function of drama--to stir the reader's emotions. +_Empedocles on Etna_, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some +respects a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, and +contains some of Arnold's best lyric verses and most beautiful nature +pictures; but the dialogue is colorless, the rhymes poor, the plot, +such as it contains, but indifferently handled, and even Empedocles, +the principal character, is frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's +dramas show that his forte was not in character-drawing nor in +dialogue. + +=Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy=.--Epic poetry narrates in grand +style the achievements of heroes--the poet telling the story as if +present. It is simple in construction and uniform in meter, yet it +admits of the dialogue and the episode, and though not enforcing a +moral it may hold one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive in +tone and expresses sorrow or lamentation. Both epic and elegy are +inevitably serious in mood, and slow and stately in action. In these +two forms of verse Arnold was at his best. Stockton pronounced _Sohrab +and Rustum_ the noblest poem in the English language. Another critic +has said that "it is the nearest analogue in English to the rapidity +of action, plainness of thought, plainness of diction, and nobleness +of Homer." Combining, as it does, classic purity of style with +romantic ardor of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of +Arnold's poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume of +1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his idea of unity of +impression; "while the truth of its oriental color, the deep pathos +of the situation, the fire and intensity of the action, the strong +conception of character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make +it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer poems, among +which it is the largest in bulk and also the most ambitious in +scheme." _Balder Dead_, a characteristic Arnoldian production, founded +upon the Norse legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great +as _Sohrab and Rustum_, has much poetic worth and ranks high among its +kind; and _Tristram and Iseult_, with its infinite tragedy, and _The +Sick King in Bokhara_, gorgeous in oriental color, are rare examples +of the lyrical epic. _The Forsaken Merman_ and _Saint Brandan_, which +are dealt with elsewhere in this volume, are good examples of his +shorter narrative poems. In _Thyrsis_, the beautiful threnody in which +he celebrated his dead friend, Clough, Arnold gave to the world one of +its greatest elegies. One finds in this poem and its companion piece, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, the same unity of classic form with romantic +feeling present in _Sohrab and Rustum_. Both are crystal-clear without +coldness, and restrained without loss of a full volume of power. +Mr. Saintsbury, writing of _The Scholar-Gipsy_, says: "It has +everything--a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a +sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages +and phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less praise is due +_Thyrsis_. Other of his elegiac poems are _Heine's Grave, Stanzas from +the Grande Chartreuse, Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," +Obermann Once More, Rugby Chapel_, and _Memorial Verses_, the two last +named being included in this volume. In such measures as are used in +these poems, in the long, stately, swelling measures, whose graver +movements accord with a serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most +at ease. + +=Greek Spirit in Arnold=.--But it is not alone in the fact that he +selects classic subjects, and writes after the manner of the great +masters, that Arnold's affinity with the Greeks is manifested. His +poems in spirit, as in form, reflect the moods common to the ancient +Hellenes, "One feels the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, +"not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, and Shelley +there was Greek influence, but in them the result was modern. In +Arnold the antiquity remains--remains in mood, just as in Landor it +remains in form. The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is +pagan in philosophic spirit, not Attic, but of later and stoical time; +with the patience, endurance, suffering, not in the Christian types, +but as they now seem to a post-Christian imagination, looking back to +the past." Even when his poems treat of modern or romantic subjects, +one is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with the same +quality of imagination as would the Greek masters themselves: and in +the same form. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Nature=.--In his attitude toward Nature +Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A close study, however, +reveals a wide difference, both in the way Nature appealed to them +and in their mood in her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary +refuge from the doubts and distractions of our modern life,--a +soothing, consoling, uplifting power; to Wordsworth she was an +inspiration,--a presence that disturbed him "with the joy of elevated +thoughts." Conscious of the help he found in her association, Arnold +urged all men to follow Nature's example; to possess their souls in +quietude, despite the storm and turmoil without. Pancoast says: "He +delights in leading us to contemplate the infinite calm of Nature, +beside which man's transitory woes are reduced to a mere fretful +insignificance. All the beautiful poem of _Tristram and Iseult_ is +built upon the skilful alternation of two themes. We pass from the +feverish, wasting, and ephemeral struggle of human passions and +desire, into an atmosphere that shames its heat and fume by an +immemorial coolness and repose;" and the same comparison constitutes +the theme for a considerable portion of his poetical work. In his +method of approaching Nature, Arnold also differed widely from +Wordsworth, in that he saw with the outward eye, that is objectively; +while Wordsworth saw rather with the inward eye, or subjectively. +In this Arnold is essentially Greek and more Tennysonian than +Wordsworthian. Many of his poems, in full or in part, are mere nature +pictures, and are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus +stream at the close of _Sohrab and Rustum_; the English garden in +_Thyrsis_; and the hunter on the arras, in _Tristram and Iseult_, are +all notable examples. This pictorial method Wordsworth seldom used. +In spirit, too, the poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, +first of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in the +wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom from the +fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of Nature's God. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Life=.--Arnold's attitude toward life has +been dwelt upon in the appreciations under the biographical sketch in +this volume and need only briefly be summed up here. To him, human +life in its higher developments presented itself as a stern and +strenuous affair; but he never faltered nor sought to escape from his +share of the burden. "On the contrary, the prevailing note of his +poetry is self-reliance; help must come from the soul itself, for + + "The fountains of life are all within." + +He preaches fortitude and courage in the face of the mysterious and +the inevitable--a courage, indeed, forlorn and pathetic in the eyes of +many--and he constantly takes refuge from the choking cares of life, +in a kind of stoical resignation." As a reformer, his function +was especially to stir people up, to make them dissatisfied with +themselves and their institutions, and to force them to think, to +become individual. Everywhere in his works one is confronted by his +unvarying insistence upon the supremacy of conduct and duty. The +modern tendency to drift away from the old, established religious +faith was a matter of serious thought to him and led him to give to +the world a rational creed that would satisfy the sceptics and attract +the indifferent. We cannot do better than quote for our closing +thought the following pregnant lines from the author's sonnet entitled +_The Better Part_:-- + + "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!_" + + * * * * * + + + +ARNOLD THE CRITIC + +The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted from +well-known authorities. + +"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy of his +verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The +classical bent of his mind shows itself here, unmixed with the +inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is +his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of its +definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect which suffuses +it; but the doctrine which he spent his life in preaching is based +upon a classical ideal, the ideal of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he +daringly called it, _perfection_.... Wherever, in religion, politics, +education, or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination +of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word of deliverance, +'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with the best which has been thought +and done in the world, is his panacea for all ills.... In almost all +of his prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' by which +word he characterized the narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction of +the British middle class. + +"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task he had to +perform.... In _Culture and Anarchy_ and many successive works, he +made his plea for the gospel of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, +as befitted the Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into +the dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in _Literature and +Dogma_, where he pleads for a more liberal and literary reading of the +Bible, his manner is quiet, suave, and gently persuasive. At other +times, as in _Friendship's Garland_, he shoots the arrows of his +sarcasm into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate raillery and +scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, because it is veiled by +a mock humility, and is scrupulously polite. + +"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single piece is the +famous essay _On Translating Homer_, which deserves careful study +for the enlightenment it offers concerning many of the fundamental +questions of style. The essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from _Essays +in Criticism_, and that on Emerson, from _Discourses in America_, +furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and weight of matter +in this province. + +"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose may be described +as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. In comparison with Carlyle, +Buskin, and Newman, he is worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic +vision of these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, +the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. He +marks a return to the conventions of life after the storm and stress +of the romantic age. Yet in his own way he also was a prophet and a +preacher, striving whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from +bondage to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry and +balance of character which has seemed to many noble minds the true +goal of human endeavor."--MOODY AND LOVETT, _A History of English +Literature_. + +"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment were pretty +nearly infallible. He combined a loyal and reasonable submission +to literary authority, with a free and even daring use of private +judgment. His admiration for the acknowledged masters of human +utterance--Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe--was genuine +and enthusiastic, and incomparably better informed than that of some +more conventional critics. Yet this cordial submission to recognized +authority, this honest loyalty to established reputation, did not +blind him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating praise; +did not deter him from exposing the tendency to verbiage in Burke and +Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness of much of Wordsworth's blank +verse, the undercurrent of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of +Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in small. Whatever +literary production was brought under Matthew Arnold's notice, his +judgment was clear, sympathetic, and independent. He had the readiest +appreciation of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity and +inflation--of what he called endeavors to render platitude endurable +by making it pompous, and lively horror of affectation and +unreality."--Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL. + +"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a high place +among the foremost prose writers of the time. His style is in marked +contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's +pure and radiant coloring. It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, +discriminating, incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. +Notwithstanding its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is often +a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an opponent by +its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and its calm air of assured +superiority. By his insistence on a high standard of technical +excellence, and by his admirable presentation of certain principles of +literary judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. On +the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the human element, the +comprehensive sympathy that we recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. +Yet Carlyle could not have written the essay _On Translating Homer_, +with all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, any +more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's large-hearted essay on +_Burns_. Arnold's varied energy and highly trained intelligence +have been felt in many different fields. He has won a peculiar and +honorable place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as +literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, and +finally, in his _Culture and Anarchy_, he has set forth his scheme of +social reform, and in certain later books has made His contribution +to contemporary thought."--PANCOAST, _Introduction to English +Literature_. + + * * * * * + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ARNOLD'S WORKS + +1840. Alaric at Rome. (Prize poem at Rugby.) +1843. Cromwell. (Prize poem at Oxford.) +1849. The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems. + Mycerinus. + The Strayed Reveller. + Fragment of an Antigone. + The Sick King in Bokhara. + Religious Isolation. + To my Friends. + A Modern Sappho. + The New Sirens. + The Voice. + To Fausta. + Stagyrus. + To a Gipsy Child. + The Hayswater Boat. + The Forsaken Merman. + The World and the Quietist. + In Utrumque Paratus. + Resignation. + Sonnets. + Quiet Work. + To a Friend. + Shakespeare. + To the Duke of Wellington. + Written in Butler's Sermons. + Written in Emerson's Essays. + To an Independent Preacher. + To George Cruikshank. + To a Republican Friend. + +1852. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems. + Empedocles on Etna. + The River. + Excuse. + Indifference. + Too Late. + On the Rhine. + Longing. + The Lake. + Parting. + Absence. + Destiny. (Not reprinted.) + To Marguerite. + Human Life. + Despondency. + Youth's Agitations--A Sonnet. + Self-Deception. + Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.) + Tristram and Iseult. + Memorial Verses. (Previously published in _Fraser's + Magazine_.) + Courage. (Not reprinted.) + Self-Dependence. + A Summer Night. + The Buried Life. + A Farewell. + Stanzas in Memory of the Author of _Obermann_. + Consolation. + Lines written in Kensington Gardens. + The World's Triumphs--A Sonnet. + The Second Best. + Revolutions. + The Youth of Nature. + The Youth of Man. + Morality. + Progress. + The Future. +1853. Poems. + Sohrab and Rustum. + Cadmus and Harmonia. (A fragment of Empedocles on Etna.) + Philomela. + Thekla's Answer. + The Church of Brou. + The Neckan. + Switzerland. + Richmond Hill. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) + Requiescat. + The Scholar-Gipsy. + Stanzas in Memory of the Late Edward Quillman. + Power of Youth. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) +1854. A Farewell. +1855. Poems. + Balder Dead + Separation. +1858. Merope: A Tragedy. +1867. New Poems. + Persistency of Poetry. + Saint Brandan. _(Fraser's Magazine_, July, 1860.) + Sonnets. + A Picture of Newstead. + Rachel. (Three Sonnets.) + East London. + West London. + Anti-Desperation. + Immorality. + Worldly Place. + The Divinity. + The Good Shepherd with the Kid. + Austerity of Poetry. + East and West. + Monica's Last Prayer. + Calais Sands. + Dover Beach. + The Terrace at Berne. + Stanzas composed at Carnæ. + A Southern Night. (Previously published in the + _Victoria Regia_, 1861.) + Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira." + Palladium. + Early Death and Fame. + Growing Old. + The Progress of Poesy. + A Nameless Epitaph. + The Last Word. + A Wish. + A Caution to Poets. + Pis-Aller. + Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön. + Bacchanalia. + Rugby Chapel. + Heine's Grave. + Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. +1860. The Lord's Messengers. (_Cornhill Magazine_, July.) +1866. Thyrsis. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, April.) +1868. Obermann Once More. +1873. New Rome. (_Cornhill Magazine_, June.) +1877. Haworth Churchyard with Epilogue. (_Fraser's Magazine_, May.) +1881. Geist's Grave. (_Fortnightly Review_, January.) +1882. Westminster Abbey. (_Nineteenth Century Magazine_, + January.) + Poor Matthais. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, December.) +1887. Horatian Echo. (_The Century Guild Hobby Horse_, July.) + Kaiser Dead. (_Fortnightly Review_, July.) + + + +PROSE WORKS + +1859. England and the Italian Question. +1861. Popular Education in France. + On Translating Homer. +1864. A French Eton. +1865. Essays in Criticism. +1867. On Study of Celtic Literature. +1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent. +1869. Culture and Anarchy. +1870. St. Paul and Protestantism. +1871. Friendship's Garland. +1873. Literature and Dogma. +1874. Higher Schools and Universities in Germany. +1875. God and the Bible. +1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion. +1879. Mixed Essays. +1882. Irish Essays. +1885. Discourses in America. +1888. Essays in Criticism, Second Series. + Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad. + Civilization in the United States. + + + +CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS + +Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). +Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859). +Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). +Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). +Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882). +William M. Thackeray (1811-1863). +Robert Browning (1812-1889). +Charles Dickens (1812-1870). +George Eliot (1819-1880). +John Ruskin (1819-1900). +Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). + +William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). +Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). +Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). +John G. Whittier (1807-1892). +Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882). +Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894). +James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +_The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold_ (The Macmillan Company, + one volume). +_The English Poets_, Vol. I, by T.H. Ward. +_Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age_, edited by the English + Club of Sewanee, Tennessee. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Sir J.G. Fitch. +_Tennyson, Ruskin, and Other Literary Estimates_, by Frederic + Harrison. +_Studies in Interpretation_, by W.H. Hudson. +_Corrected Impressions on Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Herbert W. Paul. +_Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Arnold's Letters_, collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell. +_The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, edited by T.B. Smart. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Andrew Lang, in _Century Magazine_, + 1881-1882, p. 849. + +_The Poetry of Matthew Arnold_, by R.H. Hutton, in + _Essays Theological and Literary_, Vol. II. +_Religion and Culture_, by John Shairp. +_Arnold_, in _Victorian Poets_, by Stedman. +_Matthew Arnold, New Poems_, in _Essays and Studies_, by + A.C. Swinburne. +_Arnold_, in _Our Living Poets_, by Forman. + + + + * * * * * + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + * * * * * + + + + +NARRATIVE POEMS + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM° + +AN EPISODE + + +And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,° °1 +And the fog rose out of the Oxus° stream. °2 +But all the Tartar camp° along the stream °3 +Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; +Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long 5 +He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; +But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, +He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, +And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, +And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 10 +Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's° tent. °11 + +Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood +Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand +Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow +When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere° °15 +Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, +And to a hillock came, a little back +From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat, +Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. +The men of former times had crown'd the top 20 +With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now +The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, +A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. +And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood +Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, 25 +And found the old man sleeping on his bed +Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. +And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step +Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep; +And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:-- 30 + +"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. +Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?" + +But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:-- +"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. +The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 35 +Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie +Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. +For so did King Afrasiab° bid me seek °38 +Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, +In Samarcand,° before the army march'd; °40 +And I will tell thee what my heart desires. +Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan° first °42 +I came among the Tartars and bore arms, +I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, +At my boy's years,° the courage of a man. °45 +This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on +The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, +And beat the Persians back on every field, +I seek one man, one man, and one alone-- +Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, 50 +Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, +His not unworthy, not inglorious son. +So I long hoped, but him I never find. +Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. +Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 55 +Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords +To meet me, man to man; if I prevail, +Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-- +Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. +Dim is the rumour of a common fight,° °60 +Where host meets host, and many names are sunk°; °61 +But of a single combat fame speaks clear." + +He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand +Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:-- + +"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! 65 +Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, +And share the battle's common chance° with us °67 +Who love thee, but must press for ever first, +In single fight incurring single risk, +To find a father thou hast never seen°? °70 +That were far best, my son, to stay with us +Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, +And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. +But, if this one desire indeed rules all, +To seek out Rustum--seek him not through fight! 75 +Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, +O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! +But far hence seek him, for he is not here. +For now it is not as when I was young, +When Rustum was in front of every fray; 80 +But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, +In Seistan,° with Zal, his father old. °82 +Whether that his own mighty strength at last +Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, +Or in some quarrel° with the Persian King.° °85 +There go°!--Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes °86 +Danger or death awaits thee on this field. +Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost +To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace +To seek thy father, not seek single fights 90 +In vain;--but who can keep the lion's cub +From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son? +Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." + +So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left +His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 95 +And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat +He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, +And threw a white cloak round him, and he took +In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword°; °99 +And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 100 +Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul°; °101 +And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd +His herald to his side, and went abroad. + +The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog +From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 105 +And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed +Into the open plain; so Haman° bade-- °107 +Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled +The host, and still was in his lusty prime. +From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd; +As when some grey November morn the files, 111 +In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes +Stream over Casbin° and the southern slopes °113 +Of Elburz,° from the Aralian estuaries, °114 +Or some frore° Caspian reed-bed, southward bound °115 +For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd. +The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, +First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; +Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara° come °119 +And Khiva,° and ferment the milk of mares.° °120 +Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns° of the south, °121 +The Tukas,° and the lances of Salore, °122 +And those from Attruck° and the Caspian sands; °123 +Light men and on light steeds, who only drink +The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 125 +And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came +From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; +The Tartars of Ferghana,° from the banks °128 +Of the Jaxartes,° men with scanty beards °129 +And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes 130 +Who roam o'er Kipchak° and the northern waste, °131 +Kalmucks° and unkempt Kuzzaks,° tribes who stray °132 +Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,° °133 +Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; +These all filed out from camp into the plain. 135 +And on the other side the Persians form'd;-- +First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd. +The Ilyats of Khorassan°; and behind, °138 +The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, +Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 140 +But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, +Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, +And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. +And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw +That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 145 +He took his spear, and to the front he came, +And check'd his ranks, and fix'd° them where they stood. °147 +And the old Tartar came upon the sand +Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:-- + +"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 150 +Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. +But choose a champion from the Persian lords +To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." + +As, in the country, on a morn in June, +When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 155 +A shiver runs through the deep corn° for joy-- °156 +So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, +A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran +Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. + +But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,° °160 +Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,° °161 +That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; +Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass +Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, +Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves 165 +Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries-- +In single file they move, and stop their breath, +For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows-- +So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. + +And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 170 +To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, +And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host +Second, and was the uncle of the King°; °173 +These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:-- + +"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 175 +Yet champion have we none to match this youth. +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart.° °177 +But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits° °178 +And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart. +Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 +The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. +Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. +Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." + +So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried:-- +"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! 185 +Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." +He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode +Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. +But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, +And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 190 +Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. +Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, +Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst +Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. +And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 195 +Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still +The table stood before him, charged with food-- +A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread; +And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate° °199 +Listless, and held a falcon° on his wrist, °200 +And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood +Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, +And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird, +And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:-- + +"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. 205 +What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." + +But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:-- +"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink, +But not to-day; to-day has other needs. +The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 210 +For from the Tartars is a challenge brought +To pick a champion from the Persian lords +To fight their champion--and thou know'st his name-- +Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. +O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 215 +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; +And he is young, and Iran's° chiefs are old, °217 +Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. +Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!" + +He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:-- 220 +"Go to°! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I °221 +Am older; if the young are weak, the King +Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo,° °223 +Himself is young, and honours younger men, +And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 225 +Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young-- +The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. +For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? +For would that I myself had such a son, +And not that one slight helpless girl° I have-- °230 +A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, +And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,° °232 +My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, +And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, +And he has none to guard his weak old age. 235 +There would I go, and hang my armour up, +And with my great name fence that weak old man, +And spend the goodly treasures I have got, +And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, +And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 240 +And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more." + +He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:-- +"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, +When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks +Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 245 +Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say: +_Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, +And shuns to peril it with younger men."_° °248 + +And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:-- +"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 250 +Thou knowest better words than this to say. +What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, +Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? +Are not they mortal, am not I myself? +But who for men of nought would do great deeds? 255 +Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! +But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms°; °257 +Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd +In single fight with any mortal man." + +He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran 260 +Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy-- +Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. +But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd +His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, +And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose 265 +Were plain, and on his shield was no device,° °266 +Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, +And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume +Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. +So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, 270 +Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel-- +Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, +The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once +Did in Bokhara by the river find +A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 275 +And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, +Dight° with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green °277 +Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd +All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. +So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 280 +The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd. +And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts +Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. +And dear as the wet diver to the eyes +Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 285 +By sandy Bahrein,° in the Persian Gulf, °286 +Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, +Having made up his tale° of precious pearls, °288 +Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands-- +So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 290 + +And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, +And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came. +And as afield the reapers cut a swath +Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, +And on each side are squares of standing corn, 295 +And in the midst a stubble, short and bare-- +So on each side were squares of men, with spears +Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. +And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast +His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 300 +Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. + +As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, +Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge +Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire-- +At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 305 +When the frost flowers° the whiten'd window-panes-- +And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts +Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed +The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar +Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 310 +All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused° °311 +His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. +For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd; +Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, +Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 315 +Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, +By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound-- +So slender Sohrab seem'd,° so softly rear'd. °318 +And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul +As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 320 +And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:-- + +"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, +And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! +Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. +Behold me! I am vast,° and clad in iron, °325 +And tried°; and I have stood on many a field +Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe-- +Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.° °327 +O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? +Be govern'd°! quit the Tartar host, and come °330 +To Iran, and be as my son to me, +And fight beneath my banner till I die! +There are no youths in Iran brave as thou." + +So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, +The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 335 +His giant figure planted on the sand, +Sole, like some single tower, which a chief +Hath builded on the waste in former years +Against the robbers; and he saw that head, +Streak'd with its first grey hairs;--hope filled his soul, 340 +And he ran forward and embraced his knees, +And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:-- + +"O, by thy father's head°! by thine own soul! °343 +Art thou not Rustum°? speak! art thou not he?" °344 + +But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 345 +And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:-- + +"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! +False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. +For if I now confess this thing he asks, +And hide it not, but say: _Rustum is here_! 350 +He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, +But he will find some pretext not to fight, +And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts +A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. +And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 355 +In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: +'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd +Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords +To cope with me in single fight; but they +Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I 360 +Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.' +So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; +Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." + +And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:-- +"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 365 +Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd +By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt,° or yield! °367 +Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? +Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! +For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 370 +Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, +There would be then no talk of fighting more. +But being what I am, I tell thee this-- +Do thou record it in thine inmost soul: +Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 375 +Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds +Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, +Oxus in summer wash them all away." + +He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:-- +"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so°! °380 +I am no girl to be made pale by words. +Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand +Here on this field, there were no fighting then. +But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. +Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 385 +And thou art proved, I know, and I am young-- +But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. +And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure +Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. +For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 390 +Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, +Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. +And whether it will heave us up to land, +Or whether it will roll us out to sea, +Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 395 +We know not, and no search will make us know; +Only the event will teach us in its hour." + +He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd +His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, +As on some partridge, in the corn a hawk, 400 +That long has tower'd° in the airy clouds, °401 +Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come, +And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear +Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, +Which it sent flying wide;--then Sohrab threw 405 +In turn, and full struck° Rustum's shield; sharp rang, °406 +The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. +And Rustum seized his club, which none but he +Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, +Still rough--like those which men in treeless plains 410 +To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, +Hyphasis° or Hydaspes,° when, high up °412 +By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time +Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,° °414 +And strewn the channels with torn boughs--so huge 415 +The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck +One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, +Lithe as the glancing° snake, and the club came °418 +Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. +And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 420 +To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; +And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, +And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay +Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; +But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 425 +But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:-- + +"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float +Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. +But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; +No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 +Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! +Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul? +Boy as I am, I have seen battles too-- +Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, +And heard their hollow° roar of dying men; °435 +But never was my heart thus touch'd before. +Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? +O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! +Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, +And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 440 +And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, +And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. +There are enough foes in the Persian host, +Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; +Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 445 +Mayst fight; fight _them_, when they confront thy spear! +But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" + +He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, +And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club +He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear, 450 +Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand +Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,° °452 +The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd +His stately crest,° and dimm'd his glittering arms. °454 +His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice 455 +Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:-- + +"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! +Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! +Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! +Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 460 +With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; +But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance +Of battle, and with me, who make no play +Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. +Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 465 +Remember all thy valour°; try thy feints °466 +And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; +Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts +With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.°" °468 + +He spoke, and Sohrab kindled° at his taunts, °470 +And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd +Together, as two eagles on one prey +Come rushing down together from the clouds, +One from the east, one from the west; their shields +Bash'd with a clang together, and a din 475 +Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters +Make often in the forest's heart at morn, +Of hewing axes, crashing trees--such blows +Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. +And you would say that sun and stars took part 480 +In that unnatural° conflict; for a cloud° °481 +Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun +Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose +Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, +And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 485 +In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; +For both the on-looking hosts on either hand +Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, +And the sun sparkled° on the Oxus stream. °489 +But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 490 +And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield +Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear +Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, +And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. +Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,° °495 +Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest +He shore° away, and that proud horsehair plume, °497 +Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; +And Rustum bow'd his head°; but then the gloom °499 +Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 500 +And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse, +Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;-- +No horse's cry was that, most like the roar +Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day +Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 505 +And comes at night to die upon the sand. +The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, +And Oxus curdled° as it cross'd his stream. °508 +But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, +And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd 510 +His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, +Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, +And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. +Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes +Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 515 +And shouted: _Rustum_°!--Sohrab heard that shout, °516 +And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step, +And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; +And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd +His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 520 +He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; +And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, +And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all +The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair-- +Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 525 +And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. + +Then, with a bitter smile,° Rustum began:-- °527 +"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill +A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, +And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent. 530 +Or else that the great Rustum would come down +Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move +His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. +And then that all the Tartar host would praise +Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 +To glad° thy father in his weak old age. °536 +Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! +Dearer to the red jackals° shalt thou be °538 +Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." + +And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:-- 540 +"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain +Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! +No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. +For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, +And I were that which till to-day I was, 545 +They should be lying here, I standing there +But that belovéd name unnerved my arm-- +That name, and something, I confess, in thee, +Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield +Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe. 550 +And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. +But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear +The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! +My father, whom I seek through all the world, +He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" 555 + +As when some hunter° in the spring hath found °556 +A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, +Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, +And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, +And follow'd her to find her where she fell 560 +Far off;--anon her mate comes winging back +From hunting, and a great way off descries +His huddling young left sole°; at that, he checks °563 +His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps +Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 565 +Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she +Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, +In some far stony gorge out of his ken, +A heap of fluttering feathers--never more +Shall the lake glass° her, flying over it; °570 +Never the black and dripping precipices +Echo her stormy scream as she sails by-- +As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, +So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood +Over his dying son, and knew him not. 575 + +But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:-- +"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? +The mighty Rustum never had a son." + +And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 580 +Surely the news will one day reach his ear, +Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, +Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; +And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap +To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 585 +Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! +What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? +Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! +Yet him I pity not so much, but her, +My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 590 +With that old king, her father, who grows grey +With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. +Her most I pity, who no more will see +Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, +With spoils and honour, when the war is done. 595 +But a dark rumour will be bruited up,° °596 +From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; +And then will that defenceless woman learn +That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, +But that in battle with a nameless foe, 600 +By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." + +He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, +Thinking of her he left, and his own death. +He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought. +Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605 +Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew; +For he had had sure tidings that the babe, +Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, +Had been a puny girl, no boy at all-- +So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 +Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms-- +And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, +By a false boast, the style° of Rustum's son; °613 +Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. +So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought 615 +And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide +Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore +At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; +For he remember'd his own early youth, +And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620 +The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries +A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, +Through many rolling clouds--so Rustum saw +His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; +And that old king,° her father, who loved well °625 +His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child +With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, +They three, in that long-distant summer-time-- +The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt +And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 630 +In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth, +Of age and looks° to be his own dear son, °632 +Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand; +Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe +Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 635 +Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, +And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, +On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay, +Lovely in death, upon the common sand. +And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:-- 640 + +"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son +Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved. +Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men +Have told thee false--thou art not Rustum's son. +For Rustum had no son; one child he had-- 645 +But one--a girl; who with her mother now +Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us-- +Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." + +But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now +The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 650 +And he desired to draw forth the steel, +And let the blood flow free, and so to die-- +But first he would convince his stubborn foe; +And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:-- + +"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 655 +Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, +And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. +I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm° I bear °658 +That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, +That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 660 + +He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks, +And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand +Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, +That the hard iron corslet° clank'd aloud; °663 +And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 665 +And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! +If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son." + +Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed +His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 670 +And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points +Prick'd; as a cunning° workman, in Pekin, °672 +Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, +An emperor's gift--at early morn he paints, +And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675 +Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands-- +So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd +On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. +It was that griffin,° which of old rear'd Zal, °679 +Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 680 +A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; +Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved-- +Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. +And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, +And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes, 685 +And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:-- + +"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign +Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?" + +He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood +Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry: 690 +_O boy_--_thy father!_--and his voice choked there. +And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, +And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. +But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast +His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 695 +And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, +Trying to call him back to life; and life +Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, +And they stood wide with horror; and he seized +In both his hands the dust which lay around, 700 +And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,-- +His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; +And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, +And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword, +To draw it, and for ever let life out. 705 +But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, +And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day +The doom which at my birth was written down +In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.° °710 +Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, +When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, +I know it! but fate trod those promptings down +Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged +The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 715 +But let us speak no more of this! I find +My father; let me feel that I have found!° °717 +Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take +My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, +And wash them with thy tears, and say: _My son!_ 720 +Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, +And swift; for like the lightning to this field +I came, and like the wind I go away-- +Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.° °724 +But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." 725 + +So said he, and his voice released the heart +Of Rustum, and his tears brake forth; he cast +His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, +And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, +When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 +With his head bowing to the ground and mane +Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe +First to the one then to the other moved +His head, as if inquiring what their grief +Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 735 +The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked° the sand. °736 +But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:-- + +"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet +Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, +Or ere they brought thy master to this field!" 740 + +But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said:-- +"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, +My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, +My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, +That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 745 +Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! +O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; +For thou hast gone where I shall never go, +And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. +And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750 +And seen the River of Helmund,° and the Lake °751 +Of Zirrah°; and the aged Zal himself °752 +Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, +Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, +And said: _O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!_--but I 755 +Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, +Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, +Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; +But lodged among my father's foes, and seen +Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 760 +Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, +And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk +The desert rivers, Moorghab° and Tejend,° °763 +Kohik,° and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, +The northern Sir°; and this great Oxus stream, °765 +The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." + +Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:-- +"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! +Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt +Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" 770 + +But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Desire not that, my father! thou must live. +For some are born to do great deeds, and live, +As some are born to be obscured, and die. +Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 775 +And reap a second glory in thine age; +Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. +But come! thou seest this great host of men +Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! +Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 780 +They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. +But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, +But carry me with thee to Seistan, +And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 785 +Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends. +And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound° above my bones, °788 +And plant a far-seen pillar over all. +That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 +May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: +_Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, +Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!_ +And I be not forgotten in my grave." + +And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:-- 795 +"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, +So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, +And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, +And carry thee away to Seistan, +And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 800 +With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. +And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound above thy bones, +And plant a far-seen pillar over all, +And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 805 +And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! +What should I do with slaying any more? +For would that all that I have ever slain +Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810 +And they who were call'd champions in their time, +And through whose death I won that fame I have-- +And I were nothing but a common man, +A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, +So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! 815 +Or rather would that I, even I myself, +Might now be lying on this bloody sand, +Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, +Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; +And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820 +And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; +And say: _O son, I weep thee not too sore, +For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!_ +But now in blood and battles was my youth, +And full of blood and battles is my age, 825 +And I shall never end this life of blood." + +Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:-- +"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! +But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, +Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,° °830 +When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, +Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, +Returning home over the salt blue sea, +From laying thy dear master in his grave." + +And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:-- 835 +"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! +Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." + +He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took +The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased +His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 840 +Came welling from the open gash, and life +Flow'd with the stream;--all down his cold white side +The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, +Like the soil'd tissue of white violets +Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 845 +By children whom their nurses call with haste +Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, +His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay-- +White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, +Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 850 +Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, +And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; +Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs +Unwillingly the spirit fled away, +Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 855 +And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. + +So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; +And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak +Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. +As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd 860 +By Jemshid in Persepolis,° to bear °861 +His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps +Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side-- +So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. + +And night came down over the solemn waste, 865 +And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, +And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, +Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, +As of a great assembly loosed, and fires +Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 870 +Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; +The Persians took it on the open sands +Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; +And Rustum and his son were left alone. + +But the majestic river floated on, 875 +Out of the mist and hum of that low land, +Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, +Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian° waste, °878 +Under the solitary moon;--he flow'd +Right for the polar star,° past Orgunjè,° °880 +Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin +To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, +And split his currents; that for many a league +The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along +Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-- 885 +Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had +In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, +A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last +The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide +His luminous home° of waters opens, bright °890 +And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars° °891 +Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN° + + +Saint Brandan sails the northern main; +The brotherhood of saints are glad. +He greets them once, he sails again; +So late!--such storms!--The Saint is mad! + +He heard, across the howling seas, 5 +Chime convent-bells on wintry nights; +He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,° °7 +Twinkle the monastery-lights; + +But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd-- +And now no bells, no convents more! 10 +The hurtling Polar lights° are near'd, °11 +The sea without a human shore. + +At last--(it was the Christmas night; +Stars shone after a day of storm)-- +He sees float past an iceberg white, 15 +And on it--Christ!--a living form. + +That furtive mien, that scowling eye, +Of hair that red° and tufted fell-- °18 +It is--Oh, where shall Brandan fly?-- +The traitor Judas, out of hell! 20 + +Palsied with terror, Brandan sate°; °21 +The moon was bright, the iceberg near. +He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait! +By high permission I am here. + +"One moment wait, thou holy man 25 +On earth my crime, my death, they knew; +My name is under all men's ban-- +Ah, tell them of my respite too! + +"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night-- +(It was the first after I came, 30 +Breathing self-murder,° frenzy, spite, °31 +To rue my guilt in endless flame)-- + +"I felt, as I in torment lay +'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, +An angel touch my arm, and say: 35 +_Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!_ + +"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said. +_The Leper recollect,_° said he, °38 +_Who ask'd the passers-by for aid, +In Joppa,° and thy charity._ °40 + +"Then I remember'd how I went, +In Joppa, through the public street, +One morn when the sirocco spent +Its storms of dust with burning heat; + +"And in the street a leper sate, 45 +Shivering with fever, naked, old; +Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, +The hot wind fever'd him five-fold. + +"He gazed upon me as I pass'd +And murmur'd: _Help me, or I die!_-- 50 +To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, +Saw him look eased, and hurried by. + +"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine, +What blessing must full goodness shower, +When fragment of it small, like mine, 55 +Hath such inestimable power! + +"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I +Did that chance act of good, that one! +Then went my way to kill and lie-- +Forgot my good as soon as done. 60 + +"That germ of kindness, in the womb +Of mercy caught, did not expire; +Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, +And friends me in the pit of fire. + +"Once every year, when carols wake, 65 +On earth, the Christmas-night's repose, +Arising from the sinner's lake, +I journey to these healing snows. + +"I stanch with ice my burning breast, +With silence balm my whirling brain. 70 +Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest +That Joppan leper's ease was pain."-- + +Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes; +He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer-- +Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies! 75 +The iceberg, and no Judas there! + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN° + + +Come, dear children, let us away; +Down and away below! +Now my brothers call from the bay, +Now the great winds shoreward blow, +Now the salt tides seaward flow; 5 +Now the wild white horses° play, °6 +Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. +Children dear, let us away! +This way, this way! + +Call her once before you go-- 10 +Call once yet! +In a voice that she will know: +"Margaret°! Margaret!" °13 +Children's voices should be dear +(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 15 +Children's voices, wild with pain-- +Surely she will come again! +Call her once and come away; +This way, this way! +"Mother dear, we cannot stay! 20 +The wild white horses foam and fret." +Margaret! Margaret! + +Come, dear children, come away down; +Call no more! +One last look at the white-wall'd town, 25 +And the little grey church on the windy shore; +Then come down! +She will not come though you call all day; +Come away, come away! + +Children dear, was it yesterday 30 +We heard the sweet bells over the bay? +In the caverns where we lay, +Through the surf and through the swell, +The far-off sound of a silver bell? +Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35 +Where the winds are all asleep; +Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, +Where the salt weed sways in the stream, +Where the sea-beasts, ranged° all round, °39 +Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 40 +Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, +Dry their mail° and bask in the brine; °42 +Where great whales come sailing by, +Sail and sail, with unshut eye, +Round the world for ever and aye? 45 +When did music come this way? +Children dear, was it yesterday? + +Children dear, was it yesterday +(Call yet once) that she went away? +Once she sate with you and me, 50 +On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, +And the youngest sate on her knee. +She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, +When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.° °54 +She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; 55 +She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray +In the little grey church on the shore to-day. +'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! +And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." +I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; 60 +Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" +She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. +Children dear, was it yesterday? + + Children dear, were we long alone? +"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 65 +Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; +Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. +We went up the beach, by the sandy down +Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town; +Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 70 +To the little grey church on the windy hill. +From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, +But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. +We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, +And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75 +She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: +"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! +Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone; +The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." +But, ah, she gave me never a look, 80 +For her eyes were seal'd° to the holy book! °81 +Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. +Come away, children, call no more! +Come away, come down, call no more! + + Down, down, down! 85 +Down to the depths of the sea! +She sits at her wheel in the humming town, +Singing most joyfully. +Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, +For the humming street, and the child with its toy! 90 +For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; +For the wheel where I spun, +And the blessed light of the sun°!" °93 +And so she sings her fill, +Singing most joyfully, 95 +Till the spindle drops from her hand, +And the whizzing wheel stands still. +She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, +And over the sand at the sea; +And her eyes are set in a stare; 100 +And anon there breaks a sigh, +And anon there drops a tear, +From a sorrow-clouded eye, +And a heart sorrow-laden, +A long, long sigh; 105 +For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden +And the gleam of her golden hair. + + Come away, away, children; +Come children, come down! +The hoarse wind blows coldly; 110 +Lights shine in the town. +She will start from her slumber +When gusts shake the door; +She will hear the winds howling, +Will hear the waves roar. 115 +We shall see, while above us +The waves roar and whirl, +A ceiling of amber, +A pavement of pearl. +Singing: "Here came a mortal, 120 +But faithless was she! +And alone dwell for ever +The kings of the sea." + +But, children, at midnight, +When soft the winds blow, 125 +When clear falls the moonlight, +When spring-tides are low; +When sweet airs come seaward +From heaths starr'd with broom,° °129 +And high rocks throw mildly 130 +On the blanch'd sands a gloom; +Up the still, glistening beaches, +Up the creeks we will hie, +Over banks of bright seaweed +The ebb-tide leaves dry. 135 +We will gaze, from the sand-hills, +At the white, sleeping town; +At the church on the hill-side-- +And then come back down. +Singing: "There dwells a loved one, 140 +But cruel is she! +She left lonely for ever +The kings of the sea." + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT° + +I + +TRISTRAM + + +_Tristram_. Is she not come°? The messenger was sure-- +Prop me upon the pillows once again-- +Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure. +--Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! +What lights will those out to the northward be°? °5 + +_The Page_. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea. + +_Tristram_. Soft--who is that, stands by the dying fire? + +_The Page_. Iseult.° °8 + +_Tristram_. Ah! not the Iseult I desire. + + * * * * * + +What Knight is this so weak and pale, +Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, 10 +Propt on pillows in his bed, +Gazing seaward for the light +Of some ship that fights the gale +On this wild December night? +Over the sick man's feet is spread 15 +A dark green forest-dress; +A gold harp leans against the bed, +Ruddy in the fire's light. +I know him by his harp of gold, +Famous in Arthur's court° of old; °20 +I know him by his forest-dress-- +The peerless hunter, harper, knight, +Tristram of Lyoness.° °23 +What Lady is this, whose silk attire +Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? 25 +The ringlets on her shoulders lying +In their flitting lustre vying +With the clasp of burnish'd gold +Which her heavy robe doth hold. +Her looks are mild, her fingers slight 30 +As the driven snow are white°; °31 +But her cheeks are sunk and pale. +Is it that the bleak sea-gale +Beating from the Atlantic sea +On this coast of Brittany, 35 +Nips too keenly the sweet flower? +Is it that a deep fatigue +Hath come on her, a chilly fear, +Passing all her youthful hour +Spinning with her maidens here, 40 +Listlessly through the window-bars +Gazing seawards many a league, +From her lonely shore-built tower, +While the knights are at the wars? +Or, perhaps, has her young heart 45 +Felt already some deeper smart, +Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive, +Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? +Who is this snowdrop by the sea?-- +I know her by her mildness rare, 50 +Her snow-white hands, her golden hair; +I know her by her rich silk dress, +And her fragile loveliness-- +The sweetest Christian soul alive, +Iseult of Brittany. 55 + +Iseult of Brittany?--but where +Is that other Iseult fair, +That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen? +She, whom Tristram's ship of yore +From Ireland to Cornwall bore, 60 +To Tyntagel,° to the side °61 +Of King Marc,° to be his bride? °62 +She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd +With Tristram that spiced magic draught, +Which since then for ever rolls 65 +Through their blood, and binds their souls, +Working love, but working teen°?--. °67 +There were two Iseults who did sway +Each her hour of Tristram's day; +But one possess'd his waning time, 70 +The other his resplendent prime. +Behold her here, the patient flower, +Who possess'd his darker hour! +Iseult of the Snow-White Hand +Watches pale by Tristram's bed. 75 +She is here who had his gloom, +Where art thou who hadst his bloom? +One such kiss as those of yore +Might thy dying knight restore! +Does the love-draught work no more? 80 +Art thou cold, or false, or dead, +Iseult of Ireland? + + * * * * * + +Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain, +And the knight sinks back on his pillows again. +He is weak with fever and pain; 85 +And his spirit is not clear. +Hark! he mutters in his sleep, +As he wanders° far from here, °88 +Changes place and time of year, +And his closéd eye doth sweep 90 +O'er some fair unwintry sea,° °91 +Not this fierce Atlantic deep, +While he mutters brokenly:-- + +_Tristram_. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails; +Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, 95 +And overhead the cloudless sky of May.-- +_"Ah, would I were in those green fields at play, +Not pent on ship-board this delicious day! +Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy, +Reach me my golden phial stands by thee, 100 +But pledge me in it first for courtesy."_-- +Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine? +Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine! +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! 105 +Keep his eyelids! let him seem +Not this fever-wasted wight +Thinn'd and paled before his time, +But the brilliant youthful knight +In the glory of his prime, 110 +Sitting in the gilded barge, +At thy side, thou lovely charge, +Bending gaily o'er thy hand, +Iseult of Ireland! +And she too, that princess fair, 115 +If her bloom be now less rare, +Let her have her youth again-- +Let her be as she was then! +Let her have her proud dark eyes, +And her petulant quick replies-- 120 +Let her sweep her dazzling hand +With its gesture of command, +And shake back her raven hair +With the old imperious air! +As of old, so let her be, 125 +That first Iseult, princess bright, +Chatting with her youthful knight +As he steers her o'er the sea, +Quitting at her father's will +The green isle° where she was bred, °130 +And her bower in Ireland, +For the surge-beat Cornish strand +Where the prince whom she must wed +Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill,° °134 +High above the sounding sea. 135 +And that potion rare her mother +Gave her, that her future lord, +Gave her, that King Marc and she, +Might drink it on their marriage-day, +And for ever love each other-- 140 +Let her, as she sits on board, +Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly! +See it shine, and take it up, +And to Tristram laughing say: +"Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, 145 +Pledge me in my golden cup!" +Let them drink it--let their hands +Tremble, and their cheeks be flame, +As they feel the fatal bands +Of a love they dare not name, 150 +With a wild delicious pain, +Twine about their hearts again! +Let the early summer be +Once more round them, and the sea +Blue, and o'er its mirror kind 155 +Let the breath of the May-wind, +Wandering through their drooping sails, +Die on the green fields of Wales! +Let a dream like this restore +What his eye must see no more!° °160 + +_Tristram_. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks° are drear-- °161 +Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here? +Were feet like those made for so wild a way? +The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,° °164 +Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day! 165 +_"Tristram!--nay, nay--thou must not take my hand!-- +Tristram!--sweet love!--we are betray'd--out-plann'd. +Fly--save thyself--save me!--I dare not stay."_-- +One last kiss first!--_"'Tis vain--to horse--away!"_ + + * * * * * + +Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move 170 +Faster surely than it should, +From the fever in his blood! +All the spring-time of his love +Is already gone and past, +And instead thereof is seen 175 +Its winter, which endureth still-- +Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill, +The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen, +The flying leaves, the straining blast, +And that long, wild kiss--their last.° °180 +And this rough December-night, +And his burning fever-pain, +Mingle with his hurrying dream, +Till they rule it, till he seem +The press'd fugitive again, 185 +The love-desperate banish'd knight +With a fire in his brain +Flying o'er the stormy main. +--Whither does he wander now? +Haply in his dreams the wind 190 +Wafts him here, and lets him find +The lovely orphan child° again° °192 +In her castle by the coast; +The youngest, fairest chatelaine,° °194 +Whom this realm of France can boast, 195 +Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, +Iseult of Brittany. +And--for through the haggard air, +The stain'd arms, the matted hair +Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,° °200 +There gleam'd something, which recall'd +The Tristram who in better days +Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard°-- °203 +Welcomed here,° and here install'd, °204 +Tended of his fever here, 205 +Haply he seems again to move +His young guardian's heart with love +In his exiled loneliness, +In his stately, deep distress, +Without a word, without a tear. 210 +--Ah! 'tis well he should retrace +His tranquil life in this lone place; +His gentle bearing at the side +Of his timid youthful bride; +His long rambles by the shore 215 +On winter-evenings, when the roar +Of the near waves came, sadly grand, +Through the dark, up the drown'd sand, +Or his endless reveries +In the woods, where the gleams play 220 +On the grass under the trees, +Passing the long summer's day +Idle as a mossy stone +In the forest-depths alone, +The chase neglected, and his hound 225 +Couch'd beside him on the ground.° °226 +--Ah! what trouble's on his brow? +Hither let him wander now; +Hither, to the quiet hours +Pass'd among these heaths of ours. 230 +By the grey Atlantic sea; +Hours, if not of ecstasy, +From violent anguish surely free! + +_Tristram_. All red with blood the whirling river flows, +The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows. 235 +Upon us are the chivalry of Rome-- +Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.° °237 +"Up, Tristram, up," men cry, "thou moonstruck knight°! °238 +What foul fiend rides thee°? On into the fight!" °239 +--Above the din her° voice is in my ears; °240 +I see her form glide through the crossing spears.-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah! he wanders forth again°; °243 +We cannot keep him; now, as then, +There's a secret in his breast° °245 +Which will never let him rest. +These musing fits in the green wood +They cloud the brain, they dull the blood! +--His sword is sharp, his horse is good; +Beyond the mountains will he see 250 +The famous towns of Italy, +And label with the blessed sign° °252 +The heathen Saxons on the Rhine. +At Arthur's side he fights once more +With the Roman Emperor.° °255 +There's many a gay knight where he goes +Will help him to forget his care; +The march, the leaguer,° Heaven's blithe air, °258 +The neighing steeds, the ringing blows-- +Sick pining comes not where these are. 260 +Ah! what boots it,° that the jest °261 +Lightens every other brow, +What, that every other breast +Dances as the trumpets blow, +If one's own heart beats not light 265 +On the waves of the toss'd fight, +If oneself cannot get free +From the clog of misery? +Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale +Watching by the salt sea-tide 270 +With her children at her side +For the gleam of thy white sail. +Home, Tristram, to thy halls again! +To our lonely sea complain, +To our forests tell thy pain! 275 + +_Tristram_. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade, +But it is moonlight in the open glade; +And in the bottom of the glade shine clear +The forest-chapel and the fountain near. +--I think, I have a fever in my blood; 280 +Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood, +Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood. +--Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light; +God! 'tis _her_ face plays in the waters bright. +"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon, 285 +At this soft hour under this sweet moon?"-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + + Ah, poor soul! if this be so, + Only death can balm thy woe. + The solitudes of the green wood 290 + Had no medicine for thy mood; + The rushing battle clear'd thy blood + As little as did solitude. + --Ah! his eyelids slowly break + Their hot seals, and let him wake; 295 + What new change shall we now see? + A happier? Worse it cannot be. + +_Tristram_. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire! +Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright; +The wind is down--but she'll not come to-night. 300 +Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now, +Far hence; her dreams are fair--smooth is her brow +Of me she recks not,° nor my vain desire. °303 + +--I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page, +Would take a score years from a strong man's age; 305 +And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear, +Scant leisure for a second messenger. + +--My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait! +To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by; +To-night my page shall keep me company. 310 +Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me! +Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I; +This comes of nursing long and watching late. +To bed--good night!° °314 + + * * * * * + +She left the gleam-lit fireplace, 315 +She came to the bed-side; +She took his hands in hers--her tears +Down on his wasted fingers rain'd. +She raised her eyes upon his face-- +Not with a look of wounded pride, 320 +A look as if the heart complained-- +Her look was like a sad embrace; +The gaze of one who can divine +A grief, and sympathise. +Sweet flower! thy children's eyes 325 +Are not more innocent than thine. + But they sleep in shelter'd rest, +Like helpless birds in the warm nest, +On the castle's southern side; +Where feebly comes the mournful roar 330 +Of buffeting wind and surging tide +Through many a room and corridor. +--Full on their window the moon's ray +Makes their chamber as bright as day. +It shines upon the blank white walls, 335 +And on the snowy pillow falls, +And on two angel-heads doth play +Turn'd to each other--the eyes closed, +The lashes on the cheeks reposed. +Round each sweet brow the cap close-set 340 +Hardly lets peep the golden hair; +Through the soft-open'd lips the air +Scarcely moves the coverlet. +One little wandering arm is thrown +At random on the counterpane, 345 +And often the fingers close in haste +As if their baby-owner chased +The butterflies again. +This stir they have, and this alone; 350 +But else they are so still! +--Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still; +But were you at the window now, +To look forth on the fairy sight +Of your illumined haunts by night, 355 +To see the park-glades where you play +Far lovelier than they are by day, +To see the sparkle on the eaves, +And upon every giant-bough +Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves 360 +Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain-- +How would your voices run again! +And far beyond the sparkling trees +Of the castle-park one sees +The bare heaths spreading, clear as day, 365 +Moor behind moor, far, far away, +Into the heart of Brittany. +And here and there, lock'd by the land, +Long inlets of smooth glittering sea, +And many a stretch of watery sand 370 +All shining in the white moon-beams-- +But you see fairer in your dreams! + +What voices are these on the clear night-air? +What lights in the court--what steps on the stair? + + + +II + +ISEULT OF IRELAND° + + +_Tristram_. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.-- + Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen! +Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever; + Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been. + +_Iseult_. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried; 5 + Bound I was, I could not break the band. +Chide not with the past, but feel the present! + I am here--we meet--I hold thy hand. + +_Tristram_. Thou art come, indeed--thou hast rejoin'd me; + Thou hast dared it--but too late to save. 10 +Fear not now that men should tax thine honour! + I am dying: build--(thou may'st)--my grave! + +_Iseult_. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly! + What, I hear these bitter words from thee? +Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel-- 15 + Take my hand--dear Tristram, look on me! + +_Tristram_. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage-- + Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair. +But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult! + And thy beauty never was more fair. 20 + +_Iseult_. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty! + I, like thee, have left my youth afar. +Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers-- + See my cheek and lips, how white they are! + +_Tristram_. Thou art paler--but thy sweet charm, Iseult! 25 + Would not fade with the dull years away. +Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight! + I forgive thee, Iseult!--thou wilt stay? + +_Iseult_. Fear me not, I will be always with thee; + I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain; 30 +Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers, + Join'd at evening of their days again. + +_Tristram_. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding + Something alter'd in thy courtly tone. +Sit--sit by me! I will think, we've lived so 35 + In the green wood, all our lives, alone. + +_Iseult_. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me, + Love like mine is alter'd in the breast; +Courtly life is light and cannot reach it-- + Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd! 40 + +What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers + Words by which the wretched are consoled? +What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler, + Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold? + +Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband-- 45 + That was bliss to make my sorrows flee! +Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings°-- + Those were friends to make me false to thee! + +Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced, + Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown-- 50 +Thee, a pining exile in thy forest, + Me, a smiling queen upon my throne? + +Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd, + Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad, +Both have brought their anxious day to evening, 55 + And have now short space for being glad! + +Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people, + Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill, +That a former rival shares her office, + When she sees her humbled, pale, and still. 60 + +I, a faded watcher by thy pillow, + I, a statue on thy chapel-floor, +Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother, + Rouse no anger, make no rivals more. + +She will cry: "Is this the foe I dreaded? 65 + This his idol? this that royal bride? +Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight! + Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side." + +Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me. + I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep. 70 +Close thine eyes--this flooding moonlight blinds them!-- + Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep. + +_Tristram_. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something + Swells my heart, and takes my breath away. +Through a mist I see thee; near--come nearer! 75 + Bend--bend down!--I yet have much to say. + +_Iseult_. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow-- + Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail! +Call on God and on the holy angels! + What, love, courage!--Christ! he is so pale. 80 + +_Tristram_. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching! + This is what my mother said should be, +When the fierce pains took her in the forest, + The deep draughts of death, in bearing me. + +"Son," she said, "thy name shall be of sorrow; 85 + Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake." +So she said, and died in the drear forest. + Grief since then his home with me doth make.° °88 + +I am dying.--Start not, nor look wildly! + Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save. 90 +But, since living we were ununited, + Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave. + +Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult; + Speak her fair, she is of royal blood! +Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me-- 95 + She will grant it; she is kind and good. + +Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee-- + One last kiss upon the living shore! + +_Iseult_. Tristram!--Tristram!--stay--receive me with thee! + Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more.° °100 + + * * * * * + +You see them clear--the moon shines bright. +Slow, slow and softly, where she stood, +She sinks upon the ground;--her hood +Has fallen back; her arms outspread +Still hold her lover's hand; her head 105 +Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed. +O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair +Lies in disorder'd streams; and there, +Strung like white stars, the pearls still are, +And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare, 110 +Flash on her white arms still. +The very same which yesternight +Flash'd in the silver sconces'° light, °113 +When the feast was gay and the laughter loud +In Tyntagel's palace proud. 115 +But then they deck'd a restless ghost +With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes, +And quivering lips on which the tide +Of courtly speech abruptly died, +And a glance which over the crowded floor, 120 +The dancers, and the festive host, +Flew ever to the door.° °122 +That the knights eyed her in surprise, +And the dames whispered scoffingly: +"Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers! 125 +But yesternight and she would be +As pale and still as wither'd flowers, +And now to-night she laughs and speaks +And has a colour in her cheeks; +Christ keep us from such fantasy!"-- 130 +Yes, now the longing is o'erpast, +Which, dogg'd° by fear and fought by shame, °132 +Shook her weak bosom day and night, +Consumed her beauty like a flame, +And dimm'd it like the desert-blast. 135 +And though the bed-clothes hide her face, +Yet were it lifted to the light, +The sweet expression of her brow +Would charm the gazer, till his thought +Erased the ravages of time, 140 +Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought +A freshness back as of her prime-- +So healing is her quiet now. +So perfectly the lines express +A tranquil, settled loveliness, 145 +Her younger rival's purest grace. + +The air of the December-night +Steals coldly around the chamber bright, +Where those lifeless lovers be; +Swinging with it, in the light 150 +Flaps the ghostlike tapestry. +And on the arras wrought you see +A stately Huntsman, clad in green, +And round him a fresh forest-scene. +On that clear forest-knoll he stays, 155 +With his pack round him, and delays. +He stares and stares, with troubled face, +At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace, +At that bright, iron-figured door, +And those blown rushes on the floor. 160 +He gazes down into the room +With heated cheeks and flurried air, +And to himself he seems to say: +_"What place is this, and who are they? +Who is that kneeling Lady fair? 165 +And on his pillows that pale Knight +Who seems of marble on a tomb? +How comes it here, this chamber bright, +Through whose mullion'd windows clear +The castle-court all wet with rain, 170 +The drawbridge and the moat appear, +And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray, +The sunken reefs, and far away +The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? +--What, has some glamour made me sleep, 175 +And sent me with my dogs to sweep, +By night, with boisterous bugle-peal, +Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall, +Not in the free green wood at all? +That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer 180 +That Lady by the bed doth kneel-- +Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!"_ +--The wild boar rustles in his lair; +The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air; +But lord and hounds keep rooted there. 185 + +Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake, +O Hunter! and without a fear +Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow, +And through the glades thy pastime take-- +For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here! 190 +For these thou seest are unmoved; +Cold, cold as those who lived and loved +A thousand years ago.° °193 + + + +III + +ISEULT OF BRITTANY° + + +A year had flown, and o'er the sea away, +In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay; +In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old-- +There in a ship they bore those lovers cold. + +The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, 5 +Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play +In a green circular hollow in the heath +Which borders the sea-shore--a country path +Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind. +The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined, 10 +And to one standing on them, far and near +The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear +Over the waste. This cirque° of open ground °13 +Is light and green; the heather, which all round +Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass 15 +Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass +Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there +Dotted with holly-trees and juniper.° °18 +In the smooth centre of the opening stood +Three hollies side by side, and made a screen, 20 +Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green +With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's° food. °22 +Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands, +Watching her children play; their little hands +Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams 25 +Of stagshorn° for their hats; anon, with screams °26 +Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound +Among the holly-clumps and broken ground, +Racing full speed, and startling in their rush +The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush 30 +Out of their glossy coverts;--but when now +Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow, +Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair, +In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair-- +Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three 35 +Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she +Told them an old-world Breton history.° °37 + +Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there, +Under the hollies, in the clear still air-- +Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering 40 +Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring. +Long they stay'd still--then, pacing at their ease, +Moved up and down under the glossy trees. +But still, as they pursued their warm dry road, +From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd, 45 +And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes +Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise; +Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side, +Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide, +Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away 50 +From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay, +Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams +Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams, +Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear, +The fell-fares settled on the thickets near. 55 +And they would still have listen'd, till dark night +Came keen and chill down on the heather bright; +But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold, +And the grey turrets of the castle old +Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, 60 +Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair, +And brought her tale to an end, and found the path, +And led them home over the darkening heath. + +And is she happy? Does she see unmoved +The days in which she might have lived and loved 65 +Slip without bringing bliss slowly away, +One after one, to-morrow like to-day? +Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will-- +Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still, +Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, 70 +So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet +Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone +Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, +But even that comes languidly; in truth, +She seems one dying in a mask of youth. 75 +And now she will go home, and softly lay +Her laughing children in their beds, and play +Awhile with them before they sleep; and then +She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen +Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar, 80 +Along this iron coast,° know like a star,° °81 +And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit +Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it; +Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind +Her children, or to listen to the wind. 85 +And when the clock peals midnight, she will move +Her work away, and let her fingers rove +Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound +Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground; +Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes 90 +Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise, +And at her prie-dieu° kneel, until she have told °92 +Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold, +Then to her soft sleep--and to-morrow'll be +To-day's exact repeated effigy. 95 + +Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall. +The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal,° °97 +Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound, +Are there the sole companions to be found. +But these she loves; and noiser life than this 100 +She would find ill to bear, weak as she is. +She has her children, too, and night and day +Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play, +The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore, +The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails, 105 +These are to her dear as to them; the tales +With which this day the children she beguiled +She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child, +In every hut along this sea-coast wild. +She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, 110 +Can forget all to hear them, as of old. + +Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, +Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear +To all that has delighted them before, +And lets us be what we were once no more. 115 +No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain +Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain, +By what of old pleased us, and will again. +No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world, +In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd 120 +Until they crumble, or else grow like steel-- +Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring-- +Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, +But takes away the power--this can avail, +By drying up our joy in everything, 125 +To make our former pleasures all seem stale. +This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit +Of passion, which subdues our souls to it, +Till for its sake alone we live and move-- +Call it ambition, or remorse, or love-- 130 +This too can change us wholly, and make seem +All which we did before, shadow and dream. + +And yet, I swear, it angers me to see +How this fool passion gulls° men potently; °134 +Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest, 135 +And an unnatural overheat at best. +How they are full of languor and distress +Not having it; which when they do possess, +They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, +And spend their lives in posting here and there° °140 +Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, +Are furious with themselves, and hard to please. +Like that bold Cæsar,° the famed Roman wight, °143 +Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight +Who made a name at younger years than he; 145 +Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry, +Prince Alexander,° Philip's peerless son, °147 +Who carried the great war from Macedon +Into the Soudan's° realm, and thundered on °149 +To die at thirty-five in Babylon. 150 + +What tale did Iseult to the children say, +Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day? +She told them of the fairy-haunted land +Away the other side of Brittany, +Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 +Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,° °156 +Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps +Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. +For here he came with the fay° Vivian, °158 +One April, when the warm days first began. +He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 +On her white palfrey; here he met his end, +In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. +This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay° °163 +Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear +Before the children's fancy him and her. 165 + +Blowing between the stems, the forest-air +Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair, +Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes +Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise. +Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat, 170 +For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet. +A brier in that tangled wilderness +Had scored her white right hand, which she allows +To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress; +The other warded off the drooping boughs. 175 +But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes +Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize. +Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace, +The spirit of the woods was in her face. +She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight 180 +Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight; +And he grew fond, and eager to obey +His mistress, use her empire° as she may. °184 +They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day 185 +Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away, +In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook; +And up as high as where they stood to look +On the brook's farther side was clear, but then +The underwood and trees began again. 190 +This open glen was studded thick with thorns +Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, +Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer +Who come at noon down to the water here. +You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along 195 +Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong +The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, +And the weird chipping of the woodpecker +Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair, +And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere. 200 +Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow, +To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough +Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild. +As if to itself the quiet forest smiled. +Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here 205 +The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear +Across the hollow; white anemones +Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses +Ran out from the dark underwood behind. +No fairer resting-place a man could find. 210 +"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she +Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree. + +They sate them down together, and a sleep +Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. +Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose 215 +And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws, +And takes it in her hand, and waves it over +The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. +Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple° round, °219 +And made a little plot of magic ground. 220 +And in that daised circle, as men say, +Is Merlin prisoner° till the judgment-day; °222 +But she herself whither she will can rove-- +For she was passing weary of his love.° °224 + + + + + + +LYRICAL POEMS + + + + +THE CHURCH OF BROU° + +I + +THE CASTLE + + +Down the Savoy° valleys sounding, °1 + Echoing round this castle old, +'Mid the distant mountain-chalets° °3 + Hark! what bell for church is toll'd? + +In the bright October morning 5 + Savoy's Duke had left his bride. +From the castle, past the drawbridge, + Flow'd the hunters' merry tide. + +Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering; + Gay, her smiling lord to greet, 10 +From her mullion'd chamber-casement + Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. + +From Vienna, by the Danube, + Here she came, a bride, in spring. +Now the autumn crisps the forest; 15 + Hunters gather, bugles ring. + +Hounds are pulling, prickers° swearing, °17 + Horses fret, and boar-spears glance. +Off!--They sweep the marshy forests. + Westward, on the side of France. 20 + +Hark! the game's on foot; they scatter!-- + Down the forest-ridings lone, +Furious, single horsemen gallop---- + Hark! a shout--a crash--a groan! + +Pale and breathless, came the hunters; 25 + On the turf dead lies the boar-- +God! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him, + Senseless, weltering in his gore. + + * * * * * + +In the dull October evening, + Down the leaf-strewn forest-road, 30 +To the castle, past the drawbridge, + Came the hunters with their load. + +In the hall, with sconces blazing, + Ladies waiting round her seat, +Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais° °35 + Sate the Duchess Marguerite. + +Hark! below the gates unbarring! + Tramp of men and quick commands! +"--'Tis my lord come back from hunting--" + And the Duchess claps her hands. 40 + +Slow and tired, came the hunters-- + Stopp'd in darkness in the court. +"--Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! + To the hall! What sport? What sport?"-- + +Slow they enter'd with their master; 45 + In the hall they laid him down. +On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, + On his brow an angry frown. + +Dead her princely youthful husband + Lay before his youthful wife, 50 +Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces-- + And the sight froze all her life. + + * * * * * + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Kings hold revel, gallants meet. +Gay of old amid the gayest 55 + Was the Duchess Marguerite. + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Feast and dance her youth beguiled. +Till that hour she never sorrow'd; + But from then she never smiled. 60 + +'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys + Far from town or haunt of man, +Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd, + Which the Duchess Maud began; + +Old, that Duchess stern began it, 65 + In grey age, with palsied hands; +But she died while it was building, + And the Church unfinish'd stands-- + +Stands as erst° the builders left it, °69 + When she sank into her grave; 70 +Mountain greensward paves the chancel,° °71 + Harebells flower in the nave.° °72 + +"--In my castle all is sorrow," + Said the Duchess Marguerite then; +"Guide me, some one, to the mountain! 75 + We will build the Church again."-- + +Sandall'd palmers,° faring homeward, °78 + Austrian knights from Syria came. +"--Austrian wanderers bring, O warders! + Homage to your Austrian dame."-- 80 + +From the gate the warders answer'd: + "--Gone, O knights, is she you knew! +Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess; + Seek her at the Church of Brou!"-- + +Austrian knights and march-worn palmers 85 + Climb the winding mountain-way.-- +Reach the valley, where the Fabric + Rises higher day by day. + +Stones are sawing, hammers ringing; + On the work the bright sun shines, 90 +In the Savoy mountain-meadows, + By the stream, below the pines. + +On her palfry white the Duchess + Sate and watch'd her working train-- +Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, 95 + German masons, smiths from Spain. + +Clad in black, on her white palfrey, + Her old architect beside-- +There they found her in the mountains, + Morn and noon and eventide. 100 + +There she sate, and watch'd the builders, + Till the Church was roof'd and done. +Last of all, the builders rear'd her + In the nave a tomb of stone. + +On the tomb two forms they sculptured, 105 + Lifelike in the marble pale-- +One, the Duke in helm and armour; + One, the Duchess in her veil. + +Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork° °109 + Was at Easter-tide put on. 110 +Then the Duchess closed her labours; + And she died at the St. John. + + + +II + +THE CHURCH + + +Upon the glistening leaden roof +Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines; + The stream goes leaping by. +The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof; +'Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 5 + Stands the Church on high. +What Church is this, from men aloof?-- +'Tis the Church of Brou. + +At sunrise, from their dewy lair +Crossing the stream, the kine are seen 10 + Round the wall to stray-- +The churchyard wall that clips the square +Of open hill-sward fresh and green + Where last year they lay. +But all things now are order'd fair 15 +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, at the matin-chime,° °17 +The Alpine peasants, two and three, + Climb up here to pray; +Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, 20 +Ride out to church from Chambery,° °21 + Dight° with mantles gay. °22 +But else it is a lonely time +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, too, a priest doth come 25 +From the wall'd town beyond the pass, + Down the mountain-way; +And then you hear the organ's hum, +You hear the white-robed priest say mass, + And the people pray. 30 +But else the woods and fields are dumb +Round the Church of Brou. + +And after church, when mass is done, +The people to the nave repair + Round the tomb to stray; 35 +And marvel at the Forms of stone, +And praise the chisell'd broideries° rare-- °37 + Then they drop away. +The princely Pair are left alone +In the Church of Brou. 40 + + + +III + +THE TOMB + + +So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair! +In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air, +Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come. +Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb, +From the rich painted windows of the nave, 5 +On aisle, and transept,° and your marble grave; °6 +Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise +From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies, +On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds, +And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds 10 +To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve; +And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive, +Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state, +The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, +Coming benighted to the castle-gate. 15 + + So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair! +Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair +On the carved western front a flood of light +Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright +Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, 20 +In the vast western window of the nave, +And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints +A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints, +And amethyst, and ruby--then unclose +Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, 25 +And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads, +And rise upon your cold white marble beds; +And, looking down on the warm rosy tints, +Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints, +Say: _What is this? we are in bliss--forgiven--_ 30 +_Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!_ +Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain +Doth rustlingly above your heads complain +On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls +Shedding her pensive light at intervals 35 +The moon through the clere-story windows shines, +And the wind washes through the mountain-pines. +Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high, +The foliaged marble forest° where ye lie, °39 +_Hush_, ye will say, _it is eternity!_ 40 +_This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these +The columns of the heavenly palaces!_ +And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear +The passage of the Angels' wings will hear, +And on the lichen-crusted leads° above °45 +The rustle of the eternal rain of love. + + + + +REQUIESCAT° + + +Strew on her roses, roses, + And never a spray of yew! +In quiet she reposes; + Ah, would that I did too! + +Her mirth the world required; 5 + She bathed it in smiles of glee. +But her heart was tired, tired, + And now they let her be. + +Her life was turning, turning, + In mazes of heat and sound. 10 +But for peace her soul was yearning, + And now peace laps her round. + +Her cabin'd,° ample spirit, °13 + It flutter'd and fail'd for breath +To-night it doth inherit 15 + The vasty° hall of death. °16 + + + + +CONSOLATION + + +Mist clogs the sunshine. +Smoky dwarf houses +Hem me round everywhere; +A vague dejection +Weighs down my soul. 5 + +Yet, while I languish, +Everywhere countless +Prospects unroll themselves, +And countless beings +Pass countless moods. 10 + +Far hence, in Asia, +On the smooth convent-roofs, +On the gilt terraces, +Of holy Lassa,° °14 +Bright shines the sun. 15 + +Grey time-worn marbles +Hold the pure Muses°; °17 +In their cool gallery,° °18 +By yellow Tiber,° °19 +They still look fair. 20 + +Strange unloved uproar° °21 +Shrills round their portal; +Yet not on Helicon° °23 +Kept they more cloudless +Their noble calm. 25 + +Through sun-proof alleys +In a lone, sand-hemm'd +City of Africa, +A blind, led beggar, +Age-bow'd, asks alms. 30 + +No bolder robber +Erst° abode ambush'd °32 +Deep in the sandy waste; +No clearer eyesight +Spied prey afar. 35 + +Saharan sand-winds +Sear'd his keen eyeballs; +Spent is the spoil he won. +For him the present +Holds only pain. 40 + +Two young, fair lovers, +Where the warm June-wind, +Fresh from the summer fields +Plays fondly round them, +Stand, tranced in joy. 45 + +With sweet, join'd voices, +And with eyes brimming: +"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,° °48 +Prolong the present! +Time, stand still here!" 50 + +The prompt stern Goddess +Shakes her head, frowning; +Time gives his hour-glass +Its due reversal; +Their hour is gone. 55 + +With weak indulgence +Did the just Goddess +Lengthen their happiness, +She lengthen'd also +Distress elsewhere. 60 + +The hour, whose happy +Unalloy'd moments +I would eternalise, +Ten thousand mourners +Well pleased see end. 65 + +The bleak, stern hour, +Whose severe moments +I would annihilate, +Is pass'd by others +In warmth, light, joy. 70 + +Time, so complain'd of, +Who to no one man +Shows partiality, +Brings round to all men +Some undimm'd hours. 75 + + + + +A DREAM + + +Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd, +Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream, +Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun, +On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, +On the red pinings of their forest-floor, 5 +Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines +The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change +Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees +And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. +Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 +And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came +Notes of wild pastoral music--over all +Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. +Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge, +Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood, 15 +Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves +Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof +Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within, +Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn. +We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. 20 +On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms +Came forth--Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine. +Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast; +Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue, +Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd. 25 +They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved, +And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes. +Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly, +Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed. +One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat 30 +Hung poised--and then the darting river of Life +(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life, +Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd, +Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone. +Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines 35 +Faded--the moss--the rocks; us burning plains, +Bristled with cities, us the sea received. + + + + +LINES° + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + + +In this lone, open glade I lie, +Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand; +And at its end, to stay the eye, +Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees° stand! °4 + +Birds here make song, each bird has his, 5 +Across the girdling city's hum. +How green under the boughs it is! +How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! + +Sometimes a child will cross the glade +To take his nurse his broken toy; 10 +Sometimes a thrush flit overhead +Deep in her unknown day's employ. + +Here at my feet what wonders pass, +What endless, active life is here°! °14 +What blowing daisies, fragrant grass! 15 +An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear. + +Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod +Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out, +And, eased of basket and of rod, +Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. 20 + +In the huge world,° which roars hard by, °21 +Be others happy if they can! +But in my helpless cradle I +Was breathed on by the rural Pan.° °24 + +I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd, 25 +Think often, as I hear them rave, +That peace has left the upper world +And now keeps only in the grave. + +Yet here is peace for ever new! +When I who watch them am away, 30 +Still all things in this glade go through +The changes of their quiet day. + +Then to their happy rest they pass! +The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, +The night comes down upon the grass, 35 +The child sleeps warmly in his bed. + +Calm soul of all things! make it mine +To feel, amid the city's jar, +That there abides a peace of thine, +Man did not make, and cannot mar. 40 + +The will to neither strive nor cry, +The power to feel with others give°! +Calm, calm me more! nor let me die +Before I have begun to live. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER° + +_The Portico of Circe's Palace. Evening._ + +A YOUTH. CIRCE.° + + + _The Youth_. Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession +Of eddying forms, 5 +Sweep through my soul! + +Thou standest, smiling +Down on me! thy right arm, +Lean'd up against the column there, +Props thy soft cheek; 10 +Thy left holds, hanging loosely, +The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,° °12 +I held but now. + +Is it, then, evening +So soon? I see, the night-dews, 15 +Cluster'd in thick beads, dim +The agate brooch-stones +On thy white shoulder; +The cool night-wind, too, +Blows through the portico, 20 +Stirs thy hair, Goddess, +Waves thy white robe! + + _Circe_. Whence art thou, sleeper? + + _The Youth_. When the white dawn first +Through the rough fir-planks 25 +Of my hut, by the chestnuts, +Up at the valley-head, +Came breaking, Goddess! +I sprang up, I threw round me +My dappled fawn-skin; 30 +Passing out, from the wet turf, +Where they lay, by the hut door, +I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, +All drench'd in dew-- +Came swift down to join 35 +The rout° early gather'd °36 +In the town, round the temple, +Iacchus'° white fane° °38 +On yonder hill. + +Quick I pass'd, following 40 +The wood-cutters' cart-track +Down the dark valley;--I saw +On my left, through, the beeches, +Thy palace, Goddess, +Smokeless, empty! 45 +Trembling, I enter'd; beheld +The court all silent, +The lions sleeping,° °47 +On the altar this bowl. +I drank, Goddess! 50 +And sank down here, sleeping, +On the steps of thy portico. + + _Circe_. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? +Thou lovest it, then, my wine? +Wouldst more of it? See, how glows, 55 +Through the delicate, flush'd marble, +The red, creaming liquor, +Strown with dark seeds! +Drink, then! I chide thee not, +Deny thee not my bowl. 60 +Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so! +Drink--drink again! + + _The Youth_. Thanks, gracious one! +Ah, the sweet fumes again! +More soft, ah me, 65 +More subtle-winding +Than Pan's flute-music!° °67 +Faint--faint! Ah me, +Again the sweet sleep! + + _Circe_. Hist! Thou--within there! 70 +Come forth, Ulysses°! °71 +Art° tired with hunting? °72 +While we range° the woodland, °73 +See what the day brings.° °74 + + _Ulysses_. Ever new magic! 75 +Hast thou then lured hither, +Wonderful Goddess, by thy art, +The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, +Iacchus' darling-- +Or some youth beloved of Pan, 80 +Of Pan and the Nymphs°? °81 +That he sits, bending downward +His white, delicate neck +To the ivy-wreathed marge +Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves 85 +That crown his hair, +Falling forward, mingling +With the dark ivy-plants-- +His fawn-skin, half untied, +Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he, 90 +That he sits, overweigh'd +By fumes of wine and sleep, +So late, in thy portico? +What youth, Goddess,--what guest +Of Gods or mortals? 95 + + _Circe_. Hist! he wakes! +I lured him not hither, Ulysses. +Nay, ask him! + + _The Youth_. Who speaks? Ah, who comes forth +To thy side, Goddess, from within? 100 +How shall I name him? +This spare, dark-featured, +Quick-eyed stranger? +Ah, and I see too +His sailor's bonnet, 105 +His short coat, travel-tarnish'd, +With one arm bare°!-- °107 +Art thou not he, whom fame +This long time rumours +The favour'd guest of Circe,° brought by the waves? °110 +Art thou he, stranger? +The wise Ulysses, +Laertes' son? + +_Ulysses_. I am Ulysses. +And thou, too, sleeper? 115 +Thy voice is sweet. +It may be thou hast follow'd +Through the islands some divine bard, +By age taught many things, +Age and the Muses°; °120 +And heard him delighting +The chiefs and people +In the banquet, and learn'd his songs, +Of Gods and Heroes, +Of war and arts, 125 +And peopled cities, +Inland, or built +By the grey sea.--If so, then hail! +I honour and welcome thee. + + _The Youth_. The Gods are happy. 130 +They turn on all sides +Their shining eyes, +And see below them +The earth and men.° °134 + +They see Tiresias° °135 +Sitting, staff in hand, +On the warm, grassy +Asopus° bank, °138 +His robe drawn over +His old, sightless head, 140 +Revolving inly +The doom of Thebes.° °142 + +They see the Centaurs° °143 +In the upper glens +Of Pelion,° in the streams, °145 +Where red-berried ashes fringe +The clear-brown shallow pools, +With streaming flanks, and heads +Rear'd proudly, snuffing +The mountain wind. 150 + +They see the Indian +Drifting, knife in hand, +His frail boat moor'd to +A floating isle thick-matted +With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, 155 +And the dark cucumber. +He reaps, and stows them, +Drifting--drifting;--round him, +Round his green harvest-plot, +Flow the cool lake-waves, 160 +The mountains ring them.° + +They see the Scythian +On the wide stepp, unharnessing +His wheel'd house at noon. +He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal-- 165 +Mares' milk, and bread +Baked on the embers°;--all around °167 +The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd +With saffron and the yellow hollyhock +And flag-leaved iris-flowers. 170 +Sitting in his cart, +He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, +Alive with bright green lizards, +And the springing bustard-fowl, +The track, a straight black line, 175 +Furrows the rich soil; here and there +Clusters of lonely mounds +Topp'd with rough-hewn, +Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer +The sunny waste.° °180 + +They see the ferry +On the broad, clay-laden. +Lone Chorasmian stream°;--thereon, °183 +With snort and strain, +Two horses, strongly swimming, tow 185 +The ferry-boat, with woven ropes +To either bow +Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief, +With shout and shaken spear, +Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern 190 +The cowering merchants, in long robes, +Sit pale beside their wealth +Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, +Of gold and ivory, +Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, 195 +Jasper and chalcedony, +And milk-barr'd onyx-stones.° °197 +The loaded boat swings groaning +In the yellow eddies; +The Gods behold them. 200 +They see the Heroes +Sitting in the dark ship +On the foamless, long-heaving +Violet sea, +At sunset nearing 205 +The Happy Islands.° °206 + + These things, Ulysses, +The wise bards also +Behold and sing. +But oh, what labour! 210 +O prince, what pain! + +They too can see +Tiresias;--but the Gods, +Who give them vision, +Added this law: 215 +That they should bear too +His groping blindness, +His dark foreboding, +His scorn'd white hairs; +Bear Hera's anger° °220 +Through a life lengthen'd +To seven ages. + +They see the Centaurs +On Pelion;--then they feel, +They too, the maddening wine 225 +Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain +They feel the biting spears +Of the grim Lapithæ,° and Theseus,° drive, °228 +Drive crashing through their bones°; they feel °229 +High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230 +Alcmena's dreadful son° °231 +Ply his bow;--such a price +The Gods exact for song: +To become what we sing. + +They see the Indian 235 +On his mountain lake; but squalls +Make their skiff reel, and worms +In the unkind spring have gnawn +Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see +The Scythian; but long frosts 240 +Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp, +Till they too fade like grass; they crawl +Like shadows forth in spring. + +They see the merchants +On the Oxus stream°;--but care °245 +Must visit first them too, and make them pale. +Whether, through whirling sand, +A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst +Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, +In the wall'd cities the way passes through, 250 +Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs, +On some great river's marge, +Mown them down, far from home. + +They see the Heroes° °254 +Near harbour;--but they share 255 +Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes, +Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy°; °257 +Or where the echoing oars +Of Argo first +Startled the unknown sea.° °260 + +The old Silenus° °261 +Came, lolling in the sunshine, +From the dewy forest-coverts, +This way, at noon. +Sitting by me, while his Fauns 265 +Down at the water-side +Sprinkled and smoothed +His drooping garland, +He told me these things. + +But I, Ulysses, 270 +Sitting on the warm steps, +Looking over the valley, +All day long, have seen, +Without pain, without labour, +Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad°-- °275 +Sometimes a Faun with torches°-- °276 +And sometimes, for a moment, +Passing through the dark stems +Flowing-robed, the beloved, +The desired, the divine, 280 +Beloved Iacchus. + +Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! +Ah, glimmering water, +Fitful earth-murmur, +Dreaming woods! 285 +Ah, golden-hair'd, strangely smiling Goddess, +And thou, proved, much enduring, +Wave-toss'd Wanderer! +Who can stand still? +Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me-- 290 +The cup again! + +Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession 295 +Of eddying forms, +Sweep through my soul! + + + + +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 5 + 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. 10 + 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, 15 +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, 20 +See, on her face a glow is spread, +A strong emotion on her cheek! + "Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, + Whence was it, for it is not mine? + +"There is no effort on _my_ brow-- 25 +I do not strive, I do not weep; +I rush with the swift spheres and glow +In joy, and when I will, I sleep. + Yet that severe, that earnest air, + I saw, I felt it once--but where? 30 + +"I knew not yet the gauge of time, +Nor wore the manacles of space; +I felt it in some other clime, +I saw it in some other place. + 'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 35 + And lay upon the breast of God." + + + + +DOVER BEACH + + +The sea is calm to-night. +The tide is full, the moon lies fair +Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, +Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5 +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! +Only, from the long line of spray +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, +Listen! you hear the grating roar +Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 +At their return, up the high strand, +Begin, and cease, and then again begin, +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring +The eternal note of sadness in. + +Sophocles° long ago °15 +Heard it on the Ægæan,° and it brought °16 +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow +Of human misery; we +Find also in the sound a thought, +Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20 + +The Sea of Faith +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. +But now I only hear +Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25 +Retreating, to the breath +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear +And naked shingles of the world. +Ah, love, let us be true +To one another! for the world, which seems 30 +To lie before us like a land of dreams, +So various, so beautiful, so new, +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; +And we are here as on a darkling plain 35 +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, +Where ignorant armies clash by night. + + + + +PHILOMELA° + + +Hark! ah, the nightingale-- +The tawny-throated! +Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! +What triumph! hark!--what pain°! °4 + +O wanderer from a Grecian shore,° °5 +Still, after many years, in distant lands, +Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain +That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain°-- °8 +Say, will it never heal? +And can this fragrant lawn 10 +With its cool trees, and night, +And the sweet, tranquil Thames, +And moonshine, and the dew, +To thy rack'd heart and brain +Afford no balm? 15 + +Dost thou to-night behold, +Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, +The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild°? °18 +Dost thou again peruse +With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 20 +The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame°? °21 +Dost thou once more assay +Thy flight, and feel come over thee, +Poor fugitive, the feathery change +Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25 +With love and hate, triumph and agony, +Lone Daulis,° and the high Cephissian vale°? °27 +Listen, Eugenia-- +How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves°! °29 +Again--thou hearest? 30 +Eternal passion! +Eternal pain°! °32 + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + + +What mortal, when he saw, +Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend, +Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly: +"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law°; °4 +The inly-written chart° thou gavest me, 5 +To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"? + +Ah! let us make no claim, +On life's incognisable° sea, °8 +To too exact a steering of our way; +Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, 10 +If some fair coast have lured us to make stay, +Or some friend hail'd us to keep company. + +Ay! we would each fain drive +At random, and not steer by rule. +Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain 15 +Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, +We rush by coasts where we had lief remain; +Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool. + +No! as the foaming swath +Of torn-up water, on the main, 20 +Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar +On either side the black deep-furrow'd path +Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,° °23 +And never touches the ship-side again; + +Even so we leave behind, 25 +As, charter'd by some unknown Powers +We stem° across the sea of life by night °27 +The joys which were not for our use design'd;-- +The friends to whom we had no natural right, +The homes that were not destined to be ours. 30 + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE + + +Yes°! in the sea of life enisled, °1 +With echoing straits between us thrown, +Dotting the shoreless watery wild, +We mortal millions live _alone_. +The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5 +And then their endless bounds they know. + +But when the moon° their hollows lights, °7 +And they are swept by balms of spring, +And in their glens, on starry nights, +The nightingales divinely sing; 10 +And lovely notes, from shore to shore, +Across the sounds and channels pour-- + +Oh! then a longing like despair +Is to their farthest caverns sent; +For surely once, they feel, we were 15 +Parts of a single continent! +Now round us spreads the watery plain-- +Oh might our marges meet again! + +Who order'd, that their longing's fire +Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? 20 +Who renders vain their deep desire?-- +A God, a God their severance ruled! +And bade betwixt their shores to be +The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.° °24 + + + + +KAISER DEAD° + +_April_ 6, 1887 + + +What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news +Post-haste to Cobham° calls the Muse, °2 +From where in Farringford° she brews °3 + The ode sublime, +Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard° pursues °5 + A rival rhyme. + +Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet, +Were known to all the village-street. +"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; + "A loss indeed!" 10 +O for the croon pathetic, sweet, + Of Robin's reed°! °12 + +Six years ago I brought him down, +A baby dog, from London town; +Round his small throat of black and brown 15 + A ribbon blue, +And vouch'd by glorious renown + A dachshound true. + +His mother, most majestic dame, +Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam° came; °20 +And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same-- + No lineage higher. +And so he bore the imperial name. + But ah, his sire! + +Soon, soon the days conviction bring. 25 +The collie hair, the collie swing, +The tail's indomitable ring, + The eye's unrest-- +The case was clear; a mongrel thing + Kai stood confest. 30 + +But all those virtues, which commend +The humbler sort who serve and tend, +Were thine in store, thou faithful friend. + What sense, what cheer! +To us, declining tow'rds our end, 35 + A mate how dear! + +For Max, thy brother-dog, began +To flag, and feel his narrowing span. +And cold, besides, his blue blood ran, + Since, 'gainst the classes, 40 +He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man° °41 + Incite the masses. + +Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad; +But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad, +Teeming with plans, alert, and glad 45 + In work or play, +Like sunshine went and came, and bade + Live out the day! + +Still, still I see the figure smart-- +Trophy in mouth, agog° to start, °50 +Then, home return'd, once more depart; + Or prest together +Against thy mistress, loving heart, + In winter weather. + +I see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd, 55 +In moments of disgrace uncurl'd, +Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd, + A conquering sign; +Crying, "Come on, and range the world, + And never pine." 60 + +Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone; +Thou hast thine errands, off and on; +In joy thy last morn flew; anon, + A fit! All's over; +And thou art gone where Geist° hath gone, °65 + And Toss, and Rover. + +Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head, +Regards his brother's form outspread; +Full well Max knows the friend is dead + Whose cordial talk, 70 +And jokes in doggish language said, + Beguiled his walk. + +And Glory, stretch'd at Burwood gate, +Thy passing by doth vainly wait; +And jealous Jock, thy only hate, 75 + The chiel° from Skye,° °76 +Lets from his shaggy Highland pate + Thy memory die. + +Well, fetch his graven collar fine, +And rub the steel, and make it shine, 80 +And leave it round thy neck to twine, + Kai, in thy grave. +There of thy master keep that sign, + And this plain stave. + + + + +THE LAST WORD° + + +Creep into thy narrow bed, +Creep, and let no more be said! +Vain thy onset! all stands fast. +Thou thyself must break at last. + +Let the long contention cease! 5 +Geese are swans, and swans are geese. +Let them have it how they will! +Thou art tired; best be still. + +They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? +Better men fared thus before thee; 10 +Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, +Hotly charged--and sank at last. + +Charge once more, then, and be dumb! +Let the victors, when they come, +When the forts of folly fall, 15 +Find thy body by the wall! + + + + +PALLADIUM° + + +Set where the upper streams of Simois° flow °1 +Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; +And Hector° was in Ilium° far below, °3 +And fought, and saw it not--but there it stood! + +It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light 5 +On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. +Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight +Round Troy--but while this stood, Troy could not fall. + +So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. +Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; 10 +Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; +We visit it by moments, ah, too rare! + +We shall renew the battle in the plain +To-morrow;--red with blood will Xanthus° be; °14 +Hector and Ajax° will be there again, °15 +Helen° will come upon the wall to see. °16 + +Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, +And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, +And fancy that we put forth all our life, +And never know how with the soul it fares. 20 + +Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, +Upon our life a ruling effluence send. +And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; +And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. + + + + +REVOLUTIONS + + +Before man parted for this earthly strand, +While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, +God put a heap of letters in his hand, +And bade him make with them what word he could. + +And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece, 5 +Rome, England, France;--yes, nor in vain essay'd +Way after way, changes that never cease! +The letters have combined, something was made. + +But ah! an inextinguishable sense +Haunts him that he has not made what he should; 10 +That he has still, though old, to recommence, +Since he has not yet found the word God would. + +And empire after empire, at their height +Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on; +Have felt their huge frames not constructed right, 15 +And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne. + +One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear +The word, the order, which God meant should be. +--Ah! we shall know _that_ well when it comes near; +The band will quit man's heart, he will breathe free. 20 + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE° + + +Weary of myself, and sick of asking +What I am, and what I ought to be, +At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me +Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. + +And a look of passionate desire 5 +O'er the sea and to the stars I send: +"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! + +"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, +On my heart your mighty charm renew; 10 +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" + +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, +Over the lit sea's unquiet way, +In the rustling night-air came the answer: 15 +"Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they. + +"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, +Undistracted by the sights they see, +These demand not that the things without them +Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 20 + +"And with joy the stars perform their shining, +And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll; +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting +All the fever of some differing soul. + +"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 25 +In what state God's other works may be, +In their own tasks all their powers pouring, +These attain the mighty life you see." + +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, +A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: 30 +"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, +Who finds himself, loses his misery!" + + + + +A SUMMER NIGHT + + +In the deserted, moon-blanch'd 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, 5 +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! 10 + +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; 15 +The spring-tide's brimming flow +Heaved dazzlingly between; +Houses, with long white sweep, + +Girdled the glistening bay; +Behind, through the soft air, 20 +The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away, +The night was far more fair-- +But the same restless pacings to and fro, +And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, +And the same bright, calm moon. 25 + +And the calm moonlight seems to say: +_Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast, +Which neither deadens into rest, +Nor ever feels the fiery glow +That whirls the spirit from itself away_, 30 +_But fluctuates to and fro, +Never by passion quite possess'd +And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?--_ +And I, I know not if to pray +Still to be what I am, or yield and be 35 +Like all the other men I see. + +For most men in a brazen prison live, +Where, in the sun's hot eye, +With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly +Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, 40 +Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall. +And as, year after year, +Fresh products of their barren labour fall +From their tired hands, and rest +Never yet comes more near, 45 +Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; +A while they try to stem +The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, +And the rest, a few, +Escape their prison and depart 50 +On the wide ocean of life anew. +There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart +Listeth, will sail; +Nor doth he know how these prevail, +Despotic on that sea, 55 +Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. +Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd +By thwarting signs, and braves +The freshening wind and blackening waves +And then the tempest strikes him; and between 60 +The lightning-bursts is seen +Only a driving wreck. +And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck +With anguished face and flying hair, +Grasping the rudder hard, 65 +Still bent to make some port he knows not where, +Still standing for some false, impossible shore. +And sterner comes the roar +Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom +Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom 70 +And he, too, disappears and comes no more. + +Is there no life, but there alone? +Madman or slave, must man be one? +Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! +Clearness divine. 75 +Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign +Of languor, though so calm, and though so great +Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; +Who though so noble, share in the world's toil. +And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil! 80 + +I will not say that your mild deeps retain +A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain +Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain-- +But I will rather say that you remain +A world above man's head, to let him see 85 +How boundless might his soul's horizon be, +How vast, yet of which clear transparency! +How it were good to live there, and breathe free! +How fair a lot to fill +Is left to each man still! 90 + + + + +GEIST'S GRAVE° + + +Four years!--and didst thou stay above +The ground, which hides thee now, but four? +And all that life, and all that love, +Were crowded, Geist! into no more? + +Only four years those winning ways, 5 +Which make me for thy presence yearn, +Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, +Dear little friend! at every turn? + +That loving heart, that patient soul, +Had they indeed no longer span, 10 +To run their course, and reach their goal, +And read their homily° to man? °12 + +That liquid, melancholy eye, +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs +Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,° °15 +The sense of tears in mortal things-- + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled +By spirits gloriously gay, +And temper of heroic mould-- +What, was four years their whole short day? 20 + +Yes, only four!--and not the course +Of all the centuries yet to come, +And not the infinite resource +Of Nature, with her countless sum + +Of figures, with her fulness vast 25 +Of new creation evermore, +Can ever quite repeat the past, +Or just thy little self restore. + +Stern law of every mortal lot! +Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, 30 +And builds himself I know not what +Of second life I know not where. + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go, +On us, who stood despondent by, +A meek last glance of love didst throw, 35 +And humbly lay thee down to die. + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart-- +Would fix our favourite on the scene, +Nor let thee utterly depart +And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 40 + +And so there rise these lines of verse +On lips that rarely form them now°; °42 +While to each other we rehearse: +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! + +We stroke thy broad brown paws again, 45 +We bid thee to thy vacant chair, +We greet thee by the window-pane, +We hear thy scuffle on the stair. + +We see the flaps of thy large ears +Quick raised to ask which way we go; 50 +Crossing the frozen lake, appears +Thy small black figure on the snow! + +Nor to us only art thou dear +Who mourn thee in thine English home; +Thou hast thine absent master's° tear, 55 +Dropt by the far Australian foam. + +Thy memory lasts both here and there, +And thou shalt live as long as we. +And after that--thou dost not care! +In us was all the world to thee. 60 + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, +Even to a date beyond our own +We strive to carry down thy name, +By mounded turf, and graven stone. + +We lay thee, close within our reach, 65 +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, +Between the holly and the beech, +Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, + +Asleep, yet lending half an ear +To travellers on the Portsmouth road;-- 70 +There build we thee, O guardian dear, +Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode! + +Then some, who through this garden pass, +When we too, like thyself, are clay, +Shall see thy grave upon the grass, 75 +And stop before the stone, and say: + +_People who lived here long ago +Did by this stone, it seems, intend +To name for future times to know +The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend._ 80 + + + + +EPILOGUE + +TO LESSING'S LAOCOÖN° + + +One morn as through Hyde Park° we walk'd, °1 +My friend and I, by chance we talk'd +Of Lessing's famed Laocoön; +And after we awhile had gone +In Lessing's track, and tried to see 5 +What painting is, what poetry-- +Diverging to another thought, +"Ah," cries my friend, "but who hath taught +Why music and the other arts +Oftener perform aright their parts 10 +Than poetry? why she, than they, +Fewer fine successes can display? + +"For 'tis so, surely! Even in Greece, +Where best the poet framed his piece, +Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground° °15 +Pausanias° on his travels found °16 +Good poems, if he look'd, more rare +(Though many) than good statues were-- +For these, in truth, were everywhere. +Of bards full many a stroke divine 20 +In Dante's,° Petrarch's,° Tasso's° line, °21 +The land of Ariosto° show'd; °22 +And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd +With triumphs, a yet ampler brood, +Of Raphael° and his brotherhood. °25 +And nobly perfect, in our day +Of haste, half-work, and disarray, +Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong, +Hath risen Goethe's,° Wordsworth's° song; °29 +Yet even I (and none will bow 30 +Deeper to these) must needs allow, +They yield us not, to soothe our pains, +Such multitude of heavenly strains +As from the kings of sound are blown, +Mozart,° Beethoven,° Mendelssohn.°" °35 + +While thus my friend discoursed, we pass +Out of the path, and take the grass. +The grass had still the green of May, +And still the unblackan'd elms were gay; +The kine were resting in the shade, 40 +The flies a summer-murmur made. +Bright was the morn and south° the air; °42 +The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair +As those which pastured by the sea, +That old-world morn, in Sicily, 45 +When on the beach the Cyclops lay, +And Galatea from the bay +Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay.° °48 +"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere! +The limits of his art appear. 50 +The passing group, the summer-morn, +The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn-- +Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise, +Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes-- +These, or much greater things, but caught 55 +Like these, and in one aspect brought! +In outward semblance he must give +A moment's life of things that live; +Then let him choose his moment well, +With power divine its story tell." 60 + +Still we walk'd on, in thoughtful mood, +And now upon the bridge we stood. +Full of sweet breathings was the air, +Of sudden stirs and pauses fair. +Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze 65 +Came rustling from the garden-trees +And on the sparkling waters play'd; +Light-plashing waves an answer made, +And mimic boats their haven near'd. +Beyond, the Abbey-towers° appear'd, °70 +By mist and chimneys unconfined, +Free to the sweep of light and wind; +While through their earth-moor'd nave below +Another breath of wind doth blow, +Sound as of wandering breeze--but sound 75 +In laws by human artists bound. + +"The world of music°!" I exclaimed:-- °77 +"This breeze that rustles by, that famed +Abbey recall it! what a sphere +Large and profound, hath genius here! 80 +The inspired musician what a range, +What power of passion, wealth of change +Some source of feeling he must choose +And its lock'd fount of beauty use, +And through the stream of music tell 85 +Its else unutterable spell; +To choose it rightly is his part, +And press into its inmost heart. + +"_Miserere Domine°!_ °89 +The words are utter'd, and they flee. 90 +Deep is their penitential moan, +Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone. +They have declared the spirit's sore +Sore load, and words can do no more. +Beethoven takes them then--those two 95 +Poor, bounded words--and makes them new; +Infinite makes them, makes them young; +Transplants them to another tongue, +Where they can now, without constraint, +Pour all the soul of their complaint, 100 +And roll adown a channel large +The wealth divine they have in charge. +Page after page of music turn, +And still they live and still they burn, +Eternal, passion-fraught, and free-- 105 +_Miserere Domine°!"_ °106 + +Onward we moved, and reach'd the Ride° °107 +Where gaily flows the human tide. +Afar, in rest the cattle lay; +We heard, afar, faint music play; 110 +But agitated, brisk, and near, +Men, with their stream of life, were here. +Some hang upon the rails, and some +On foot behind them go and come. +This through the Ride upon his steed 115 +Goes slowly by, and this at speed. +The young, the happy, and the fair, +The old, the sad, the worn, were there; +Some vacant,° and some musing went, +And some in talk and merriment. 120 +Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells! +And now and then, perhaps, there swells +A sigh, a tear--but in the throng +All changes fast, and hies° along. °124 +Hies, ah, from whence, what native ground? 125 +And to what goal, what ending, bound? +"Behold, at last the poet's sphere! +But who," I said, "suffices here? + +"For, ah! so much he has to do; +Be painter and musician too°! °130 +The aspect of the moment show, +The feeling of the moment know! +The aspect not, I grant, express +Clear as the painter's art can dress; +The feeling not, I grant, explore 135 +So deep as the musician's lore-- +But clear as words can make revealing, +And deep as words can follow feeling. +But, ah! then comes his sorest spell +Of toil--he must life's _movement_° tell! °140 +The thread which binds it all in one, +And not its separate parts alone. +The _movement_ he must tell of life, +Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife; +His eye must travel down, at full, 145 +The long, unpausing spectacle; +With faithful unrelaxing force +Attend it from its primal source, +From change to change and year to year +Attend it of its mid career, 150 +Attend it to the last repose +And solemn silence of its close. + +"The cattle rising from the grass +His thought must follow where they pass; +The penitent with anguish bow'd 155 +His thought must follow through the crowd. +Yes! all this eddying, motley throng +That sparkles in the sun along, +Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold, +Master and servant, young and old, 160 +Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife, +He follows home, and lives their life. + +"And many, many are the souls +Life's movement fascinates, controls; +It draws them on, they cannot save 165 +Their feet from its alluring wave; +They cannot leave it, they must go +With its unconquerable flow. +But ah! how few, of all that try +This mighty march, do aught but die! 170 +For ill-endow'd for such a way, +Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they. +They faint, they stagger to and fro, +And wandering from the stream they go; +In pain, in terror, in distress, 175 +They see, all round, a wilderness. +Sometimes a momentary gleam +They catch of the mysterious stream; +Sometimes, a second's space, their ear +The murmur of its waves doth hear. 180 +That transient glimpse in song they say, +But not of painter can pourtray-- +That transient sound in song they tell, +But not, as the musician, well. +And when at last their snatches cease, 185 +And they are silent and at peace, +The stream of life's majestic whole +Hath ne'er been mirror'd on their soul. + +"Only a few the life-stream's shore +With safe unwandering feet explore; 190 +Untired its movement bright attend, +Follow its windings to the end. +Then from its brimming waves their eye +Drinks up delighted ecstasy, +And its deep-toned, melodious voice 195 +For ever makes their ear rejoice. +They speak! the happiness divine +They feel, runs o'er in every line; +Its spell is round them like a shower-- +It gives them pathos, gives them power. 200 +No painter yet hath such a way, +Nor no musician made, as they, +And gather'd on immortal knolls +Such lovely flowers for cheering souls. +Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach 205 +The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach. +To these, to these, their thankful race +Gives, then, the first, the fairest place; +And brightest is their glory's sheen, +For greatest hath their labour been.°" °210 + + + + + + +SONNETS + + + + +QUIET WORK° + + +One lesson,° Nature, let me learn of thee, °1 +One lesson which in every wind is blown, +One lesson of two duties kept at one +Though the loud° world proclaim their enmity-- °4 + +Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity! 5 +Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows +Far noisier° schemes, accomplish'd in repose, °7 +Too great for haste, too high for rivalry! + +Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, +Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, 10 +Still do thy sleepless ministers move on, + +Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; +Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, +Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE° + + +Others abide our question. Thou art free. +We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still, +Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, +Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, + +Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5 +Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, +Spares but the cloudy border of his base +To the foil'd searching of mortality; + +And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know +Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, 10 +Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so! + +All pains the immortal spirit must endure, +All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow +Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS° + + +When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, +From this poor present self which I am now; +When youth has done its tedious vain expense +Of passions that for ever ebb and flow; + +Shall I not joy° youth's heats° are left behind, °5 +And breathe more happy in an even clime°?-- °6 +Ah no, for then I shall begin to find +A thousand virtues in this hated time! + +Then I shall wish its agitations back, +And all its thwarting currents of desire; 10 +Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, +And call this hurrying fever,° generous fire; °12 + +And sigh that one thing only has been lent +To youth and age in common--discontent. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY° + + +That son of Italy° who tried to blow, °1 +Ere Dante° came, the trump of sacred song, °2 +In his light youth° amid a festal throng °3 +Sate with his bride to see a public show. + +Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow 5 +Youth like a star; and what to youth belong-- +Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong. +A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo, + +'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! +Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found 10 +A robe of sackcloth° next the smooth, white skin. °11 + +Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, +Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground +Of thought and of austerity within. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + + +_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ +So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, +Marcus Aurelius.° But the stifling den °3 +Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, + +Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 5 +And drudge under some foolish° master's ken.° °6 +Who rates° us if we peer outside our pen-- °7 +Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell? + +_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, +Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; 10 +And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame + +Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, +I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! +The aids to noble life are all within." + + + + +EAST LONDON + + +'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead +Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,° °2 +And the pale weaver, through his windows seen +In Spitalfields,° look'd thrice dispirited. °4 + +I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 5 +"Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"-- +"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been, +Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread."_ + +O human soul! as long as thou canst so +Set up a mark of everlasting light, 10 +Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + +To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- +Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! +Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. + + + + +WEST LONDON + + +Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square,° °1 +A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. +A babe was in her arms, and at her side +A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. + +Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, 5 +Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied +Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied. +The rich she had let pass with frozen stare. + +Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers; +She will not ask of aliens but of friends, 10 +Of sharers in a common human fate. + +"She turns from that cold succour, which attends +The unknown little from the unknowing great, +And points us to a better time than ours." + + + + + + +ELEGIAC POEMS + + + + +MEMORIAL VERSES° + +_April_, 1850 + + +Goethe in Weimar sleeps,° and Greece, °1 +Long since, saw Byron's° struggle cease. °2 +But one such death remain'd to come; +The last poetic voice is dumb-- +We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. 5 + +When Byron's eyes were shut in death, +We bow'd our head and held our breath. +He taught us little; but our soul +Had _felt_ him like the thunder's roll. +With shivering heart the strife we saw 10 +Of passion with eternal law; +And yet with reverential awe +We watch'd the fount of fiery life +Which served for that Titanic strife. + +When Goethe's death was told, we said: 15 +Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. +Physician of the iron age,° °17 +Goethe has done his pilgrimage. +He took the suffering human race, +He read each wound, each weakness clear; 20 +And struck his finger on the place, +And said: _Thou ailest here, and here!_ +He look'd on Europe's dying hour +Of fitful dream and feverish power; +His eye plunged down the weltering strife, 25 +The turmoil of expiring life-- +He said: _The end is everywhere, +Art still has truth, take refuge there!_ +And he was happy, if to know +Causes of things, and far below 30 +His feet to see the lurid flow +Of terror, and insane distress, +And headlong fate, be happiness. + +And Wordsworth!--Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! +For never has such soothing voice 35 +Been to your shadowy world convey'd, +Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade +Heard the clear song of Orpheus° come °38 +Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. +Wordsworth has gone from us--and ye, 40 +Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! +He too upon a wintry clime +Had fallen--on this iron time +Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. +He found us when the age had bound 45 +Our souls in its benumbing round; +He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. +He laid us as we lay at birth +On the cool flowery lap of earth, +Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 50 +The hills were round us, and the breeze +Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; +Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. +Our youth returned; for there was shed +On spirits that had long been dead, 55 +Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, +The freshness of the early world. + +Ah! since dark days still bring to light +Man's prudence and man's fiery might, +Time may restore us in his course 60 +Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; +But where will Europe's latter hour +Again find Wordsworth's healing power? +Others will teach us how to dare, +And against fear our breast to steel; 65 +Others will strengthen us to bear-- +But who, ah! who, will make us feel +The cloud of mortal destiny? +Others will front it fearlessly-- +But who, like him, will put it by? 70 + +Keep fresh the grass upon his grave +O Rotha,° with thy living wave! °72 +Sing him thy best! for few or none +Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY° + + +Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; + Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes°! °2 + No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, + Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, + Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head. 5 + But when the fields are still, + And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, + And only the white sheep are sometimes seen; + Cross and recross° the strips of moon-blanch'd green, °9 + Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 10 + +Here, where the reaper was at work of late-- + In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves + His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,° °13 + And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, + Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use-- 15 + Here will I sit and wait, + While to my ear from uplands far away + The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, + With distant cries of reapers in the corn°-- °19 + All the live murmur of a summer's day. 20 + +Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, + And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. + Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, + And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see + Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 25 + And air-swept lindens yield + Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers + Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, + And bower me from the August sun with shade; + And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.° °30 + +And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book°-- °31 + Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! + The story of the Oxford scholar poor, + Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, + Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 35 + One summer-morn forsook + His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, + And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood, + And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, + But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40 + +But once, years after, in the country-lanes, + Two scholars, whom at college erst° he knew, °42 + Met him, and of his way of life enquired; + Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew, + His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 45 + The workings of men's brains, + And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. + "And I," he said, "the secret of their art, + When fully learn'd, will to the world impart; + But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.°" °50 + +This said, he left them, and return'd no more.-- + But rumours hung about the country-side, + That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, + Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, + In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55 + The same the gipsies wore. + Shepherds had met him on the Hurst° in spring; °57 + At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,° °58 + On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors + Had found him seated at their entering. 60 + +But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. + And I myself seem half to know, thy looks, + And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; + And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks + I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place; 65 + Or in my boat I lie + Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats, + 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills. + And watch the warm, green-muffled° Cumner hills, °69 + And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 70 + +For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! + Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, + Returning home on summer-nights, have met + Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,° °74 + Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 + As the punt's rope chops round; + And leaning backward in a pensive dream, + And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers + Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers + And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 80 + +And then they land, and thou art seen no more!-- + Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come; + To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,° °83 + Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam + Or cross a stile into the public way. + Oft thou hast given them store 85 + Of flowers--the frail-leaf'd, white anemony, + Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves + And purple orchises with spotted leaves-- + But none hath words she can report of thee. 90 + +And, above Godstow Bridge,° when hay-time's here + In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, + Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass + Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames, + To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass,° °95 + Have often pass'd thee near + Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; + Mark'd thine outlandish° garb, thy figure spare, °98 + Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air-- + But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! 100 + +At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, + Where at her open door the housewife darns, + Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate + To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. + Children, who early range these slopes and late 105 + For cresses from the rills, + Have known thee eying, all an April-day, + The springing pastures and the feeding kine; + And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, + Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 110 + +In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood°-- °111 + Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way + Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see + With scarlet patches tagg'd° and shreds of grey, °114 + Above the forest-ground called Thessaly°-- °115 + The blackbird, picking food, + Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; + So often has he known thee past him stray + Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray, + And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 120 + +And once, in winter, on the causeway chill + Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, + Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge, + Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, + Thy face tow'rd Hinksey° and its wintry ridge? °125 + And thou hast climb'd the hill, + And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; + Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall + The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall°-- °129 + Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. °130 + +But what--I dream! Two hundred years are flown + Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, + And the grave Glanvil° did the tale inscribe °133 + That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls + To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe; 135 + And thou from earth art gone + Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid-- + Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave + Tall grasses and white-flowering nettles wave, + Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's° shade. °140 + +--No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! + For what wears out the life of mortal men? + 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls + 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, + Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 145 + And numb the elastic powers. + Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,° °147 + And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, + To the just-pausing Genius° we remit °149 + Our worn-out life, and are--what we have been. 150 + +Thou hast not lived,° why should'st thou perish, so? °151 + Thou hadst _one_ aim, _one_ business, _one_ desire°; °152 + Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead! + Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! + The generations of thy peers are fled, 155 + And we ourselves shall go; + But thou possessest an immortal lot, + And we imagine thee exempt from age + And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, + Because thou hadst--what we, alas! have not.° °160 + +For early didst thou leave the world, with powers + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; + Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, + Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings°. °165 + O life unlike to ours! + Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, + Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, + And each half lives a hundred different lives; + Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.° °170 + +Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, + Light half-believers of our casual creeds, + Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, + Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, + Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; 175 + For whom each year we see + Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; + Who hesitate and falter life away, + And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day-- + Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too° °180 + +Yes, we await it!--but it still delays, + And then we suffer! and amongst us one, + Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly + His seat upon the intellectual throne; + And all his store of sad experience he 185 + Lays bare of wretched days; + Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, + And how the dying spark of hope was fed, + And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, + And all his hourly varied anodynes.° °190 + +This for our wisest! and we others pine, + And wish the long unhappy dream would end, + And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; + With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend, + Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair-- 195 + But none has hope like thine! + Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, + Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, + Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, + And every doubt long blown by time away. 200 + +O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, + And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; + Before this strange disease of modern life, + With its sick hurry, its divided aims, + Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife-- 205 + Fly hence, our contact fear! + Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! + Averse, as Dido° did with gesture stern° °208 + From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, + Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! 210 + +Still nursing the unconquerable hope, + Still clutching the inviolable shade,° °212 + With a free, onward impulse brushing through, + By night, the silver'd branches° of the glade-- °214 + Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 215 + On some mild pastoral slope + Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales + Freshen thy flowers as in former years + With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, + From the dark dingles,° to the nightingales! 220 + +But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! + For strong the infection of our mental strife, + Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; + And we should win thee from thy own fair life, + Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 225 + Soon, soon thy cheer would die, + Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, + And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; + And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, + Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 230 + +Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! + --As some grave Tyrian° trader, from the sea, + Descried at sunrise an emerging prow + Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily, + The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 + Among the Ægæan isles°; °236 + And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, + Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,° °238 + Green, bursting figs, and tunnies° steep'd in brine-- °239 + And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 240 + +The young light-hearted masters of the waves-- + And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail; + And day and night held on indignantly + O'er the blue Midland waters° with the gale, °244 + Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 245 + To where the Atlantic raves + Outside the western straits°; and unbent sails °247 + There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, + Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come°; °249 + And on the beach undid his corded bales.° °250 + + + + +THYRSIS° + +A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861 + + +How changed is here each spot man makes or fills°! °1 + In the two Hinkseys° nothing keeps the same; °2 + The village street its haunted mansion lacks, + And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,° °4 + And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks-- 5 + Are ye too changed, ye hills°? °6 + See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men + To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! + Here came I often, often, in old days-- + Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. 10 + +Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, + Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns + The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames + The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs°? °14 + The Vale,° the three lone weirs,° the youthful Thames?--, °15 + This winter-eve is warm, + Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, + The tender purple spray on copse and briers! + And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,° °19 + She needs not June for beauty's heightening,° °20 + +Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!-- + Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power + Befalls me wandering through this upland dim,° °23 + Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour°; °24 + Now seldom come I, since I came with him. 25 + That single elm-tree bright + Against the west--I miss it! is it gone? + We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, + Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; + While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.° °30 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, + But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; + And with the country-folk acquaintance made + By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. + Here, too, our shepherd-pipes° we first assay'd. °35 + Ah me! this many a year + My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! + Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart + Into the world and wave of men depart; + But Thyrsis of his own will went away.° °40 + +It irk'd° him to be here, he could not rest. °41 + He loved each simple joy the country yields, + He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,° °43 + For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, + Here with the shepherds and the silly° sheep. °45 + Some life of men unblest + He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head. + He went; his piping took a troubled sound + Of storms° that rage outside our happy ground; + He could not wait their passing, he is dead.° °50 + +So, some tempestuous morn in early June, + When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, + Before the roses and the longest day-- + When garden-walks and all the grassy floor + With blossoms red and white of fallen May° °55 + And chestnut-flowers are strewn-- + So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, + From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, + Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: + _The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I°!_ °60 + +Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? + Soon will the high Midsummer pomps° come on, °62 + Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, + Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, + Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, 65 + And stocks in fragrant blow; + Roses that down the alleys shine afar, + And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, + And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, + And the full moon, and the white evening-star. 70 + +He hearkens not! light comer,° he is flown! °71 + What matters it? next year he will return, + And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days. +With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, + And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, 75 + And scent of hay new-mown. + But Thyrsis never more we swains° shall see; °77 + See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,° °78 + And blow a strain the world at last shall heed°-- °79 + For Time, not Corydon,° hath conquer'd thee! °80 + +Alack, for Corydon no rival now!-- + But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, + Some good survivor with his flute would go, + Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate°; °84 + And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,° °85 + And relax Pluto's brow, + And make leap up with joy the beauteous head + Of Proserpine,° among whose crowned hair °88 + Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air, + And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.° °90 + +O easy access to the hearer's grace + When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! + For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, + She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,° °94 + She knew each lily white which Enna yields, 95 + Each rose with blushing face°; °96 + She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.° °97 + But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! + Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd; + And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! 100 + +Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be, + Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour + In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill! + Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? + I know the wood which hides the daffodil, 105 + I know the Fyfield tree,° °106 + I know what white, what purple fritillaries + The grassy harvest of the river-fields, + Above by Ensham,° down by Sandford,° yields, °109 + And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; 110 + +I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?-- + But many a dingle on the loved hill-side, + With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees + Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried + High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises, 115 + Hath since our day put by + The coronals of that forgotten time; + Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, + And only in the hidden brookside gleam + Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 120 + +Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, + Above the locks, above the boating throng, + Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,° °123 + Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among + And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 125 + We track'd the shy Thames shore? + Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell + Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, + Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?-- + They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 130 + +Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night + In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. + I see her veil draw soft across the day, + I feel her slowly chilling breath invade + The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent° with grey; °135 + I feel her finger light + Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;-- + The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, + The heart less bounding at emotion new, + And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 140 + +And long the way appears, which seem'd so short + To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; + And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, +The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, + Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! 145 + Unbreachable the fort + Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; + And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, + And near and real the charm of thy repose, + And night as welcome as a friend would fall.° °150 + +But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss + Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side, + A troop of Oxford hunters going home, +As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! + From hunting with the Berkshire° hounds they come. °155 + Quick! let me fly, and cross + Into yon farther field!--'Tis done; and see, + Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify + The orange and pale violet evening-sky, + Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 160 + +I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, + The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, + The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, + And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. + I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165 + Yet, happy omen, hail! + Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale° °167 + (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep + The morningless and unawakening sleep + Under the flowery oleanders pale), 170 + +Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!-- + Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, + These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, + That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; + To a boon southern country he is fled,° °175 + And now in happier air, + Wandering with the great Mother's° train divine °177 + (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, + I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) + Within a folding of the Apennine, 180 + +Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!-- + Putting his sickle to the perilous grain + In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, + For thee the Lityerses-song again + Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; 185 + Sings his Sicilian fold, + His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes-- + And how a call celestial round him rang, + And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, + And all the marvel of the golden skies.° °190 + +There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here + Sole° in these fields! yet will I not despair. + Despair I will not, while I yet descry + 'Neath the mild canopy of English air + That lonely tree against the western sky. 195 + Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, + Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee + Fields where soft sheep° from cages pull the hay, + Woods with anemonies in flower till May, + Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?° °200 + +A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, + Shy to illumin; and I seek it too.° °202 + This does not come with houses or with gold, + With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; + 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold-- 205 + But the smooth-slipping weeks + Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; + Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, + He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; + Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. 210 + +Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest was bound; + Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! + Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, + If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power, + If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. 215 + And this rude Cumner ground, + Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, + Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time, + Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! + And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. 220 + +What though the music of thy rustic flute + Kept not for long its happy, country tone; + Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note + Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, + Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat-- 225 + It fail'd, and thou wast mute! + Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light, + And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, + And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, + Left human haunt, and on alone till night. 230 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! + 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, + Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. + Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, + Let in thy voice a whisper often come, 235 + To chase fatigue and fear: + _Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died. + Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. + Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill, + Our scholar travels yet the loved hill-side._ 240 + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL° + +_November 1857_ + + +Coldly, sadly descends +The autumn-evening. The field +Strewn with its dank yellow drifts +Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, +Fade into dimness apace, 5 +Silent;--hardly a shout +From a few boys late at their play! +The lights come out in the street, +In the school-room windows;--but cold, +Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 +Through the gathering darkness, arise +The chapel-walls, in whose bound +Thou, my father! art laid.° °13 + +There thou dost lie, in the gloom +Of the autumn evening. But ah! 15 +That word, _gloom,°_ to my mind °16 +Brings thee back, in the light +Of thy radiant vigour, again; +In the gloom of November we pass'd +Days not dark at thy side; 20 +Seasons impair'd not the ray +Of thy buoyant cheerfulness, clear. +Such thou wast! and I stand +In the autumn evening, and think +Of bygone autumns with thee. 25 + +Fifteen years have gone round +Since thou arosest to tread, +In the summer-morning, the road +Of death, at a call unforeseen, +Sudden. For fifteen years, 30 +We who till then in thy shade +Rested as under the boughs +Of a mighty oak,° have endured °33 +Sunshine and rain as we might, +Bare, unshaded, alone, 35 +Lacking the shelter of thee. + +O strong soul, by what shore° °37 +Tarriest thou now? For that force, +Surely, has not been left vain! +Somewhere, surely, afar, 40 +In the sounding labour-house vast +Of being, is practised that strength, +Zealous, beneficent, firm! + +Yes, in some far-shining sphere, +Conscious or not of the past, 45 +Still thou performest the word +Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-- +Prompt, unwearied, as here! +Still thou upraisest with zeal +The humble good from the ground, 50 +Sternly repressest the bad! +Still, like a trumpet, doth rouse +Those who with half-open eyes +Tread the border-land dim +'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 55 +Succourest!--this was thy work, +This was thy life upon earth.° °57 + +What is the course of the life +Of mortal men on the earth°?-- °59 +Most men eddy about 60 +Here and there--eat and drink, +Chatter and love and hate, +Gather and squander, are raised +Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust, +Striving blindly, achieving 65 +Nothing; and then they die-- +Perish;--and no one asks +Who or what they have been, +More than he asks what waves, +In the moonlit solitudes mild 70 +Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd, +Foam'd for a moment, and gone. + +And there are some, whom a thirst +Ardent, unquenchable, fires, +Not with the crowd to be spent, 75 +Not without aim to go round +In an eddy of purposeless dust, +Effort unmeaning and vain. +Ah yes! some of us strive +Not without action to die 80 +Fruitless, but something to snatch +From dull oblivion, nor all +Glut the devouring grave! +We, we have chosen our path-- +Path to a clear-purposed goal, 85 +Path of advance!--but it leads +A long, steep journey, through sunk +Gorges, o'er mountains in snow. +Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-- +Then, on the height, comes the storm. 90 +Thunder crashes from rock +To rock, the cataracts reply, +Lightnings dazzle our eyes.° °93 +Roaring torrents have breach'd +The track, the stream-bed descends 95 +In the place where the wayfarer once +Planted his footstep--the spray +Boils o'er its borders! aloft +The unseen snow-beds dislodge +Their hanging ruin°; alas, °100 +Havoc is made in our train! + +Friends, who set forth at our side, +Falter, are lost in the storm. +We, we only are left! +With frowning foreheads, with lips 105 +Sternly compress'd, we strain on, +On--and at nightfall at last +Come to the end of our way, +To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; +Where the gaunt and taciturn host 110 +Stands on the threshold, the wind +Shaking his thin white hairs-- +Holds his lantern to scan +Our storm-beat figures, and asks: +Whom in our party we bring? 115 +Whom we have left in the snow? + +Sadly we answer: We bring +Only ourselves! we lost +Sight of the rest in the storm. +Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120 +Stripp'd, without friends, as we are. +Friends, companions, and train, +The avalanche swept from our side.° °123 + +But thou would'st not _alone_ +Be saved, my father! _alone_ 125 +Conquer and come to thy goal, +Leaving the rest in the wild. +We were weary, and we +Fearful, and we in our march +Fain to drop down and to die. 130 +Still thou turnedst, and still +Beckonedst the trembler, and still +Gavest the weary thy hand. + +If, in the paths of the world, +Stones might have wounded thy feet, 135 +Toil or dejection have tried +Thy spirit, of that we saw +Nothing--to us thou wast still +Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! +Therefore to thee it was given 140 +Many to save with thyself; +And, at the end of thy day, +O faithful shepherd! to come, +Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.° °144 + +And through thee I believe 145 +In the noble and great who are gone; +Pure souls honour'd and blest +By former ages, who else-- +Such, so soulless, so poor, +Is the race of men whom I see-- 150 +Seem'd but a dream of the heart, +Seem'd but a cry of desire. +Yes! I believe that there lived +Others like thee in the past, +Not like the men of the crowd 155 +Who all round me to-day +Bluster or cringe, and make life +Hideous, and arid, and vile; +But souls temper'd with fire, +Fervent, heroic, and good, 160 +Helpers and friends of mankind. + +Servants of God!--or sons +Shall I not call you? because +Not as servants ye knew +Your Father's innermost mind, 165 +His, who unwillingly sees +One of his little ones lost-- +Yours is the praise, if mankind +Hath not as yet in its march +Fainted, and fallen, and died! 170 + +See! In the rocks° of the world +Marches the host of mankind, +A feeble, wavering line. +Where are they tending?--A God +Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. 175 +Ah, but the way is so long! +Years they have been in the wild! +Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, +Rising all round, overawe; +Factions divide them, their host 180 +Threatens to break, to dissolve. +--Ah, keep, keep them combined! +Else, of the myriads who fill +That army, not one shall arrive; +Sole they shall stray: in the rocks 185 +Stagger for ever in vain, +Die one by one in the waste. + +Then, in such hour of need +Of your fainting, dispirited race, +Ye,° like angels, appear, 190 +Radiant with ardour divine! +Beacons of hope, ye appear! +Languor is not in your heart, +Weakness is not in your word, +Weariness not on your brow. 195 +Ye alight in our van! at your voice, +Panic, despair, flee away. +Ye move through the ranks, recall +The stragglers, refresh the outworn, +Praise, re-inspire the brave! 200 +Order, courage, return. +Eyes rekindling, and prayers, +Follow your steps as ye go. +Ye fill up the gaps in our files, +Strengthen the wavering line, 205 +Stablish, continue our march, +On, to the bound of the waste, +On, to the City of God.° °208 + + + + + + + + + * * * * * + [149] + +NOTES + + * * * * * + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than anything +I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I shall not +ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments +instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a letter to +Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.) + +"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished +and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and I think +it will be generally liked; though one can never be sure of this. I +have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a rare thing with me, +and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure what you write is likely +to afford to others. But the story is a very noble and excellent one." +(Arnold, in a letter to his mother, May, 1853.) + +The following synopsis of the story of Sohrab and Rustum the "tale +replete with tears," is gathered from several sources, chiefly +Benjamin's _Persia_, in _The Story of the Nations_, Sir John Malcolm's +_History of Persia_, and the great Persian epic poem, _Shah Nameh_. +The _Shah Nameh_ the original source of the story, and which purports +to narrate the exploits of Persia's kings and champions over a space +of thirty-six centuries, bears the same relation to Persian literature +as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ to the Greek, and the _Æneid_ to the +Latin, though in structure it more nearly resembles _Morte d'Arthur_, +which records in order the achievements of various heroes. In it +the native poet Mansur ibn Ahmad, afterwards known to literature +as Firdausi, the Paradisaical, has set down the early tales and +traditions of his people with all the vividness and color common to +oriental writers. The principal hero of the poem is the mighty Rustum, +who, mounted on his famous horse Ruksh, performed prodigies of valor +in defence of the Persian throne. Of all his adventures his encounter +with Sohrab is the most dramatic. The poem was probably written in +the latter half of the tenth century. As will be seen, the incidents +narrated in Arnold's poem form but an episode in the complete story of +the two champions. [150] + +Rustum (or Rustem), having killed a wild ass while hunting on the +Turanian frontier, and having feasted on its flesh, composed himself +to sleep, leaving his faithful steed, Ruksh (or Raksh), to graze +untethered. On awakening, he found his horse had disappeared, and +believing it had been stolen, the warrior proceeded towards Semenjan, +a near-by city, in hopes of recovering his property. On the way, he +learned that Ruksh had been found by the servants of the king and was +stabled at Semenjan, as he had surmised. Upon Rustum's demand, the +steed was promptly restored to him, and he was about to depart when he +was prevailed upon to accept the king's invitation to tarry awhile and +rest himself in feasting and idleness. + +Now the king of Semenjan had a fair daughter named Tahmineh, who had +become enamoured of Rustum because of his mighty exploits. Susceptible +as she was beautiful, she made her attachment so evident that the +young hero, who was as ardent as he was brave, readily yielded to +the power of her fascination. The consent of the king having been +obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were married with all the rites +prescribed by the laws of the country. A peculiar feature of this +alliance lay in the fact that the king of Semenjan was feudatory to +Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, while Rustum was her greatest +champion. At this time, however, the two countries were at peace. + [151] +For a time all went happily, then Rustum found it necessary to leave +his bride, as he thought, for only a short time. At parting he gave +her an onyx, which he wore on his arm, bidding her, if a daughter +should be born to their union, to twine the gem in her hair under a +fortunate star; but if a son, to bind it on his arm, and he would be +insured a glorious career. Rustum then mounted Ruksh and rode away--as +time proved, never to return. + +The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous son, +whom, because of his comely features, she named Sohrab. Fearing Rustum +would send for the boy when he grew older, and thus rob her of her +treasure, Tahmineh sent word to him that the child was a girl--"no +son," and Rustum took no further interest in it. + +While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble lineage. +He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of ten years, +according to the tradition, was large and handsome and highly +accomplished in the use of arms. Realizing at length that he was of +lofty descent, he insisted that his mother, who had concealed the +fact, should inform him of the name of his father. Being told that it +was the renowned Rustum, he exclaimed, "Since he is my father, I shall +go to his aid; he shall become king of Persia and together we shall +rule the world." After this the youth caused a horse worthy of him to +be found, and with the aid of his grandfather, the king of Semenjan, +he prepared to go on the quest, attended by a mighty host. + +When Afrasiab, the Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was going to +war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after counselling +with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his enterprises, +with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab would fall in battle +and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly sent an army of auxiliaries +to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute courtiers, Houman and Barman, +who, under the guise of friendship, were to act as counsellors to +the young leader. These he ordered to keep the knowledge of their +relationship from father and son and to seek to bring about an +encounter between them, in the hope that Sohrab would slay Rustum, +Afrasiab's most dreaded foeman, after which the unsuspecting youth +might easily be disposed of by treachery. [152] + +Sohrab, with his army and that of Afrasiab, set out, intending to +fight his way until Rustum should be sent against him, when he would +reveal himself to his father and form an alliance with him that would +place the line of Seistan on the throne. On the way southward, Sohrab +overthrew and captured the Persian champion, Hujir, and the same +day conquered the warrior maiden Gurdafrid, whose beauty and tears, +however, prevailed upon him to release her. Guzdehern, father of +Gurdafrid, recognizing Sohrab's prowess, and alarmed for the safety +of the Persian throne, secretly despatched a courier to the king Kai +Kaoos to warn him of the young Tartar's approach. Kaoos, in great +terror, sent for Rustum to hurry to his aid. Regardless of the king's +request, Rustum spent eight days in feasting, then presented himself +at the court. Kaoos, angered at the delay, ordered both the champion +and the messenger to be executed forthwith; but Rustum effected his +escape on Ruksh, and returned to Seistan, leaving Persia to her fate. +The king's wrath, however, soon gave place to fear; and recognizing +the danger of his throne unsupported by Rustum's valor, he despatched +messengers to him with humble petitions and apologies. After much +protesting, Rustum finally yielded and accompanied the Persian army, +under the king Kai Kaoos, which at once set forth to encounter Sohrab. + +The morning before the opening of hostilities, Sohrab, taking the +Persian Hujir, whom he still held a prisoner, to the top of a rocky +eminence, ordered him to point out the tents of the chief warriors +of the Persian army, particularly Rustum's. But Hujir, fearing lest +Sohrab should attack Rustum unexpectedly and so overcome him, declared +that the great chieftain's tent was not among those on the plain +below. Disappointed at his failure to find his father, Sohrab led his +army in a fierce onslaught on the Persians, driving them in confusion +before him. In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos sent for Rustum, who was +somewhat apart from the main troop. Exclaiming that the king never +sent for him except when he had got himself into trouble, the warrior +armed, mounted Ruksh, and rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the +two champions withdrew to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they +might fight out their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each +other, Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried +to dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. +Sohrab, filled with sudden hope,--an instinctive feeling that the +father whom he was seeking stood before him,--eagerly demanded whether +this were Rustum. But Rustum, fearing treachery, said he was only an +ordinary man, having neither palace nor princely kingdom--not Rustum. + +They marked off the lists, and, mounted on their powerful horses, +fought first with javelins, then with swords, clubs, and bows and +arrows. After several hours of fighting both were exhausted, and by +tacit consent they retired to opposite sides of the lists for rest. +When the combat was renewed, Sohrab gained a slight advantage. A truce +was then made for the night, and the warriors returned to their tents +to prepare for the morrow. + +With daybreak the struggle was renewed. To prevent the armies from +intervening or engaging in battle, they were removed to a distance of +several miles. Midway between, Sohrab and Rustum met in the midst of a +lonely, treeless waste. More convinced than before that his adversary +was Rustum, Sohrab sought to bring about a reconciliation, but Rustum +refused. This time they fought on foot. From morning till afternoon +they fought, neither gaining any decided advantage. At last Sohrab +succeeded in felling Rustum to the earth, and was about to slay him, +when the Persian called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous +warfare to slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. +Sohrab, generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again +father and son parted. [154] + +Rustum, scarcely believing himself alive after such an escape, +purified himself with water, and prayed that his wounds might be +healed and his accustomed strength restored to him. Never before had +he been so beset in battle. + +With morning came the renewal of the combat, both champions +determining to end it that day. Late in the evening Rustum, by a +supreme effort, seized Sohrab around the waist and hurled him to the +ground. Then, fearing lest the youth prove too strong for him in the +end, he drew his blade and plunged it into Sohrab's bosom. + +Sohrab forgave Rustum, but warned him to beware the vengeance of his +father, the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that he had slain his +son Sohrab. "I went out to seek my father," cried the dying youth, +"for my mother had told me by what tokens I should know him, and I +perish for longing after him.... Yet I say unto thee, if thou shouldst +become a fish that swimmeth in the depths of the ocean, if thou +shouldst change into a star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, +my father would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place, and avenge my +death upon thee, when he shall learn that the earth is become my bed. +For my father is Rustum the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him, +how that Sohrab his son perished in the quest after his face." These +words were as death to the aged hero, who fell senseless at the side +of his wounded son. When he had recovered he called in despair for +proofs of what Sohrab had said. The now dying youth tore open his mail +and showed his father the onyx which his mother had bound on his arm +as directed. [155] + +The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he cursed +himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for the +efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his tents +and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and buried +it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, was +permitted to return home unmolested. When the tidings of Sohrab's +death reached his mother, she was inconsolable, and died in less than +a year. + +In the main the story as told by Arnold follows the original +narrative. A careful investigation of the alterations made, and the +effect thus produced, will lend added interest to the study of the +poem and give ample theme for composition work. + + +=1. And the first grey of morning fill'd the east.= Note the abrupt +opening. What is gained by its use? At what point in the story as told +in the introductory note does the poem take up the narrative? Be sure +to get a clear mental picture of the initiative scene. _And_ is here +used in a manner common in the Scriptures. Cf. "And the Lord spake +unto Moses," etc. + +=2. Oxus.= The chief river of Central Asia, which separated Turan from +Iran or the Persian Empire, called Oxus by the Greeks and Romans, and +the Jihun or Amu by the Arabs and Persians. It takes its source in +Lake Sir-i-Kol, in the Pamir table-land, at a height of 15,600 feet, +flows northwest, and empties into the Aral Sea on the south. Its +length is about 1300 miles. + +"The introduction of the tranquil pictures of the Oxus, both at the +beginning and close of the poem (ll. 875-892), flowing steadily on, +unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, forms one +of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem." + +=3. Tartar camp.= The Tartars were nomadic tribes of Central Asia and +southern Russia. The so-called Black Tartars, identified with the +Scythians of the Greek historians, inhabited the basin of the Aral and +Caspian Seas, and are the tribe referred to in the poem. They are a +fierce, warlike people; hence our expression, "caught a Tartar." + [156] +=11. Peran-Wisa.= A celebrated Turanian chief, here in command of +Afrasiab's army, which was composed of representatives of many Tartar +tribes, as indicated in ll. 119-134. + +=15. Pamere=, or Pamir. An extensive plateau region of Central Asia, +called by the natives the "roof of the world." Among the rivers having +their source in this plateau are the Oxus, l. 2, and the Jaxartes, l. +129. + +=38. Afrasiab.= The king of the Tartars, and one of the principal +heroes of the _Shah Nameh_, the Persian "Book of Kings." He is reputed +to have been strong as a lion and to have had few equals as a warrior. + +=40. Samarcand.= A city in the district of Serafshan, Turkestan, to +the east of Bokhara; now a considerable commercial and manufacturing +centre, and a centre of Mohammedan learning. + +=42. Ader-baijan.= The northwest province of Persia, on the Turanian +frontier. + +=45. At my boy's years.= See introductory note to poem. + +=60. common fight.= In the sense of a general engagement. Be sure to +catch the reason why Sohrab makes his request. + +=61. sunk.= That is, lost sight of. + +=67. common chance.= See note, l. 60. Which would be the more +dangerous, a "single" or "common" combat? Why? + +=70. To find a father thou hast never seen.= See introductory note to +poem. + +=82. Seistan.= A province of southwest Afghanistan bordering on the +Persian province of Yezd. It is intersected by the Helmund River (l. +751), which flows into the Hamoon Lake, now scarcely more than a +morass. On an island in this lake are ruins of fortifications called +Fort Rustum. This territory was long held by Rustum's family, +feudatory to the Persian kings. =Zal.= Rustum's father, ruler of +Seistan. See note, l. 232. [157] + +=83-85. Whether that ... or in some quarrel=, etc. Either because his +mighty strength ... or because of some quarrel, etc. + +=85. Persian King.= That is, Kai Kaoos (or Kai Khosroo). See +introductory note to poem; also note, l. 223. + +=86-91. There go!= etc. The touching solicitation of these lines is +wholly Arnold's. + +=99. Why ruler's staff, no sword?= + +=101. Kara Kul.= A district some thirty miles southwest of Bokhara, +noted for the excellence of its pasturage, and for its fleeces. + +=107. Haman.= Next to Peran-Wisa in command of Tartar army. See +Houman, in introductory note to poem. + +=113-114. Casbin.= A fortified city in the province of Irak-Ajemi, +Persia, situated on the main route from Persia to Europe, and at one +time the capital of the Iranian empire. Just to the north of the city +rise the =Elburz Mountains= (l. 114), which separate the Persian +Plateau from the depression containing the Caspian and Aral Seas. + +=115. frore.= Frozen, from the Anglo-Saxon _froren_. + + "... the parching air + Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire." + + --MILTON. _Paradise Lost_, ll. 594-595, Book II. + +=119. Bokhara.= Here the state of Bokhara, an extensive region of +Central Asia, touching the Aral Sea to the north, the Oxus to the +south, and Khiva to the west. It has an estimated area of 235,000 +square miles, and contains nineteen cities of considerable size, of +which the capital, Bokhara, is most important. + +=120. Khiva.= A khanate situated in the valley of the lower Oxus, +bordering Bokhara on the southeast. =ferment the milk of mares.= An +intoxicating drink, _Koumiss_, made of camel's or mare's milk, is in +wide use among the steppe tribes. + [158] +=121. Toorkmuns.= A branch of the Turkish race found chiefly in +northern Persia and Afghanistan. + +=122. Tukas.= From the province of Azer-baijan. + +=123. Attruck.= A river of Khorassan, near the frontier of Khiva; it +has a west course, and enters the Caspian Sea on the east side. + +=128. Ferghana.= A khanate of Turkestan, north of Bokhara, in the +upper valley of the Sir Daria. + +=129. Jaxartes.= The ancient name of the Sir Daria River. It takes its +source in the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the Pamir Plateau ranges, +and flows with a general direction north, emptying into the Aral Sea +on the east side. + +=131. Kipchak.= A khanate some seventy miles below Khiva on the Oxus. + +=132. Kalmucks.= A nomadic branch of the Mongolian race, dwelling in +western Siberia. =Kuzzaks.= Now commonly called Cossacks; a warlike +people inhabiting the steppes of southern Russia and extensive +portions of Asia. Their origin is uncertain. + +=133. Kirghizzes.= A rude nomadic people of Mongolian-Tartar race +found in northern Turkestan. + +=138. Khorassan.= (That is, the region of the sun.) A province of +northeastern Persia, largely desert. The origin of the name is + prettily suggested by Moore in the opening poem of _Lalla Rookh_:-- + + "In the delightful province of the sun + The first of Persian lands he shines upon," etc. + +=147. fix'd.= Stopped suddenly, halted. + +=154-169.= Note the effect the challenge has on the two armies. + +=156. corn.= Here used with its European sense of "grain." It is only +in America that the word signifies Indian corn or "maize." + [159] +=160. Cabool.= Capital of northern Afghanistan, and an important +commercial city. + +=161. Indian Caucasus.= A lofty mountain range north of Cabool, which +forms the boundary between Turkestan and Afghanistan. + +=173. King.= See note, l. 85. + +=177. lion's heart.= Explain the line. Why are the terms here used so +forcible in the mouth of Gudurz? + +=178-183. Aloof he sits, etc.= One is reminded by Rustum's deportment +here, of Achilles sulking in his tent and nursing his wrath against +Agamemnon.--_Iliad_, Book I. + +=199. sate.= Old form of "sat," common in poetry. + +=200. falcon.= A kind of hawk trained to catch game birds. + +=217. Iran.= The official name of Persia. + +=221. Go to!= Hebraic expression. Frequently found in Shakespeare. + +=223. Kai Khosroo.= According to the _Shah Nameh_, the thirteenth +Turanian king. He reigned in the sixth century B.C., and has been +identified with Cyrus the Great. + +=230. Not that one slight helpless girl, etc.= See ll. 609-611, also +introduction to the poem. + +=232. snow-haired Zal.= According to tradition, Zal was born with +snow-white hair. His father Lahm, believing this an ill omen, doomed +the unfortunate babe to be exposed on the loftiest summit of the +Elburz Mountains. The Simurgh, a great bird or griffin, found him and +cared for him till grown, then restored him to his repentant parent. +He subsequently married the Princess Rudabeh of Seistan, by whom he +became father of Rustum. + +=243-248. He spoke ... men.= Note carefully Gudurz's argument. Why so +effective with Rustum? + +=257. But I will fight unknown and in plain arms.= The shields and +arms of the champions were emblazoned with mottoes and devices. Why +does Rustum determine to lay aside his accustomed arms and fight +incognito? What effect does this determination have upon the ultimate +outcome of the situation? Read the story of the arming of Achilles +(Book XIX., Homer's _Iliad_), and compare with Rustum's preparation +for battle. [160] + +=266. device.= See note, l. 257. + + =277. Dight.= Adorned, dressed. + + "The clouds in thousand liveries dight." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ l. 62. + +=286. Bahrein= or Aval. A group of islands in the Persian Gulf, +celebrated for its pearl fisheries. + + =288. tale.= Beckoning, number. + + "And every shepherd tells his _tale_, + Under the hawthorn in the dale." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ ll. 67-68. + +=306. flowers.= Decorates, beautifies with floral designs. + +=311. perused.= Studied, observed closely. + +=318.= In a letter dated November, 1852, Mr. Arnold speaks of the +figures in his poem as follows: "I can only say that I took a great +deal of trouble to orientalize them, because I thought they looked +strange, and jarred, if western." What is gained by their use? + +=325. vast.= Large, mighty. + +=326. tried.= Proved, experienced. + +=328. Never was that field lost or that foe saved.= Note the power +gained in this line by the use of the alliteration. + +=330. Be govern'd.= Be influenced, persuaded. + +=343. by thy father's head!= Such oaths are common to the extravagant +speech of the oriental peoples. + +=344. Art thou not Rustum?= See introductory note to poem. + +=367. vaunt.= Boast implied in the challenge. + +=380. Thou wilt not fright me so!= That is, by such talk. + +=401. tower'd.= Remained stationary, poised. + +=406. full struck.= Struck squarely. + [161] +=412. Hyphasis, Hydaspes.= Two of the rivers of the Punjab in northern +India, now known as the Beas and Jhylum. In 326 B.C. Alexander +defeated Porus on the banks of the latter stream. + +=414. wrack.= Ruin, havoc. (Poetical.) + +=418. glancing.= In the sense of darting aside. + +=435. hollow.= Unnatural in tone. + +=452. like that autumn-star.= Probably Sirius, the Dog Star, under +whose ascendency, according to ancient beliefs, epidemic diseases +prevailed. + +=454. crest.= That is, helmet and plume. + +=466. Remember all thy valour.= That is, summon up all your courage. + +=469. girl's wiles.= Explain the line. + +=470. kindled.= Roused, angered. + +=481. unnatural.= because of the kinship of the combatants. + +=481-486. for a cloud=, etc. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. the +cloud that enveloped Paris--Book III., ll. 465-469, of the _Iliad_. + +=489. And the sun sparkled=, etc. Why this reference to the clear Oxus +stream at this moment of intense tragedy? + +=495. helm.= Helmet; defensive armor for the head. + +=497. shore.= Past tense of _shear_, to cut. + +=499. bow'd his head:= because of the force of the blow. + +=508. curdled.= Thickened as with fear. + +=516. Rustum!= Why did this word so affect Sohrab? Note the author's +skill in working up to this climax in the narrative. + +=527-539. Then with a bitter smile=, etc. Compare these words of +the victor, Rustum, with the words of Sohrab, ll. 427-447, when the +advantage was with him. + +=536. glad.= Make happy. + + "That which _gladded_ all the warrior train." + --DRYDEN. + [162] +=538. Dearer to the red jackals=, etc. Cf. I. Sam. xvii. 44: "Come to +me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the +beasts of the field." Careful investigation will show the poem to +abound with Biblical as well as classical parallelisms. + +=556-575. As when some hunter, etc.= One of the truly great similes in +the English language. + +=563. sole.= Alone, solitary. From the Latin _solus_. + +=570. glass.= Reflect as in a mirror. + +=596. bruited up.= Noised abroad. + +=613. the style.= The name or title. + +=625. that old king.= The king of Semenjan. See introductory note to +poem. + +=632. Of age and looks=, etc. That is, of such age as he (Sohrab) +would be, if born of his (Rustum's) union with Tahmineh. + +=658-660. I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm=, etc. This is Arnold's +conception. In the original story Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an +amulet. The onyx was supposed to incite the wearer to deeds of valor. + +=664. corselet.= Protective armor for the body. + +=673. cunning.= Skilful, deft. + +=679. griffin.= In the natural history of the ancients, an imaginary +animal, half lion and half eagle. Here the Simurgh. See note, l. 232. + +=708-710. unconscious hand.= Note how the dying Sohrab seeks to + console the grief-stricken Rustum. + + "Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune. + It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father." + + --_Shah Nameh_. + +=717. have found= (him). Note the ellipsis. + +=723-724. I came ... passing wind.= The _Shah Nameh_ has-- + + "I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." + +=736. caked the sand.= Hardened into cakes. + +=751. Helmund.= See note, l. 82. [163] + +=752. Zirrah.= Another lake in Seistan, southeast of Hamoon, now +almost dry. + +=763-765. Moorghab, Tejend and Kohik.= Rivers of Turkestan which lose +themselves in the deserts to the south of Bokhara. The northern Sir is +the Sir Daria, or Jaxartes. See note, l. 129. + +=788. And heap a stately mound=, etc. Persian tradition says that a +large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed over the +spot where Sohrab was buried. + +=830. on that day.= Shortly after the death of Afrasiab, the Persian +monarch Kai Khosroo, accompanied by a large number of his nobles, went +to a spring far to the north, the location fixed upon as a place +for their repose. Here the king died, and those who went with him +afterward perished in a tempest. Sohrab predicted Rustum would be one +of those lost, but tradition does not have it so. + +=861. Persepolis.= An ancient capital of Persia, the ruins of which +are known as "the throne of Jemshid," after a mythical king. + +=878. Chorasma.= A region of Turkestan, the seat of a powerful empire +in the twelfth century, but now greatly reduced. Its present limits +are about the same as those of Khiva. See note, l. 120. + +=880. Right for the polar star.= That is, due north. =Orgunje.= A +village on the Oxus some seventy miles below Khiva, and near the head +of its delta. + +=890. luminous home.= The Aral Sea. + +=891. new bathed stars.= As the stars appear on the horizon, they seem +to have come up out of the sea. + +=875-892.= Discuss the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these closing lines of the poem. See also note, ll. +231-250, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN [164] + +In this poem Arnold has vividly presented a quaint legend of Judas +Iscariot, popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Brandan (490-577) was +a celebrated Irish monk, famous for his voyages. "According to the +legendary accounts of his travels, he set sail with others to seek the +terrestrial paradise which was supposed to exist in an island of the +Atlantic. Various miracles are related of the voyage, but they are +always connected with the great island where the monks are said to +have landed. The legend was current in the time of Columbus and +long after, and many connected St. Brandan's island with the newly +discovered America. He is commemorated on May 16."--_The Century +Cyclopedia of Names_. + + +=7. Hebrides.= A group of islands off the northwestern coast of +Scotland. + +=11. hurtling Polar lights.= A reference to the rapid, changing +movements of the Aurora Borealis. + +=18. Of hair that red.= According to tradition, Judas Iscariot's hair +was red. + +=21. sate.= See note, l. 199, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Old form of "sat," +common in poetry.) + + +=31. self-murder.= After betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself. See +Matt, xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18. + +=38. The Leper recollect.= There is no scriptural authority for this +incident. + +=40. Joppa=, or Jaffa. A small maritime town of Palestine--the ancient +port of Jerusalem. There is also a small village called Jaffa in +Galilee, some two miles southwest of Nazareth, which may have been the +place the poet had in mind. + + +Image the situation as presented in the first several stanzas. Why +locate in the sea without a "human shore," l. 12? Is there any +especial reason for having the time Christmas night? Note the dramatic +introduction of Judas. What effect did his appearance have on the +saint? How was the latter reassured? Give reasons why Judas felt +impelled to tell his story. Tell the story. Does he praise or belittle +his act of charity? Why does he say "that _chance_ act of good"? How +was it rewarded? Explain his last expression. Was he about to say +more? If so, what? What effect did Judas's story have on Saint +Brandan? Why? What is the underlying thought in the poem? Discuss the +form of verse used and its appropriateness to the theme. [165] + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN + +"The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's two +poems, _The Merman_ and _The Mermaid_. A comparison will show that, in +this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched his subject not +less melodiously and with finer and deeper feeling.--Margaret will not +listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with pain';--dearer to her is +the selfish desire to save her own soul than is the light in the eyes +of her little Mermaiden, dearer than the love of the king of the sea, +who yearns for her with sorrow-laden heart. Here is there an infinite +tenderness and an infinite tragedy." + --L. DUPONT SYLE, _From Milton to Tennyson_. + +Legends of this kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and Cymric +people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more pleasing and +touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note carefully the dramatic +manner in which the pathos of the story is presented and developed. + + +=6. wild white horses.= Breakers, whitecaps. + +=13. Margaret.= A favorite name with Arnold. See _Isolation_ and _A +Dream_ in this volume. + +=39. ranged.= See note, l. 73, _The Strayed Reveller_. (wander +aimlessly about.) + +=42. mail.= Protective covering. + +=54.= Why "down swung the sound of a far-off bell"? [166] + +=81. seal'd.= Fastened; fixed intently upon, as though spellbound. + +=89-93. Hark ... sun.= In her song Margaret shows she is still keenly +alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The priest, bell, +and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here Roman Catholic. The +bell is used in the Roman Church to call especial attention to the +more important portions of the service; the well is the holy-water +font. + +=129. heaths starr'd with broom.= The flower of the broom plant, +common in England, is yellow; hence, _starr'd_. + +In his work on Matthew Arnold, George Saintsbury speaks of this poem +as follows: "It is, I believe, not so 'correct' as it once was to +admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to correctness, at least +the correctness which varies with fashion. _The Forsaken Merman_ is +not a perfect poem--it has _tongueurs_, though it is not long; it has +its inadequacies, those incompetences of expression which are so oddly +characteristic of its author; and his elaborate simplicity, though +more at home here than in some other places, occasionally gives a +dissonance. But it is a great poem,--one by itself,--one which finds +and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained gallery or museum, with +which every true lover of poetry is provided, though he inherits it by +degrees. None, I suppose, will deny its pathos; I should be sorry for +any one who fails to perceive its beauty. The brief picture of the +land, and the fuller one of the sea, and that (more elaborate still) +of the occupations of the fugitive, all have their charm. But the +triumph of the piece is in one of those metrical coups, which give +the triumph of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden change from the +slower movements of the earlier stanzas, or strophes, to the quicker +sweep of the famous conclusions." + [167] +What is the opening situation in the poem? Have the merman and his +children just reached the shore, or have they been there some time? +Why so? Why does the merman still linger, when he is convinced that +further delay will count for nothing? Why does he urge the children to +call? What is shown by his repeated question--"was it yesterday"? Tell +the story of Margaret's departure for the upper world, and discuss the +validity of her reason for going. Do you think she intended to return? +What is the significance of her smile just before departing? Give +a word picture of what the sea-folk saw as they lingered in the +churchyard. Will Margaret ever grieve for the past? If so, when? Why? +Who has your sympathy most, Margaret, the forsaken merman, or the +children? Why? Do you condemn Margaret for the way she has done, or do +you feel she was justified in her actions? Discuss the versification, +giving special attention to its effect on the movement of the poem. + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT + +The story of Tristram and Iseult is one of the most vivid and +passionate of the Arthurian cycle of legends, and is a favorite with +the poets. The following version is abridged from Dunlop's _History of +Fiction_. + +"In the court of his uncle, King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who at +this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became expert +in all knightly exercises.... The king of Ireland, at Tristram's +solicitation, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on +King Marc.... The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter's confidante +a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her +nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult unfortunately partook. +Its influence, during the remainder of their lives, regulated the +affections and destiny of the lovers. + [168] +"After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the +nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance +is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews ... +Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the displeasure +of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult with the White +Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude than love. Afterwards +he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur which became the theatre of +unnumbered exploits. + +"Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany and to +his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was soon +reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation he despatched a confidant +to the queen of Cornwall to try if he could induce her to follow him +to Brittany. + +"Meanwhile Tristram awaited the arrival of the queen with such +impatience that he employed one of his wife's damsels to watch at the +harbor. Through her, Iseult learned Tristram's secret, and filled with +jealousy, flew to her husband as the vessel which bore the queen of +Cornwall was wafted toward the harbor, and reported that the sails +were black (the signal that Iseult, Marc's queen, had refused +Tristram's request to come to him). Tristram, penetrated with +inexpressible grief, died. The account of Tristram's death was the +first intelligence which the queen of Cornwall heard on landing. She +was conducted to his chamber, and expired holding him in her arms." + + +=1. Is she not come?= That is, Iseult of Ireland. Arnold's poem takes +up the story at the point where Tristram, now on his death-bed, is +watching eagerly for the coming of Iseult, Marc's queen, for whom he +had sent his confidant to Cornwall. Evidently he has just awakened +and is still somewhat confused; see l. 7. Surely none will fail to +appreciate so dramatic a situation. + +=5. What ... be?= That is, what lights are those to the northward, the +direction from which Iseult would come? + [169] +=8. Iseult.= Here Iseult of the White Hands, daughter of King Hoel of +Brittany and wife of Tristram. + +=20. Arthur's court.= Arthur, the half-mythical king of the Britons, +set up his court at Camelot, which Caxton locates in Wales and Malory +near Winchester. Here was gathered the famous company of champions +known as the "Knights of the Round Table," whose feats have been +extensively celebrated in song and story. Among these knights Tristram +held high rank, both as a warrior and a harpist. See ll. 17-19. + +=23. Lyoness.= A mythical region near Cornwall, the home country of +Arthur and Tristram. + +=30-31.= Hence the name, Iseult of the White Hands. + +=56-68.= See introductory note to poem for explanation. =Tyntagel.= +A village in Cornwall near the sea. Near it is the ruined Tyntagel +Castle, the reputed birthplace of Arthur. In the romance of Sir +Tristram it is the castle of King Marc, the cowardly and treacherous +king of Cornwall, the southwest county of England. =teen=. See note, +l. 147, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. (Grief, sorrow; from the old English +_teona_, meaning injury.) + + +=88. wanders=, in fancy. Note how the wounded knight's mind flits from +scene to scene, always centring around Iseult of Ireland. + +=91. O'er ... sea.= The Irish Sea. He is dreaming of his return trip +from Ireland with Iseult, "under the cloudless sky of May" (l. 96). + +=129-132.= See introductory note to poem. The green isle, Ireland is +noted for its green fields; hence the name, Emerald (green) Isle. + +=134. on loud Tyntagel's hill.= A high headland on the coast of Wales. +Discuss the force of the adjective "loud" in this connection. + +=137-160. And that ... more.= See introductory note to poem. + +=161. pleasaunce-walks.= A pleasure garden, screened by trees, shrubs, +and close hedges--here a trysting-place. After the marriage of +Iseult to King Marc, she and Tristram contrived to continue their +relationship in secret. [170] + +=164. fay.= Faith. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=180.= Tristram, having been discovered by King Marc in his intrigues +with Iseult, was forced to leave Cornwall; hence his visit to Brittany +and subsequent marriage to Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory +note to poem. + +=192. lovely orphan child.= Iseult of Brittany. + +=194. chatelaine.= From the French, meaning the mistress of a +château--a castle or fortress. + +=200. stranger-knight, ill-starr'd.= That is, Tristram, whose many +mishaps argued his being born under an unlucky star. See also the +account of his birth, note, ll. 81-88, Part II. + +=203. Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard.= Prior to his visit to +Brittany, Tristram had imprisoned his uncle, King Marc, and eloped +with Iseult to the domains of King Arthur. While there he resided +at Joyous Gard, the favorite castle of Launcelot, which that knight +assigned to the lovers as their abode. + +=204. Welcomed here.= That is, in Brittany, where he was nursed back +to health by Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory note to poem. + +=215-226. His long rambles ... ground.= Account for Tristram's +discontent, as indicated in these lines. + +=234-237. All red ... bathed in foam.= The kings of Britain agreed +with Arthur to make war upon Rome. Arthur, leaving Modred in charge +of his kingdom, made war upon the Romans, and, after a number +of encounters, Lucius Tiberius was killed and the Britons were +victorious.--GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Book IV, Chapter XV; Book X, +Chapters I-XIII. According to Malory, Arthur captured many French and +Italian cities (see ll. 250-251); during this continental invasion, +and was finally crowned king at Rome. It seems that he afterward +despatched a considerable number of his knights to carry the Christian +faith among the heathen German tribes. See ll. 252-253. [171] + +=238. moonstruck knight.= A reference to the mystical influence the +ancients supposed the moon to exert over men's minds and actions. + +=239. What foul fiend rides thee?= What evil spirit possesses you and +keeps you from the fight? + +=240. her.= That is, Iseult of Ireland. + +=243. wanders forth again=, in fancy. + +=245. secret in his breast.= What secret? + +=250-253.= See note, ll. 234-237. =blessed sign.= The cross. + +=255. Roman Emperor.= That is, Lucius Tiberius. See note, ll. 234-237. + +=258. leaguer.= Consult dictionary. + +=261. what boots it?= That is, what difference will it make? + +=303. recks not.= Has no thought of (archaic). + +=308-314. My princess ... good night.= Are Tristram's words sincere, +or has he a motive in thus dismissing Iseult? + +=373-374.= From a dramatic standpoint, what is the purpose of these +two lines? + + + +PART II + +With the opening of Part II the lovers are restored to each other. +The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with long waiting, +unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having come to him with +greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, quickly dispel his +doubts as to her loyalty to her former vows. A complete reconciliation +takes place, and they die in each other's embrace. The picture of the +Huntsman on the arras is one of the most notable in English poetry. + + +=47. honied nothings=. Explain. Compare with + + "his tongue Dropt manna." [172] + --_Paradise Lost_, ll. 112-113, Book II. + +=81-88=. Tristram was born in the forest, where his mother Isabella, +sister to King Marc, had gone in search of her recreant husband. + +=97-100=. Tennyson, in _The Last Tournament_, follows Malory in the +story of Tristram's and Iseult's death. "That traitor, King Mark, slew +the noble knight, Sir Tristram, as he sat harping before his lady, +La Beale Isoud, with a trenchant glaive, for whose death was much +bewailing of every knight that ever was in Arthur's days ... and La +Beale Isoud died swooning upon the cross of Sir Tristram, whereof was +great pity."--Malory's _Morte d' Arthur._ + +=113. sconce=. Consult dictionary. + +=116-122=. Why this restlessness on the part of Iseult? Why her +frequent glances toward the door? + +=132. dogg'd=. Worried, pursued. Coleridge uses the epithet +"star-dogged moon," l. 212, Part III, _The Ancient Mariner._ + +=147-193=. For the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these lines, see notes on the Tyrian trader, ll. +231-250, 232, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + +PART III + +After the death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland, our thoughts +inevitably turn to Iseult of the White Hands. The infinite pathos of +her life has aroused our deepest sympathy, and we naturally want to +know further concerning her and Tristram's children. + + +=13. cirque=. A circle (obsolete or poetical). See l. 7, Part III. + +=18. holly-trees and juniper=. Evergreen trees common in Europe and +America. + [173] +=22. fell-fare= (or field-fare). A small thrush found in Northern +Europe. + +=26. stagshorn.= A common club-moss. + +=37. old-world Breton history.= That is, the story of Merlin and +Vivian, ll. 153-224, Part III. + +=79-81=. Compare with the following lines from Wordsworth's +_Michael_:-- + + "This light was famous in its neighborhood. + ... For, as it chanced, + Their cottage on a plot of rising ground + Stood single.... + And from this constant light so regular + And so far seen, the House itself, by all + Who dwelt within the limits of the vale + ... was named _The Evening Star_." + +=81. iron coast.= This line inevitably calls to mind a stanza from +Tennyson's _Palace of Art_:-- + + "One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. + You seemed to hear them climb and fall + And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves, + Beneath the windy wall." + +=92. prie-dieu.= Praying-desk. From the French _prier_, pray; _dieu_, +God. + +=97. seneschal.= A majordomo; a steward. Originally meant _old_ (that +is, _chief) servant_; from the Gothic _sins_, old, and _salks_, a +servant.--SKEAT. + +=134. gulls.= Deceives, tricks. + + "The vulgar, _gulled_ into rebellion, armed," + --DRYDEN. + +=140.= posting here and there. That is, restlessly changing from place +to place and from occupation to occupation. + +=143-145. Like that bold Cæsar=, etc. Julius Cæsar (100?-44 B.C.). +The incident here alluded to Is mentioned in Suetonius' _Life of the +Deified Julius_, Chapter VII. "Farther Spain fell to the lot of Cæsar +as questor. When, at the command of the Roman people, he was holding +court and had come to Cadiz, he noticed in the temple of Hercules a +statue of Alexander the Great. At sight of this statue he sighed, +as if disgusted at his own lack of achievement, because he had done +nothing of note by the time in life (Cæsar was then thirty-two) that +Alexander had conquered the world." (Free translation.) [174] + +=146-150. Prince Alexander, etc.= Alexander III., surnamed "The +Great" (356-323 B.C.), was the most famous of Macedonian generals and +conquerors, and the first in order of time of the four most celebrated +commanders of whom history makes mention. In less than fifteen years +he extended his domain over the known world and established himself as +the universal emperor. He died at Babylon, his capital city, at the +age of thirty-three, having lamented that there were no more worlds +for him to conquer. (For the boundaries of his empire, see any map of +his time.) Pope spoke of him as "The youth who all things but himself +subdued." =Soudan= (l. 149). An obsolete term for Sultan, the Turkish +ruler. + +=153-224=. The story of Merlin, King Arthur's court magician, and the +enchantress Vivian is one of the most familiar of the Arthurian cycle +of legends. =Broce-liande= (l. 156). In Cornwall. See l. 61, Part +I. =fay= (l. 159). Fairy, =empire= (l. 184). That is, power; here +supernatural power. =wimple= (l. 220). A covering for the head. =Is +Merlin prisoner=, etc. (l. 223). Merlin, the magician, is thus +entrapped by means of a charm he had himself communicated to his +mistress, the enchantress Vivian. Malory has Merlin imprisoned under a +rock; Tennyson, in an oak:-- + + "And in the hollow oak he lay as dead + And lost to life and use and name and fame." + --_Merlin and Vivian_. + [175] +=224=. For she was passing weary, etc. + + "And she was ever passing weary of him." + --MALORY. + +PART I. What is the opening situation in the poem? Why have it a +stormy night? What does Tristram's question (l. 7) reveal of his +condition physically and mentally? What is the office of the parts +of the poem coming between the intervals of conversation? How is the +wounded knight identified? How the lady? Follow the wanderings of the +sleeping Tristram's mind. Are the incidents he speaks of in the order +of their occurrence? Explain ll. 102-103; ll. 161-169. Tell the story +of Tristram and Iseult of the White Hands. What is shown by the fact +that Tristram's mind dwells on Iseult of Ireland even at the time of +battle? How account for his wanderings? For his morose frame of mind? +What change has come over nature when Tristram awakes? Why this +change? What is his mood now? Account for his addressing Iseult of +Brittany as he does. Why his order for her to retire? What is her +attitude toward him? Note the manner in which the children are +introduced into the story (ll. 324-325) PART II. Give the opening +situation. Discuss the meeting of Tristram and Iseult. What is +revealed by their conversation? What is the purpose in introducing the +Huntsman on the arras? PART III. What is the purpose of ll. 1-4? Give +the opening situation in Part III. How is Iseult trying to entertain +her children? What kind of a life does she lead? Discuss ll. 112-150 +as to meaning and connection with the theme of the poem. Tell the +story of Merlin and Vivian. Why introduced? Compare Arnold's version +of the story of Tristram and Iseult with the version given in the +introductory note to the poem. + + + + [176] +THE CHURCH OF BROU + + + +I. THE CASTLE + +The church of Brou is actually located in a treeless Burgundian plain, +and not in the mountains, as stated by the poet. + + +=1. Savoy=. A mountainous district in eastern France; formerly one of +the divisions of the Sardinian States. + +=3. mountain-chalets=. Properly, herdsmen's huts in the mountains of +Switzerland. + +=17. prickers=. Men sent into the thickets to start the game. + +=35. dais=. Here, a canopy or covering. + +=69. erst=. See note, l. 42, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. ( Formerly. +(Obsolete except in poetry.)) + +=71. chancel=. The part of a church in which the altar is placed. + +=72. nave=. See note, ll. 70-76, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön_. + +=77. palmers=. Wandering religious votaries, especially those who bore +branches of palm as a token that they had visited the Holy Land and +its sacred places. + +=109. fretwork=. Representing open woodwork. + + + +II. THE CHURCH + +=17. matin-chime=. Bells for morning worship. + +=21. Chambery=. Capital of the department of Savoy Proper, on the +Leysse. + +=22. Dight=. See l. 277, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Adorned, dressed.) + +=37. chisell'd broideries=. The carved draperies of the tombs. + + + +III. THE TOMB + +=6. transept=. The transversal part of a church edifice, which crosses +at right angles between the nave and the choir (the upper portion), +thus giving to the building the form of a cross. + + +=39. foliaged marble forest=. Note the epithet. + [177] +=45. leads=. That is, the leaden roof. See l. 1, Part II. (Upon the +glistening leaden roof). + + + + +REQUIESCAT + +This poem, one of Arnold's best-known shorter lyrics, combines with +perfect taste, simplicity and elegance, with the truest pathos. It has +been said there is not a false note in it. + + +=13. cabin'd=. Used in the sense of being cramped for space. + +=16. vasty=. Spacious, boundless. + +What is the significance of strewing on the roses? Why "never a spray +of yew"? (See note, l.140, _The Scholar-Gipsy.)_ What seems to be the +author's attitude toward death? (Read his poem, _A Wish_.) Discuss the +poem as to its lyrical qualities. + + + + +CONSOLATION + +=14. Holy Lassa= (that is, Land of the Divine Intelligence), the +capital city of Thibet and residence of the Dalai, or Grand Lama, the +pontifical sovereign of Thibet and East Asia. Here is located the +great temple of Buddha, a vast square edifice, surmounted by a gilded +dome, the temple, together with its precincts, covering an area of +many acres. Contiguous to it, on its four sides, are four celebrated +monasteries, occupied by four thousand recluses, and resorted to as +schools of the Buddhic religion and philosophy. There is, perhaps, no +other one place in the world where so much gold is accumulated for +superstitious purposes. + + +=17. Muses.= See note, l. 120, _The Strayed Reveller_. + +=18. In their cool gallery=. That is, in the Vatican art gallery at +Rome. + +=19. yellow Tiber.= So called by the ancients because of the +yellowish, muddy appearance of its waters. + [178] +=21. Strange unloved uproar.= At the time this poem was +written,--1849,--the French army was besieging Rome. + +=23. Helicon.= High mountain in Boeotia, legendary home of the +Muses. + +=32. Erst.= See note, l. 32, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=48. Destiny.= That is, Fate, the goddess of human destiny. + +In what mood is the author at the opening of the poem? How does he +seek consolation? How does the calm of the Muses affect him? Can you +see how he might find help in dwelling on the pictures of the blind +beggar and happy lovers? What is the final thought of the poem? Can +you think of any other poem that has this as its central thought? What +do you think of the author's philosophy of life as set forth in this +poem? Discuss the verse form used. + + + + +LINES + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + +The Kensington Gardens form one of the many beautiful public parks of +London. They are located in the Kensington parish, a western suburb of +the city, lying north of the Thames and four miles west-southwest of +St. Paul's. In his poem Arnold contrasts the serenity of nature +with the restlessness of modern life. "Not Lucan, not Vergil, +only Wordsworth, has more beautifully expressed the spirit of +Pantheism."--HERBERT W. PAUL. + + +=4.= The pine trees here mentioned are since dead. + +=14. What endless active life!= Compare with Arnold's sonnet of this +volume, entitled _Quiet Work_, ll. 4-7 and 11-12. + +=21. the huge world.= London. + +=24. Was breathed on by rural Pan.= Note Arnold's classic way of +accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature god. +See note, l. 67, _The Strayed Reveller_. + [179] +=37-42.= Compare the thought here presented with the following lines + from Wordsworth:-- + + "These beauteous forms, + ... have not been to me + As is a landscape to a blind man's eye. + But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din + Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, + ... sensations sweet + Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; + And passing even into my purer mind, + With tranquil restoration." + +Read also Wordsworth's _Lines to the Daffodil_. + +What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently brought it to +the author's mind? How does he show his interest in nature? In human +beings? What inspiration does the author seek from nature, ll. 37-42? +Explain the meaning of the last two lines. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER + +"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, that +perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, which saves +me from being entirely _ennuyx_, professorial and pedantic." (Matthew +Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, 1858.) + +Circe, according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who dwelt in +the island of Ææa, and who possessed the power to transform men +into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' wanderings.) In +Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic potion, by which this +transformation is accomplished, affects not the body, but the mind of +the youth. + + +=12. ivy-cinctured.= That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, +the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned with ivy. See +also l. 33. [180] + +=36. rout.= Consult dictionary. + +=38. Iacchus.= In the Eleusinian mysteries, Bacchus bore the name of +Iacchus. =fane.= A temple. From the Latin _fanum_, a place of worship +dedicated to any deity. + +=48. The lions sleeping.= As Ulysses' companions approached Circe's +palace, following their landing on her island, they found themselves +"surrounded by lions, tigers, and wolves, not fierce but tamed by +Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician." + +=67. Pan's flute music!= Pan, the god of pastures and woodlands, +was the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's flute, with which he +accompanied himself and his followers in the dance. + +=71. Ulysses.= The celebrated hero of the Trojan war; also famous for +his wanderings. One of his chief adventures, on his return voyage from +Troy, was with the enchantress Circe, with whom he tarried a year, +forgetful of his faithful wife, Penelope, at home. + +=72. Art.= That is, are you. (Now used only in solemn or poetic +style.) + +=73. range.= Wander aimlessly about. + +=74. See what the day brings.= That is, the youth. See ll. 24-52 + +=81. Nymphs.= Goddesses of the mountains, forests, meadows, or waters, +belonging to the lower rank of deities. + +=102-107.= Compare in thought with Tennyson's poem, _Ulysses_. + +=110. The favour'd guest of Circe.= Ulysses. See note, l. 71. + +=120. Muses.= Daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne, nine in number. +According to the earliest writers the Muses were only the inspiring +goddesses of song; but later they were looked to as the divinities +presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and over the arts and +sciences. + [181] +=130-135.= Note the poet's device for presenting a series of mental +pictures. Compare with Tennyson's plan in his _Palace of Art_. Does +Arnold's plan seem more or less mechanical than Tennyson's? + +=135-142. Tiresias.= The blind prophet of =Thebes= (l. 142), the chief +city in Boeotia, near the river =Asopus= (l. 138). In his youth, +Tiresias unwittingly came upon Athene while she was bathing, and was +punished by the loss of sight. As a recompense for this misfortune, +the goddess afterward gave him knowledge of future events. The +inhabitants of Thebes looked to Tiresias for direction in times of +war. + +=143. Centaurs.= Monsters, half man, half horse. + +=145. Pelion.= A mountain in eastern Thessaly, famous in Greek +mythology. In the war between the giants and the gods, the former, in +their efforts to scale the heavens, piled Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion +upon Ossa. + +=151-161.= What in these lines enables you to determine the people and +country alluded to? + +=162-167. Scythian ... embers.= The ancient Greek term for the nomadic +tribes inhabiting the whole north and northeast Europe and Asia. As +a distinct people they built no cities, and formed no general +government, but wandered from place to place by tribes, in their rude, +covered carts (see l. 164), living upon the coarsest kind of food (ll. +166-167). + +=177-180. Clusters of lonely mounds, etc.= That is, ruins of ancient +cities. + +=183. Chorasmian stream.= See note, l. 878, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=197. milk-barr'd onyx-stones.= A reference to the white streaks, or +bars, common to the onyx. + +=206. Happy Islands.= Mythical islands lying far to the west, the +abode of the heroes after death. + +=220. Hera's anger.= Hera (or Juno), wife to Jupiter, was noted for +her violent temper and jealousy. She is here represented as visiting +punishment upon the bard, perhaps out of jealousy of the gods who had +endowed him with poetic power, and his life, thus afflicted, seems +lengthened to seven ages. [182] + +=228-229. Lapithæ.= In Greek legends, a fierce Thessalian race, +governed by Pirothous, a half-brother to the Centaurs. =Theseus.= The +chief hero of Attica, who, according to tradition, united the several +tribes of Attica into one state, with Athens as the capital. His life +was filled with adventure. The reference here is to the time of the +marriage of Pirothous and Hippodamia, on which occasion the Centaurs, +who were among the guests, became intoxicated, and offered indignities +to the bride. In the fight that followed, Theseus joined with the +Lapithæ, and many of the Centaurs were slain. + +=231. Alcmena's dreadful son.= Hercules. On his expedition to capture +the Arcadian boar, his third labor, Hercules became involved in a +broil with the Centaurs, and in self-defence slew several of them with +his arrows. + +=245. Oxus stream.= See note, l. 2, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=254. Heroes.= The demigods of mythology. + +=257. Troy.= The capital of Troas, Asia Minor; the seat of the Trojan war. + +=254-260.= Shortly after the close of the Trojan war, a party of +heroes from all parts of Greece, many of whom had participated in the +expeditions against Thebes and Troy, set out under the leadership of +Jason to capture the Golden Fleece. Leaving the shores of Thessaly, +the adventurers sailed eastward and finally came to the entrance of +the =Euxine Sea= (the =unknown sea=, l. 260), which was guarded by +the Clashing Islands. Following the instructions of the sage Phineus, +Jason let fly a dove between the islands, and at the moment of +rebound the expedition passed safely through. The ship in which the +adventurers sailed was called the Argo, after its builder, Argus; +hence our term Argonauts. + [183] +=261. Silenus.= A divinity of Asiatic origin; foster-father to Bacchus +and leader of the =Fauns= (l. 265), satyr-like divinities, half man, +half goat, sometimes represented in art as hearing torches (l. 274). + +=275. Mænad.= A bacchante,--a priestess or votary of Bacchus. + +=276. Faun with torches.= See note, l. 261. + + +What is the situation at the beginning of the poem? What effect does +the "liquor" have upon the youth? Why is the presence of Ulysses so +much in harmony with the situation? How does he greet Circe; how the +youth? What does his presence suggest to the latter? Why? Note the +vividness of the pictures he describes; also the swiftness with which +he changes from one to another. What power is ascribed to the poet? +Why his "pain"? What effect is gained by closing the poem with the +same words with which it is opened? Why the irregular verse used? + + + + +DOVER BEACH + +In this poem is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, at once +religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is one of his +most passionate interpretations of life. + + +=15. Sophocles= (495-406 B.C.). One of the three great tragic poets of +Greece. His rivals were Æschylus (526-456 B.C.) and Euripides (486-406 +B.C.). + +=16. Ægean Sea.= See note, l. 236, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + + * * * * * + +Image the scene in the opening stanzas. What is the author's mood? +Why does he call some one to look on the scene with him? What is the +"eternal note of sadness"? Why connect it in thought with the sea? Why +does this thought suggest Sophocles? What thought next presents itself +to the author's mind? From what source must one's help and comfort +then be drawn? Why so? Why the irregular versification? State the +theme of the poem. [184] + + + + +PHILOMELA + +"Philomela unites the sensibilities and intellectual experience of +modern Englishmen with the luminousness and simplicity of Greek +poetry."--SAINTSBURY. + +The myth of the nightingale has long been a favorite with the poets, +who have variously interpreted the bird's song. See Coleridge's, +Keats's, and Wordsworth's poems on the subject. The most common +version of the myth, the one followed by Arnold, is as follows:-- + +"Pandion (son of Erichthonius, special ward to Minerva) had two +daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in +marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). This +ruler, after his wife had borne him a son, Itys (or Itylus), wearied +of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to insure her silence, +and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the other sister, +Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which she wove her story, +informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In revenge upon Tereus, the +sisters killed Itylus, and served up the child as food to the father; +but the gods, in indignation, transformed Procne into a swallow, +Philomela into a nightingale, forever bemoaning the murdered Itylus, +and Tereus into a hawk, forever pursuing the sisters."--GAYLEY'S +_Classic Myths_. + + +=4.= Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem. + +=5. O wanderer from a Grecian shore.= See note, l. 27. + +=8.= Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not +one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss. + +=18. Thracian wild.= Thrace was the name used by the early Greeks for +the entire region north of Greece. + [185] +=21. The too clear web=, etc. See introductory note to poem for +explanation of this and the following lines. + +=27. Daulis.= A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of +Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. =Cephessian vale.= The +valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through Doris, Phocis, +and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf. + +=29. How thick the bursts=, etc. Compare with the following lines from + Coleridge:-- + + "'Tis the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes, + As he were fearful that an April night + Would be too short for him to utter forth + His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul + Of all its music!" + --_The Nightingale_. + + Also + + "O Nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of a 'fiery heart':-- + These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce; + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a Valentine." + --WORDSWORTH. + + =31-32. Eternal passion! + Eternal pain!= Compare:-- + + "Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains." + --COLERIDGE, _To a Nightingale_. + + and + + "Sweet bird ... + Most musical, most melancholy!" + --MILTON, _Il Penseroso_. + + +Image the scene in the poem. How does the author secure the proper +atmosphere for the theme of the poem? Account for the note of triumph +in the nightingale's song; note of pain. What is shown by the poet's +question, ll. 10-15? What new qualities are added to the nightingale's +song, l. 25? Account for them. Why _eternal_ passion, _eternal_ pain? +Do you feel the form of verse used (Pindaric blank) to be adapted to +the theme? [186] + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + +=4. kept uninfringed my nature's law.= That is, have lived a perfect +life. + +=5. inly-written chart.= The conscience. + +=8. incognisable.= Not to be comprehended by finite mind. + +=23. prore.= Poetical word for _prow_, the fore part of a ship. + +=27. stem.= Consult dictionary. + +What important incident in the destiny of the soul is alluded to in +stanza 1? Interpret ll. 13-14, and apply to your own experience. Why +cannot we live "chance's fool"? Is there any hint of fatalism in the +poem, or are we held accountable for our own destiny? + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE, ON RETURNING A VOLUME OF THE LETTERS OF ORTIS + +This poem, the fifth in a loosely connected group of lyrics, under the +general name _Switzerland_, is a continuation of the preceding +poem, _Isolation--to Marguerite_, and is properly entitled, _To +Marguerite--Continued_. When printed separately, the above title is +used. + +Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. His +_Ultime Lettere di Ortis_ was translated into the English in 1818. + + [187] +=1. Yes!= Used in answer to the closing thought of the preceding poem. + +=7. moon.= Note the frequency with which reference to the moon, with +its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you give any reason +for this? + +=24.= Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: "_Isolation_ +winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the century--one of +the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of English verse--a +phrase complete and final, with epithets in unerring cumulation." + +Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? Discuss l.2 +as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," l.4? Why "endless +bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling of despair, l.13? Answer the +questions asked in the last stanza. In what frame of mind does the +poem leave you? + + + + +KAISER DEAD + +APRIL 6, 1887 + +Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was most +sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in the minor +key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just lost our dear, dear +mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated from his home in Cobham, +Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very sad." The poem was written the +following July, and was published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for that +month. + + +=2. Cobham.= See note above. + +=3. Farringford,= in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord Tennyson. + +=5. Pen-bryn's bold bard.= Sir Lewis Morris, author of the _Epic of +Hades_, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire. + [188] +=11-12.= In Burns's poem, _Poor Mailie's Elegy_, occur the following +lines:-- + + "Come, join the melancholious croon + O' Robin's reed." + +=20. Potsdam.= The capital of the government district of Potsdam, in +the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's name, _Kaiser_. + +=41. the Grand Old Man.= Gladstone. + +=50. agog.= In a state of eager excitement. + +=65. Geist.= Also remembered in a poem entitled _Geist's Grave_, +included in this volume. + +=76. chiel.= A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow. + + "Buirdly _chiels_ an clever hizzies." + --BURNS, _The Twa Dogs_. + +=Skye.= The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. 7, _Saint +Brandan_. + + + + +THE LAST WORD + +In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a hopeless +struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too strong for +him. + +State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? What +is the _narrow bed_, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With whom has it +been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied in l. 6? What is meant +by _ringing shot_, l. 11? Who are the victors, l. 14? What would they +probably say on finding the body near the wall? Can you think of any +historical characters of whom the poem might aptly have been written? + + + + [189] +PALLADIUM + +At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy a +celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was +reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the belief +was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue remained +within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek champions, succeeded +in entering the city in disguise, stole the Palladium and carried it +off to the besiegers' camp at Argos. It was some time, however, before +the city fell. + +=1. Simois.= A small river of the Troad which takes its rise in the +rocky, wooded eminence which, according to Greek tradition, formed +the acropolis of Troy. The Palladium was set up on its banks near its +source, in a temple especially erected for it (l. 6), and from this +lofty position was supposed to watch over the safety of the city and +her defenders on the plains below. + +=3. Hector.= Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy (Ilium), and his +wife, Hecuba, was the leader and champion of the Trojan armies. He +distinguished himself in numerous single combats with the ablest of +the Greek heroes; and to him was principally due the stubborn defence +of the Trojan capital. He was finally slain by Achilles, aided by +Athene, and his body dragged thrice around the walls of Troy behind +the chariot of his conqueror. + +=14. Xanthus.= The Scamander, the largest and most celebrated river of +the Troad, near which Troy was situated, was presided over by a deity +known to the gods as Xanthus. His contest with Achilles, whom he so +nearly overwhelmed, forms a notable incident of the _Iliad_. + +=15. Ajax, or Aiax.= One of the leading Greek heroes in the siege of +Troy, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. In bravery +and feats of valor he was second only to Achilles. Not being awarded +the armor of Achilles after that hero's death, he slew himself. + [190] +=16.= Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated for +her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to her by +both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in the second +part of _Faust_, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that name, +addresses her thus:-- + + "Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." + +Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3), was the cause +of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek mythology, which +forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, the _Iliad_. + +What is the central thought of the poem? Of what is the Palladium +typical? Explain the thought in stanza 3. What is the force of the +references of stanza 4? Discuss the use of the words "rust" and +"shine," l. 17. Just what is meant by "soul" as the word is used in +the poem? + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE + +_Self-Dependence_ is a poem in every respect characteristic of its +author. In it Arnold exhorts mankind to seek refuge from human +troubles in the example of nature. + +Picture the situation in the poem. What is the poet's mood as shown +in the opening stanzas? From what source does he seek aid? Why? What +answer does he receive? What is the source of nature's repose? Where +and how must the human soul find its contentment? + + + + [191] +GEIST'S GRAVE + +This poem appeared in the January number of the _Fortnightly Review_ +for 1881. + + +=12. homily.= Sermon. + +=15. the Virgilian cry.= _Sunt lacrimæ rerum!_ These words are +interpreted in the following line. + +=42. On lips that rarely form them now.= Arnold wrote but little +poetry after 1867. + +=55-56. thine absent master.= Richard Penrose Arnold, the poet's only +surviving son. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOÖN + +Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a celebrated German dramatist +and critic. For a time he studied theology at Leipsic, then turned his +attention to the stage, and later to criticism. His greatest critical +work (1766) is a treatise on Art, the famous Greek statuary group, +the Laocoön, which gives the work its name, forming the basis for a +comparative discussion of Sculpture, Poetry, Painting, and Music. + + +=1. Hyde Park.= The largest park in London, and the principal +recreation ground of that city. + +=15. Phoebus-guarded ground.= Greece. Phoebus, a name often given +Apollo, the sun god. + +=16. Pausanias.= A noted Greek geographer and writer on art who lived +in the second century. "His work, _The Gazetteer of Hellas_, is our +best repertory of information for the topography, local history, +religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of the different +states of Greece."--K.O. MÃœLLER, _History of the Literature of Ancient +Greece_. + [192] +=21-22. Dante= (1265-1321), =Petrarch= (1304-1374), =Tasso= (1544-; +1595), =Ariosto= (1475-1533). Celebrated Italian poets. + +=25. Raphael= (1483-1520). The famous Italian painter. + +=29. Goethe= (1749-1832). The greatest name in German literature. +His works include poetry, dramas, and criticisms. =Wordsworth= +(1770-1850). See the poem, _Memorial Verses_, of this volume. + +=35. Mozart= (1766-1791), =Beethoven= (1770-1827), =Mendelssohn= +(1809-1847). Noted musicians and composers. + +=42. south.= Warm. + +=43-48.= Cyclops Polyphemus, famous in the story of Ulysses, was +a persistent and jealous suitor of Galatea, the fairest of sea +divinities. So ardent was he in his wooings, that he would leave his +flocks to wander at will, while he sang his uncouth lays from the +hilltops to Galatea in the bay below. Her only answers were words of +scorn and mockery. See Andrew Lang's translation of Theocritus, Idyl +VI, for further account. + +=70-76. Abbey towers.= That is, Westminster Abbey, a mile's distance +to the south and east of Hyde Park. The abbey is built in the form of +a cross, the body or lower part of which is termed the nave (l. 73). +The upper portion is occupied by the choir, the anthems of which, with +their organ accompaniments, are alluded to in ll. 74-77. + +=89-106. Miserere Domine!= _Lord, have mercy!_ These words are from +the service of the Church of England. The meaning in these lines is +that Beethoven, in his masterpieces, has transferred the thoughts and +feelings, above inadequately expressed in words, into another and more +emotional tongue; that is, music. + +=107. Ride.= A famous driveway in Hyde Park, commonly called Rotten +Row. + +=119. vacant.= Thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection. + + "For oft, when on my couch I lie + In _vacant_ or in pensive mood." + --WORDSWORTH'S _Lines to the Daffodils_, ll. 19-20. + +=124. hies.= Hastens (poetical). + [193] +=130. painter and musician too!= Arnold held poetry to be equal to +painting and music combined. + +=140. movement.= Activities. Explained in the following lines. + +=163-210.= Note carefully the argument used to prove that poetry +interprets life more accurately and effectively than any of the other +arts. =Homer=, the most renowned of all Greek poets. The time in which +he lived is not definitely known. =Shakespeare= (1504-1616). + +Give the setting of the story. What was the topic of conversation? +What stand did the poet's friend take regarding poetry? Why turn to +Greece in considering the arts? What limitations of the painter's art +are pointed out by the poet? What is his attitude toward music? +What finally is "the poet's sphere," l. 127? Wherein then is poetry +superior to the other arts? Does the author prove his point by his +poem? Discuss the poem as to movement, diction, etc. + + + + + +QUIET WORK + +No poet, not even Wordsworth, was more passionately fond of nature +than Arnold. Note his attitude in the poem. + + +=1. One lesson.= What lesson? + +=4.= Discuss the use of the adjective "loud"; also "noisier," l. 7. + + +Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme +formula, and number of lines. See the introduction to Sharp's _Sonnets +of this Century_. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +Despite this tribute, Arnold considered Homer Shakespeare's equal, if +not his superior. What do Shakespeare's smile and silence imply on +his part? Explain in full the figure used. Do you consider it apt? Why +"Better so," l. 10? What is there in the poem that helps you to see +wherein lay Shakespeare's power to interpret life? Select the lines +which most impress you, and tell why. [194] + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS + +This sonnet was written in 1852, when the poet was in his thirtieth +year. + + +=5. joy.= Be glad. =heats.= Passions. + +=6. even clime.= That is, in the less emotional years of maturity. + +=12. hurrying fever.= See note, l. 6. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY + +=1. That son of Italy.= Giacopone di Todi. + +=2. Dante= (1265-1321). Best known as the author of _The Divine +Comedy_. + +=3. In his light youth.= Explain. + +=11. sackcloth.= Symbolic of mourning or mortification of the flesh. + + +Tell the story of the poem and make the application. Explain Arnold's +idea of poetry as set forth in ll. 12-14. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + +=3. Marcus Aurelius= (121-180 A.D.), commonly called "the philosopher." +A celebrated Roman emperor, prominent among the ethical teachers +of his time. Arnold himself has been aptly styled by Sharp an +"impassioned Marcus Aurelius, wrought by poetic vision and emotion to +poetic music." [195] + +=6. foolish.= In the sense of unreasonable. =ken.= The Scotch word +meaning sight. + +=7. rates.= Berates, reproves. + + +Give the poem's theme. What is implied by the word "even," l. 1? Does +the author agree with the implication? Why so? Discuss l. 5 as to its +meaning. Interpret the expressions "ill-school'd spirit," l. 11, and +"Some nobler, ampler stage of life," l. 12. Where finally are the aids +to a nobler life to be found? Do you agree with this philosophy of +life? + + + + +EAST LONDON + +=2. Bethnal Green.= An eastern suburb of London. + +=4. Spitalfields.= A part of northeast London, comprising the parishes +of Bethnal Green and Christchurch. + + +Image the scene. What is the purpose of the first four lines? Discuss +l. 6. What is the import of the preacher's response? What are the +poet's conclusions drawn in ll. 9-14? + + + + +WEST LONDON + +=1. Belgrave Square.= An important square in the western part of +London. + + +Tell the situation and the story of the poem. Why did the woman +solicit aid from the laboring men? Why not from the wealthy? Explain +ll. 9-11. What is the poet's final conclusion? + + + + [196] +MEMORIAL VERSES + +APRIL, 1850 + +Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in the Lake, District, April 23, 1850. +These verses, dedicated to his memory, are among Arnold's best-known +lines. For adequacy of meaning and charm of expression, they are +almost unsurpassed; they also contain some of the poet's soundest +poetical criticism. The poem was first published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for June, 1850, and bore the date of April 27. + + +=1. Goethe in Weimar sleeps.= The tomb of Goethe, the celebrated +German author (see note, l. 29, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön_), is +in Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Weimar is +noted as the literary centre of Germany, and for this reason is styled +the German Athens. + +=2. Byron.= George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated English poet +of the French Revolutionary period, died at Missolonghi, Greece, where +he had gone to help the Greeks in their struggle to throw off the +Turkish yoke. He was preëminently a poet of passion, and, as such, +exerted a marked influence on the literature of his day. His petulant, +bitter rebellion against all law has become proverbial; hence the +term "Byronic." The =Titans= (l. 14) were a race of giants who warred +against the gods. The aptness of the comparison made here is at once +evident. In Arnold's sonnet, _A Picture at Newstead_, also occur these +lines:-- + + "'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry + Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony." + +=17. iron age.= In classic mythology, "The last of the four great ages +of the world described by Hesiod. Ovid, etc. It was supposed to +be characterized by abounding oppression, vice, and misery."-- +_International Dictionary_. The preceding ages, in order, were the +age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass. [197] + +=34-39=. Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was stung to death by a serpent, +and passed to the realm of the dead--Hades. Thither Orpheus descended, +and, by the charm of his lyre and song, persuaded Pluto to restore her +to life. This he consented to do on condition that she walk behind +her husband, who was not to look at her until they had arrived in +the upper world. Orpheus, however, looked back, thus violating the +conditions, and Eurydice was caught back into the infernal regions. + + "The ferry guard + Now would not row him o'er the lake again." + --LANDOR. + +=72. Rotha=. A small stream of the English Lake Region, on which Rydal +Mount, Wordsworth's burial-place, is situated. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY + +"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford who was by +his poverty forced to leave his studies there and at last to join +himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant +people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got +so much of their love and esteem that they discovered to him their +mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, +there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars who had formerly been of +his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the +gipsies, and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him +to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with +were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a +traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the +power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself +had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole +secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the +world an account of what he had learned."--GLANVIL'S _Vanity of +Dogmatizing_, 1661. [198] + + +=2. wattled cotes=. Sheepfolds. Probably suggested by Milton's + _Comus_, l. 344:-- + + "The folded flocks, penned in their _wattled cotes_." + +=9. Cross and recross=. Infinitives depending upon seen, l. 8. + +=13. cruse=. Commonly associated in thought with the story of Elijah +and the widow of Zarephath, 1 _Kings_, xvii: 8-16. + +=19. corn=. See note, l. 156, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=30. Oxford towers=. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire and the +seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities in Europe, +is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence of the +Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course the Isis). +It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the tops of +which command a fine view of the city with its domes and +towers."--BAEDEKER'S _Great Britain_, in his _Handbooks for +Travellers_. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, surely, +has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place +and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime, and more than one, +to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily." See also note, l. 19, +_Thyrsis_. + +=31. Glanvil's book=. See introductory note to poem. + +=42. erst=. Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=44-50=. See introductory note to poem. + +=57. Hurst=. Cumner (or Cumnor) Hurst, one of the Cumnor range of +hills, some two or three miles south and west of Oxford, is crowned +with a clump of cedars; hence the name "Hurst." + +=58. Berkshire moors=. Berkshire is the county, or shire, on the south +of Oxford County. + +=69. green-muffled=. Explain the epithet. + [199] +=74. Bablockhithe=. A small town some four miles west and a little +south of Oxford, on the Thames, which at that point is a mere stream +crossed by a ferry. This and numerous other points of interest in the +vicinity of Oxford are frequented by Oxford students; hence Arnold's +familiarity with them and his reference to them in this poem and +_Thyrsis_. See any atlas. + +=79. Wychwood bowers=. That is, Wychwood Forest, ten or twelve miles +north and west of Oxford. See note, l. 74. + +=83. To dance around the Fyfield elm in May=. Fyfield, a parish in +Berkshire, about six miles southwest of Oxford. The reference here is +to the "May-day" celebrations formerly widely observed in Europe, but +now nearly disappeared. The chief features of the celebration in Great +Britain are the gathering of hawthorn blossoms and other flowers, the +crowning of the May-queen and dancing around the May-pole--here the +Fyfield elm. See note, l. 74. Read Tennyson's poem, _The Queen o' the +May_. + +=91. Godstow Bridge=. Some two miles up the Thames from Oxford. + +=95. lasher pass=. An English term corresponding to our _mill race_. +The _lasher_ is the dam, or weir. + +=98. outlandish=. Analyze the word and determine meaning. + +=111. Bagley Wood=. South and west of Oxford, beyond South Hinksey. +See note, l. 125; also note, l. 74. + +=114. tagg'd=. That is, marked; the leaves being colored by frost. + +=115. Thessaly=. The northeastern district of ancient Greece, +celebrated in mythology. Here a forest ground near Bagley Wood. See +note, l. 111; also note, l. 74. + +=125. Hinksey=. North and South Hinksey are unimportant villages a +short distance out from Oxford in the Cumnor Hills. See note, l. 74. + [200] +=129. Christ Church hall=. The largest and most fashionable college +in Oxford; founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. The chapel of Christ +Church is also the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford. + +=130. grange=. Consult dictionary. + +=133. Glanvil=. Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. A noted English divine and +philosopher; author of a defence of belief in witchcraft. + +=140. red-fruited yew tree=. The yew tree is very common in English +burial-grounds. It grows slowly, lives long, has a dark, thick +foliage, and yields a red berry. See Wordsworth's celebrated poem, +_The Yew-Tree_. + +=141-170=. "This note of lassitude is struck often--perhaps too +often--in Arnold's poems."--DU PONT SYLE. See also _The Stanzas in +Memory of the Author of Obermann_. For the author's less despondent +mood, see his _Rugby Chapel_, included in this volume. + +=147. teen=. Grief, sorrow; from the old English _teona_, meaning +injury. + +=149. the just-pausing Genius=. Does the author here allude to death? + +=151. Thou hast not lived= (so). That is, as described in preceding +stanza. + +=152. Thou hadst one aim=, etc. What was the Scholar-Gipsy's _one_ +motive in life? + +=157-160. But thou possessest an immortal lot=, etc. Explain. + +=165. Which much to have tried=, etc. Which many attempts and many +failures bring. + +=180. do not we ... await it too=? That is, the spark from heaven. See +l. 171. + +=182-190=. Possibly Carlyle, although the author may have had in mind +a type rather than an individual. + +=208-209. Averse, as Dido did=, etc. Dido, the mythical queen of +Carthage, being deserted by her lover Æneas, slew herself. She +afterward met him on his journey through Hades, but turned from him in +scorn. + [201] + "In vain he thus attempts her mind to move + With tears and prayers and late repenting love; + Disdainfully she looked, then turning round + But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground, + And what he says and swears regards no more + Than the deaf rocks when the loud billows roar." + --DRYDEN'S _Translation_. + +For entire episode, see _Æneid_, vi, 450-476. + +=212. inviolable shade=. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. +Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this and the +preceding line. + +=214=. Why "silver'd" branches? + +=220=. dingles. Wooded dells. + +=231-250=. Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained +image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days of sick +unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. In the +course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt Hutton says of +this poem and this closing picture: "That most beautiful and graceful +poem on the _Scholar-Gipsy_ (the Oxford student who is said to have +forsaken academic study in order to learn, if it might be, those +potent secrets of nature, the traditions of which the gypsies are +supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a digression of the most vivid +beauty.... Nothing could illustrate better than this [closing] passage +Arnold's genius and his art.... His whole drift having been that +care and effort and gain and pressure of the world are sapping human +strength, he ends with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, +which exhibits human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could +quote poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant +digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of +melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is +still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to say, +but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the human +spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources +still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to +feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does not +teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it." [202] + +=232. As some grave Tyrian trader, etc=. Tyre, the second oldest and +most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a strong +competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean. + +=236. Ægean Isles=. The Ægean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean +lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the north, and +Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small islands, many of +which are famous in Greek mythology. + +=238. Chian wine=. Chios, or Scio, an island in the Ægean Sea (see +note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs. + +=239. tunnies=. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in the +Mediterranean Sea. + +=244. Midland waters=. The Mediterranean Sea. + +=245. Syrtes=. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, +the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, =soft Sicily=. Sicily +is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily." + +=247. western straits=. Strait of Gibraltar. + +=250. Iberians=. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by +Portugal and Spain. + +What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What quest is +to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join himself to the +gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, then, did he continue +with them till his death? Why would he avoid others than members of +the gipsy crew? Why his pensive air? To what truth does the author +suddenly awake? How does the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain +fully lines 180-200. Note carefully the author's contrast between the +life led by the Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better? +Why? Make an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it +apt? Why used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted +to the theme of the poem? [203] + + + + +THYRSIS + +A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, who +died at Florence, 1861. + +Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a +sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English +language. + +Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. In +the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in the +Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has come +to mean any rustic. + +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin in spirit +to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He studied at both +Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately associated and +became fast friends. In 1869 his health began to fail, and two years +later he died in Florence, Italy, where he had gone in the hope of +being benefited by the climate. + +Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his poem: +"Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the Thyrsis was +modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been much reading during +the two years this poem has been forming itself, and that I meant the +diction to be so artless as to be almost heedless. However, there is +a mean which must not be passed, and before I reprint this I will +consider well all objections. The images are all from actual +observation.... The cuckoo in the wet June morning, I heard in the +garden at Woodford, and all those three stanzas, which you like, are +reminiscences of Woodford. Edward has, I think, fixed on the two +stanzas I myself like best: 'O easy access,' and 'And long the way +appears.' I also like 'Where is the girl,' and the stanza before it; +but that is because they bring certain places and moments before +me.... It is probably too quiet a poem for the general taste, but I +think it will stand wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold +wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I think, +solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had long been +in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, and, when I +began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You say, truly, that +there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic side, in fact) which one +cannot deal with in this way.... Still, Clough had the idyllic side, +too; to deal with this suited my desire to deal again with that Cumner +country. Anyway, only so could I treat the matter this time. _Valeat +quantum_." [204] + + +=1.= Note how the tone of the poem is struck in the first line. + +=2. In the two Hinkseys.= That is, North and South Hinksey. See note, +l. 125, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=4. Sibylla's name.= In ancient mythology the Sibyls were certain +women reputed to possess special powers of prophecy, or divination, +and who claimed to make special intercession with the gods in behalf +of those who resorted to them. Do you see why their "name" would be +used on signs as here mentioned? + +=6. ye hills.= See note, l. 30, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=14. Ilsley Downs.= The surface of East and West Ilsley parishes, in +Berkshire, some twelve or fourteen miles south of Oxford, is broken by +ranges of plateau-like hills, known in England as _downs_. + +=15. The Vale.= White Horse Vale; the upper valley of the River Ock, +westward from Oxford. =weirs=. See note, l. 95, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + [205] +=19. And that sweet city with her dreaming spires.= Arnold's intense +love for Oxford and the surrounding country appears in many of his +essays and poems. In the introduction to his _Essays on Criticism_, +Vol. I, occurs the following tribute: "Beautiful city! so venerable, +so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our +century, so serene! + + 'There are our young barbarians all at play!' + +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments to +the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment of +the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, +keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, +to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from +another side?... Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and +unpopular names and impossible loyalties! what example could ever so +inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher +could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all prone, +that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of +Schiller, makes it his friend's highest praise ... to have left miles +out of sight behind him: the bondage of 'was uns alle bändigt, Das +Gemeine'?" + +=20.= Compare with Lowell's lines on June, in _The Vision of Sir +Launfal_. + +=22-23.= Explain. + +=24. Once pass'd I blindfold here.= That is, at one time I could have +passed here blindfolded, being so familiar with the country. Can you +think of any other possible interpretation? + +=26-30.= Explain. + +=31-40.= Compare the thought here to that of Milton's _Lycidas_, ll. +23-38. A comparison of the two poems entire, in thought and structure, +will be found to be both interesting and profitable. =Shepherd-pipe= +(l. 35). The term =pipe=, also reed (l. 78), is continually used in +pastoral verse as symbolic of poetry and song. [206] + +=38-45. Needs must I lose them=, etc. That is, I must lose them, etc. +Arnold's great ambition was to devote his life to literature, which +circumstances largely prevented; while Clough was eager to take a more +active part in life, not being content with the uneventful career of a +poet, =irk'd= (l. 40). Annoyed; worried. =keep= (l. 43). Here used in +the sense of remain, =silly= (l. 45). Harmless; senseless. The word has +an interesting history. + +=46-50=. Like Arnold, Clough held lofty ideals of life, and grieved to +see men living so far below their privileges. This, with his loss +of faith in God, tinged his poetry with sadness. The storms (l. 49) +allude to the spiritual, political, and social unrest of the last of +the first half, and first of the last half, of the nineteenth century. + +=51-60. So ... So....= Just as the cuckoo departs with the bloom of +the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. =With blossoms red and white= +(l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common in English gardens. + +=62. high Midsummer pomps=. Explained in the following lines. + +=71. light comer=. That is, the cuckoo. Compare + + "O blithe New-comer." + --WORDSWORTH, _Lines to the Cuckoo_. + +=77. swains=. Consult dictionary. + +=78. reed=. See note, l. 35 of poem. + +=79. And blow a strain the world at last shall heed=. On the whole, +Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by the +reviewers. + +=80. Corydon=. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis, +shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music. + +=84. Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate=. Bion of Smyrna, Asia Minor, +a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent the later +years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was poisoned. +His untimely death was lamented by his follower and pupil, Moschus of +Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and genuine pathos. =ditty=. +In a general sense, any song; usually confined, however, to a song +narrating some heroic deed. [207] + +=85. cross the unpermitted ferry's flow=. That is, cross the river +of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to Hades. +Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry being +passed by mortals. See note, ll. 34-39, _Memorial Verses_; also ll. +207-210, _The Scholar-Gipsy_, of this volume. + +=88-89. Proserpine=, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the +underworld, was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as +the goddess of the spring. + +=90. And flute his friend like Orpheus=, etc. See note, ll. 34-39, +_Memorial Verses_. + +=94. She knew the Dorian water's gush divine=. The river Alpheus, +in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus--the country of the +Dorians--disappears from the surface and flows in subterranean +channels for some considerable part of its course to the sea. In +ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again to the surface in +central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite haunt of Proserpine, +as the fountain of Arethusa. + +=95-96. She knew each lily white which Enna yields=, etc. According to +Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers in the vale of Enna +when carried off by Pluto. + +=97. She loved the Dorian pipe=, etc. What reason or reasons can you +give for Proserpine's love of things Dorian? + +=106. I know the Fyfield tree=. See l. 83, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=109. Ensham, Sanford=. Small towns on the Thames; the former, some +four miles above Oxford; the latter, a like distance below. + +=123. Wytham flats=. Some three miles above Oxford, along the Thames. + [208] +=135. sprent. Sprinkled=. The preterit or past participle of _spreng_ +(obsolete or archaic). + +=141-150=. Explain. + +=155. Berkshire=. See note, l. 58, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=167. Arno-vale=. The valley of the Arno, a river in Tuscany, Italy, +on which Florence is situated. + +=175. To a boon ... country he has fled=. That is, to Italy. + +=177. the great Mother=. Ceres, the earth goddess. + +=181-190=. Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral +poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, +who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the +power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make +strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to +death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, +took upon himself the reaping contest with Lityerses, overcame him, +and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, +like the Linus-song, one of the early, plaintive strains of Greek +popular poetry, and used to be sung by the corn reapers. Other +traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph, who exacted from +him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and +was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, +raised him to heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from +which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly +sacrifices. See Servius, _Comment, in Vergil. Bucol_., V, 20, and +VIII, 68. + +=191-200=. Explain the lines. =Sole= (l. 192). See l. 563, _Sohrab and +Rustum_. =soft sheep= (l. 198). Note the use of the adjective _soft_. +Cf. _soft Sicily_, l. 245, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=201-202. A fugitive and gracious light=, etc. What is the light +sought by the Scholar-Gipsy and by the poet? Beginning with l. 201, +explain the succeeding stanzas, sentence by sentence, to the close of +the poem. Then sum up the thought in a few words. + [209] +What is the author's mood, as shown by the first stanza? What is his +purpose in recalling the haunts once familiar to him about Oxford? +Why the mention of the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the significance of the +"tree" so frequently alluded to in the poem? Discuss stanzas 4 and 5 +as to meaning. To what is Thyrsis (Clough) likened in stanzas 6, 7, +and 8? Where, however, is there a difference? Apply ll. 81-84 to +Clough and Arnold. How do you explain the "easy access" of the Dorian +shepherds to Proserpine, l. 91? What digression is made in ll. +131-150? What is the poet's attitude toward life? Why will he not +despair so long as the "lonely tree" remains? What comparison does +he make between Clough and the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the "gracious +light," l. 201? Where found? What voice whispers to him amid the +"heart-wearying roar" of the city? What effect does it have upon him? +Does it give him courage or fortitude? Discuss the verse form and +diction of the poem. + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL + +_Rugby Chapel_ (1857), one of Arnold's best-known and most +characteristic productions, was written in memory of his father, Dr. +Thomas Arnold, famous as the great head-master at Rugby. Dr. Arnold +was born at East Cowes in the Isle of Wight, June 13, 1795, and as a +boy was at school at Warminster and Winchester. In 1811 he entered +Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and having won recognition as a +scholar, was awarded a fellowship of the Oriel in 1815. Three years +later he settled at Laleham, where, in 1820, he married Mary Penrose, +daughter of Justice Penrose, and where, two years later, was born +Matthew, who was destined to win marked distinction among English men +of letters. In 1827 he was elected head-master at Rugby, and shortly +afterward began those important reforms which have placed him among +the greatest educators of his century. Chief among his writings is +his _History of Rome_, published in several volumes. In 1841 he was +appointed Regius Professor of History at Oxford. He died very suddenly +on Sunday, June 12, 1842, and on the following Friday his remains +were interred in the chancel of Rugby Chapel, immediately under the +communion table. [210] + +In his poem Arnold has drawn a vivid picture of a strong, helpful, +hopeful, unselfish soul, cheering and supporting his weaker comrades +in their upward and onward march--a picture of the guide and companion +of his earlier years; and in so doing he has preserved his father's +memory to posterity in a striking and an abiding way. + + +=1-13=. Note carefully the tone of these introductory lines, and +determine the poet's purpose in opening the poem in this mood. The +picture inevitably calls to mind Bryant's lines, _The Death of +Flowers_. + +=16. gloom=. The key-word to the preceding lines. Explain why it calls +to mind the poet's father. Keats makes a similar use of the word +_forlorn_ in his _Ode to the Nightingale_. + + "... forlorn. + Forlorn! the very word is like a bell + To toll me back from thee to my sole self." + +=30-33=. Discuss the figure as to its aptness. + +=37. shore=. A word common to hymns. + +=38-57=. Discuss the poet's idea of the future life as set forth in +these lines. Can you think of any other author or authors who have +held a like view? + +=58-59=. The poet asks this question only to answer it in the lines +following. Compare and contrast the two classes of men spoken of; +their aims in life and their achievements. Why is the path of those +who have chosen a "clear-purposed goal" pictured so difficult? Who are +they that start well, but fall out by the wayside? [211] + +=90-93=. Compare with Byron's description of a storm in the Alps, +Canto III, _Childe Harold_. + + "Far along, + From peak to peak, the rattling crags among + Leaps the live thunder." + +=98-101=. So unstable is the hold of the "snow-beds" on the mountain +sides that travellers passing beneath them are forbidden by the guides +to speak, lest their voices precipitate an avalanche. See ll. 160-169, +_Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=117-123=. What human frailties are indicated in the answer to the +host's question? Note the contrast in the succeeding lines. + +=124-144=. The imagery of these lines is drawn from Dr. Arnold's +life at Rugby. Under his care frequent excursions were made into the +neighboring Westmoreland Hills. Nothing perhaps gives a better idea of +the man than the description of his "delight in those long mountain +walks, when they would start with their provisions for the day, +himself the guide and life of the party, always on the lookout how +best to break the ascent by gentle stages, comforting the little ones +in their falls and helping forward those who were tired, himself +always keeping with the laggers, that none might strain their strength +by trying to be in front with him; and then, when his assistance was +not wanted, the liveliest of all--his step so light, his eye so +quick in finding flowers to take home to those who were not of the +party."--ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY. + +=171. In the rocks=. That is, among the rocks. + +=190. Ye=. Antecedent? + +=208. City of God=. + + "There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the _city of + God_." + --_Psalms_, xlvi: 4. + + * * * * * + + + +INDEX TO NOTES + +Abbey towers, 192. +Ader-baijan, 166. +Ægean Isles, 202, +Afrasiab, 156. +Agog, 188. +Ajax, 189. +Alcmena's dreadful son, 182. +All red ... bathed in foam, 170. +Aloof he sits, etc., 159. +And that ... more, 169, +Ariosto, 192. +Arno-vale, 208. +Art, 180. +Arthur's court, 169. +Art them not Rustum? 160. +Asopus, 181. +As some grave Tyrian trader, etc., 202 +As when some hunter, etc., 162. +At my boy's years, 156. +Attruck, 158. +_Austerity of Poetry_, 194. +Averse, as Dido did, etc., 200. + +Bablockhithe, 199. +Bagley Wood, 199. +Bahrein, 160. +Beethoven, 192. +Be govern'd, 160. +Belgrave Square, 195. +Bell, 166. +Berkshire moors, 198. +Bethnal Green, 195. +Blessed sign, 171. +Blow a strain the world at last shall heed, 206. +Bokhara, 157. +Bow'd his head, 161. +Breathed on by rural Pan, 178. +Broce-liande, 174. +Bruited up, 162. +Byron, 196. +By thy father's head, 160. + +Cabin'd, 177. +Cabool, 159. +Caked the sand, 163. +Casbin, 157. +Centaurs, 181. +Chambery, 176. +Chancel, 176. +Chatelaine, 170. +Chian wine, 202. +Chiel, 188. +Chisell'd broideries, 176. +Chorasma, 163. +Chorasmian stream, 181. +Christ Church hall, 199 +Cirque, 172. +City of God, 211. +Clusters of lonely mounds, 181 +Cobham, 187. +Common chance, 156. +Common fight, 156. +_Consolation_, 177. +Cool gallery, 177. +Corn, 158. +Corselet, 162. +Corydon,206. +Crest, 161. +Cross and recross, 198. +Cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, 207. +Cruse, 198. +Cunning, 162. +Curdled, 161. + +Dais, 176. +Dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 199. +Dante, 192. +Daphnis, 208. +Daulis, 185. +Dearer to the red jackals, etc., 162. +Destiny, 178. +Device, 160. +Dight, 160. +Dingles, 201. +Ditty, 207. +Dogg'd, 172. +Do not we ... await it too? 200. +_Dover Beach_, 183. + +_East London_, 195. +Empire, 174. +Ensham, 207. +_Epilogue to Rising's Laocoön_, 191. +Erst, 198. +Eternal passion! eternal pain! 185, +Eurydice, 197. +Even clime, 194.-- + +Falcon, 159. +Fane, 180. +Farringford, 187. +Faun with torches, 183. +Favour'd guest of Circe, 180. +Fay,170. +Fay, 174. +Fell-fare, 173. +Ferghana, 158. +Ferment the milk of mares, 157. +Fight unknown and in plain arms,159. +Find a father thou hast never seen,156. +First grey of morning fill'd the east, 155. +Fix'd, 158. +Flowers, 160. +Flute his friend, like Orpheus,' etc., 207. +Foliaged marble forest, 177. +Foolish, 195. +For a cloud, etc., 161. +Fretwork, 176. +Frore, 157. +Fugitive and gracious light, etc. 208. +Full struck, 161. + +Geist, 188. +_Geist's Grave_, 191. +Girl's wiles, 161. +Glad, 161. +Glancing, 161. +Glanvil, 200. +Glanvil's book, 198. +Glass, 162. +Gloom, 210. +Godstow Bridge, 199. +Goethe, 192. +Goethe in Weimar sleeps, 196. +Go to! 159. +Grand Old Man, 188. +Grange, 200. +Great Mother, 208. +Green isle, 169. +Green-muffled, 199. +Griffin, 162. +Gulls, 173. + +Hair that red, 164. +Haman, 157. +Happy Islands, 181. +Hark ... sun, 166. +Have found, 162. +Heap a stately mound, etc., 163. +Heaths starr'd with broom, 166. +Heats, 194. +Hebrides, 164. +Hector, 189. +Helen, 190. +Helm, 161. +Helmund, 163. +Hera's anger, 181. +Heroes, 182. +He spoke ... men, 159. +Hies, 193. +High Midsummer pomps, 206. +Hinksey, 199. +His long rambles ... ground, 170. +Hollow, 161. +Holly trees and juniper, 172. +Holy Lassa, 177. +Holy well, 166. +Homer, 193. +Homily, 191. +Honied nothings, 172. +How thick the bursts, etc., 185. +Huge world, 178. +_Human Life_,186. +Hurrying fever, 194. +Hurst, 198. +Hurtling Polar lights, 164. +Hydaspes, 161. +Hyde Park, 191. +Hyphasis, 161. + +Iacchus, 180. +Iberians, 202. +I came ... passing wind, 162. +I know the Fyfield tree, 207. +Ilsley Downs, 204. +Incognisable, 186. +Indian Caucasus, 159. +In his light youth, 194. +Inly-written chart, 186. +Inviolable shade, 201. +Iran, 159. +Irk'd, 206. +Iron age, 196. +Iron coast, 173. +Iseult, 169. +Is Merlin prisoner, etc., 174. +_Isolation_, 186. +Is she not come? 168. +Ivy-cinctured, 179. + +Jaxartes, 158. +Joppa, 164. +Joy, 194. +Just-pausing Genius, 200. + +Kai Khosroo, 159. +_Kaiser Dead_, 187. +Kalmucks, 158. +Kara Kul, 157. +Keep, 206. +Ken, 195. +Kept uninfringed my nature's law, 186. +Khiva, 157. +Khorassan, 158. +Kindled, 161. +King Marc, 169. +Kipchak, 158. +Kirghizzes, 158. +Kohik, 163. +Kuzzaks, 158. + +Lapithæ, 182. +Lasher pass, 199. +Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard, 170. +Leads, 177. +Leaguer, 171. +Leper recollect, 164. +Light comer, 206. +Like that autumn star, 161. +Like that bold Cæsar, etc., 173. +_Lines Written in Kensington Gardens_, 178. +Lion's heart, 159. +Lions sleeping, 180. +Lips that rarely form them now, 191. +Lityerses, 208. +Loud Tyntagel's hill, 169. +Lovely orphan child, 170. +Luminous home, 163. +Lyoness, 169. + +Mænad, 183. +Mail, 166. +Marcus Aurelius, 194. +Margaret, 165. +Matin-chime, 176. +_Memorial Verses_, 196. +Mendelssohn, 192. +Midland waters, 202. +Milk-barr'd onyx-stones, 181. +Miserere Domine, 192. +Moon, 187. +Moonstruck knight, 171. +Moorghab, 163. +Mountain-chalets, 176. +Movement, 193 +Mozart, 192. +Muses, 180. +My princess ... good night, 171. + +Needs must I lose them, etc., 206. +Never was that field lost or that foe saved, 160. +New bathed stars, 163. +Northern Sir, 163. +Nymphs, 180. + +O'er ... sea, 169. +Of age and looks, etc., 162. +Old-world Breton history, 173. +Once pass'd I blindfold here, 205. +One lesson, 193. +One slight helpless girl, 159. +On that day, 163. +Orgunje, 163. +Orpheus, 197. +Outlandish, 199. +Oxford towers, 198. +Oxus, 155. +O wanderer from a Grecian shore, 184. + +Painter and musician too, 193. +_Palladium_, 189. +Palmers, 176. +Pamere, 156. +Pan's flute music, 180. +Passing weary, 175. +Pausanias, 191. +Pelion, 181. +Pen-bryn's bold bard, 187. +Peran-Wisa, 156. +Persepolis, 163. +Persian King, 157. +Perused, 160. +Petrarch, 192. +_Philomela_ 184. +Phoebus-guarded ground, 191. +Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate, 206. +Pleasaunce-walks, 169. +Posting here and there, 173. +Potsdam, 188. +Prick'd upon this arm, etc., 162. +Prickers, 176. +Prie-dieu, 173. +Priest, 166. +Prince Alexander, 174. +Prore, 186. +Proserpine, 207. + +_Quiet Work_, 193. + +Range, 180. +Raphael, 192. +Rates, 195. +Recks not, 171. +Red-fruited yew tree, 200. +Reed, 205. +Remember all thy valour, 161. +_Requiescat_, 177. +Ride, 192. +Right for the polar star, 163. +Roman Emperor, 171. +Rotha, 197. +Rout, 180. +_Rugby Chapel_, 209. +Rustum! 161. + +Sackcloth, 194. +_Saint Brandan_, 164. +Samarcand, 156. +Sandford, 207. +Sate, 159. +Savoy, 176. +Sconce, 172. +Scythian ... embers, 181. +Seal'd, 166. +Secret in his breast, 171. +See what the day brings, 180. +Seistan, 156. +_Self-Dependence_, 190. +Self-murder, 164. +Seneschal, 173. +Shakespeare, 193. +_Shakespeare_, 193. +She knew each lily white which Enna yields, etc., 207. +She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, 207. +She loved the Dorian pipe, etc., 207. +Shepherd-pipe, 205. +Shore, 161. +Sibylla's name, 204. +Silenus, 183. +Silly, 206. +Simois, 189. +Skye, 188. +Snow-haired Zal, 159. +Soft sheep, 208. +Soft Sicily, 202. +_Sohrab and Rustum_, 149. +Sole, 162. +Son of Italy, 194. +Sophocles, 183. +So ... So ..., 206. +Soudan, 174. +South, 192. +Spitalfields, 195. +Sprent, 208. +Stagshorn, 173. +Stem, 186. +Stranger-knight, ill-starr'd, 170. +Strange unloved uproar, 178. +Style, 162. +Sunk, 156. +Sun sparkled, etc., 161. +Swains, 206. +Syrtes, 202. + +Tagg'd, 199. +Tale, 160. +Tartar camp, 155. +Tasso, 192. +Teen, 200. +Tejend, 163. +That old king, 162. +That sweet city with her dreaming spires, 205. +Thebes, 181. +_The Church of Brou_, 176. +_The Forsaken Merman_, 165. +_The Last Word_, 188. +There, go! etc., 157. +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, 197. +Thessaly, 199. +_The Strayed Reveller_, 179. +Thine absent master, 191. +Thou had'st one aim, etc., 200. +Thou hast not lived, 200. +Thou possessest an immortal lot etc., 200. +Thou wilt not fright me so, 160. +Thracian wild, 184. +_Thyrsis_, 203. +Tiresias, 181. +Titans, 196. +To a boon ... country he has fled, 208. +Too clear web, etc., 185. +Toorkmuns, 158. +Tower'd, 160. +Transept, 176. +Tried, 160. +_Tristram and Iseult_, 167. +Troy, 182. +Tukas, 158. +Tunnies, 202. +Tyntagel, 169. + +Ulysses, 180. +Unconscious hand, 162. +Unknown sea, 182. +Unnatural, 161. + +Vacant, 192. +Vale, 204. +Vast, 160. +Vasty, 177. +Vaunt, 160. +Virgilian cry, 191. + +Wanders, 169. +Wattled cotes, 198. +Weirs, 204. +Welcomed here, 170. +Western straits, 202. +_West London_, 195. +What boots it, 171. +What endless active life, 178. +What foul fiend rides thee? 171. +Whether that ... or in some quarrel, 157. +Which much to have tried, etc., 200. +Wild white horses, 165. +Wimple, 174. +With a bitter smile, etc., 161. +With blossoms red and white, 206. +Wordsworth, 192. +_Worldly Place_, 194. +Wrack, 161. +Wychwood bowers, 199. +Wytham flats, 207. + +Xanthus, 189. + +Yellow Tiber, 177. +Yes, 187. +_Youth's Agitations_, 194. + +Zal, 157. +Zirrah, 163. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and +Other Poems, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13364 *** diff --git a/13364-h/13364-h.htm b/13364-h/13364-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4422ac --- /dev/null +++ b/13364-h/13364-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9523 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + + <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" + content="text/html; 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+ margin-left: 35%; + width: 30%; + } + + hr.full {width: 70%; + color: black; + } + + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 15%; + margin-left: 15%; + width: 70%; + } + + a:link { + color: #000000; + text-decoration: none; + } + + a:visited { + color: #000000; + text-decoration: none; + } + + a:hover { + color: #ffffff; + background: #009900; + text-decoration: none; + } + + a:active { + color: #009900; + background: #ffffff; + text-decoration: underline; + } + + </style> + </head> + + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13364 ***</div> + +<br /> + +<h2>MATTHEW ARNOLD'S</h2> +<br /> +<h1>SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</h1> +<br /> +<h3>AND OTHER POEMS</h3> +<br /><br /> +<h4>EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES<br /><br /> + +BY</h4> + +<h3>JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN</h3><br /> + +<h4>HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION<br /> +HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE</h4><br /><br /> + +<h5>1905</h5> + + + + +<hr /> + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3><span class="left">[p.vii]</span> + +<p class="contents"> +PREFACE<br /><br /> + +INTRODUCTION<br /> + + <a href="#LIFE">A Short Life of Arnold</a><br /> + <a href="#POET">Arnold the Poet</a><br /> + <a href="#CRITIC">Arnold the Critic</a><br /> + <a href="#LIST">Chronological List of Arnold's Works</a><br /> + <a href="#CONTEMPORARY">Contemporary Authors</a><br /> + <a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">Bibliography</a> +<br /><br /><br /> +SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS +<br /><br /> + NARRATIVE POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#SOHRAB">Sohrab and Rustum</a><br /> + <a href="#BRANDAN">Saint Brandan</a><br /> + <a href="#FORSAKEN">The Forsaken Merman</a><br /> + <a href="#ISEULT">Tristram and Iseult</a><br /><br /> + + LYRICAL POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#CHURCH">The Church of Brou</a><br /> + <a href="#REQ">Requiescat</a><br /> + <a href="#CON">Consolation</a><br /> + <a href="#DREAM">A Dream</a><br /> + <a href="#KENSINGTON">Lines written in Kensington Gardens</a><br /> + <a href="#REVELLER">The Strayed Reveller</a><br /> + <a href="#MOR">Morality</a><br /> + <a href="#BEACH">Dover Beach</a><br /> + <a href="#PHI">Philomela</a><br /> + <a href="#HUMANLIFE">Human Life</a><br /> + <a href="#ISOL">Isolation—To Marguerite</a><br /> + <a href="#DEAD">Kaiser Dead</a><br /> + <a href="#WORD">The Last Word</a><br /> + <a href="#PAL">Palladium</a><br /> + <a href="#REVOLUTIONS">Revolutions</a><br /> + <a href="#DEPENDENCE">Self-Dependence</a><br /> + <a href="#NIGHT">A Summer Night</a><br /> + <a href="#GRAVE">Geist's Grave</a><br /> + <a href="#LAOCOON">Epilogue—To Lessing's LAOCOON</a><br /><br /> + + SONNETS<br /><br /> + <a href="#WORK">Quiet Work</a><br /> + <a href="#SHAKESPEARE">Shakespeare</a><br /> + <a href="#AGITATIONS">Youth's Agitations</a><br /> + <a href="#POETRY">Austerity of Poetry</a><br /> + <a href="#PLACE">Worldly Place</a><br /> + <a href="#EASTLON">East London</a><br /> + <a href="#WESTLON">West London</a><br /><br /> + + ELEGIAC POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#VERSES">Memorial Verses</a><br /> + <a href="#GIPSY">The Scholar-Gipsy</a><br /> + <a href="#THYR">Thyrsis</a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPEL">Rugby Chapel</a><br /><br /><br /> + + <a href="#NOTES">NOTES</a><br /><br /><br /> + <a href="#INDEX">INDEX<br /><br /></a> + + + + +</p> + <hr /> + + + +<h3><a name="LIFE">INTRODUCTION</a></h3><span class="left">[p.ix]</span> + + +<h4>A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD</h4> +<p> +Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village +of Laleham, Middlesex County, England, December +24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, best +remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and in +later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and +of Mary Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character +and intellect.</p> +<p> +Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from +the eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story +of Arnold's life is soon told. As a boy he lived the life +of the normal English lad, with its healthy routine of +task and play. He was at school at both Laleham and +Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention +as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was +elected to an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, +and the next year matriculated for his university work. +Arnold's career at Oxford was a memorable one. While +here he was associated with such men as John Duke +Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, +John Henry Newman, Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, +closest of all, with Arthur Hugh Clough, whose early<span class="left">[p.x]</span> +death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac poem—<i>Thyrsis</i>. +Among this brilliant company Arnold moved +with ease, the recognized favorite. Having taken the +Newdigate prize for English verse, and also having won +a scholarship, he was graduated with honors in 1844, and +in March of the following year had the additional distinction +of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning +glory of an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics +for a short time at Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the +post of private secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, +Lord President of the Council, which position he occupied +until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of +Schools by the Committee on Education. The same +year he married Frances Lucy Wightman, daughter of +Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the Queen's +Bench.</p> +<p> +Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the +history of England's public schools. For more than +thirty-five years he served as inspector and commissioner, +which offices he filled with efficiency. As inspector he +was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike by +teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his +appearance to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the +admission of a ray of light when a shutter is suddenly +opened in a darkened room. All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing +children, and kindly sympathetic teachers, more +than excellence in grade reports. In connection with the +duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently <span class="left">[p.xi]</span> +on the Continent to inquire into foreign methods +of primary and secondary education. Here he found +much that was worth while, and often carried back to +London larger suggestions and ideas than the national +mind was ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, +the school system of England was extensively revised +and improved. He resigned his position under the +Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years +before his death.</p> +<p> +In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His +first volume of verse, <i>The Strayed Reveller and Other +Poems</i>, appeared (1848), and although quietly received, +slowly won its way into public favor. The next year the +narrative poem, <i>The Sick King in Bokhara</i>, came out, and +was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under +the title of <i>Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems</i>. By +this time Arnold's reputation as a poet was established, +and in 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, +where he began his career as a lecturer, in which +capacity he twice visited America. <i>Merope, a Tragedy</i> +(1856) and a volume under the title of <i>New Poems</i> +(1869) finish the list of his poetical works, with the exception +of occasional verses.</p> +<p> +Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist +wholly of critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly +with the greater issues of his day. As will be seen by +their titles (see page xxxviii of this volume), the subject-matter +of these essays is of very great scope, embracing +in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and popular +religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence<span class="left">[p.xii]</span> +on public thought and stamped himself as one of the +ablest critics and reformers of the last century. Arnold's +life was thus one of many widely diverse activities and was +at all times deeply concerned with practical as well as with +literary affairs; and on no side was it deficient in human +sympathies and relations. He won respect and reputation +while he lived, and his works continue to attract +men's minds, although with much unevenness. It has +been said of him that, of all the modern poets, except +Goethe, he was the best critic, and of all the modern +critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet. +He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his +daughter returning from America, April 15, 1888. By +his death the world lost an acute and cultured critic, a +refined writer, an earnest educational reformer, and a +noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham.</p> +<p> +Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been +made the subject for a biography. By means of his letters, +his official reports, and statements of his friends, +however, one is able to trace the successive stages of his +career, as he steadily grew in honor and public usefulness. +Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus +presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The +subjoined appreciations have been selected with a view +of giving the student a glimpse of Arnold as he appeared +to unprejudiced minds.</p> +<p> +One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: +"His perfect self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, +the humorous turn which he could give to any subject<span class="left">[p.xiii]</span> +that he handled, his gaiety, audacity, and unfailing command +of words, made him one of the most popular and +successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known."</p> +<p> +"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, +yet full of dreams and schemes. His Olympian manners +began even at Oxford: there was no harm in them: they +were natural, not put on. The very sound of his voice +and wave of his arm were Jove-like."—PROFESSOR MAX MÃœLLER.</p> +<p> +"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. +He conspired and contrived to make things pleasant. +Pedantry he abhorred. He was a man of this life +and this world. A severe critic of this world he indeed +was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing +what is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, +he set himself to make the best of it. Its sights and +sounds were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling fern, the +eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing at our +sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' +the vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways +and tricks, whether of mind or manner, all delighted, +amused, tickled him."</p><br /> + + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, +he was of the earth earthy.... His mind was based on +the plainest possible things. What he hated most was +the fantastic—the far-fetched, all-elaborated fancies and +strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track +of human experience, and the broader the better. He<span class="left">[p.xiv]</span> +was a plain-sailing man. This is his true note."—MR. +AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.</p> +<p> +"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest +of anybody to his own; he had not a spark of envy or +jealousy; he stood well aloof from all the bustlings and +jostlings by which selfish men push on; he bore life's +disappointments—and he was disappointed in some +reasonable hopes—with good nature and fortitude; he +cast no burden upon others, and never shrank from +bearing his own share of the daily load to the last ounce +of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and most active +interest in the well-being of his country and his countrymen."—MR. +JOHN MORLEY.</p> +<p> +In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks +of the poet's personality as revealed by his letters in the +following beautiful manner: "Few who did not know +Arnold could have been prepared for the revelation of a +nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every relation +of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional +constancy and plainness.... Every one must +take delight in the mental association with Arnold in the +scenes of his existence ... and in his family affections. +A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, fond +of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, +and with it a character so founded upon the rock, so +humbly serviceable, so continuing in power and grace, +must wake in all the responses of happy appreciation +and leave the charm of memory.</p> +<p> +"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither<span class="left">[p.xv]</span> +resolve nor effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, +and he never failed, seemingly, in act or word of +sympathy, in little or great things; and when to this one +adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where he +habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity +of his home, the gift that these letters bring may +be appreciated. That gift is the man himself, but set in +the atmosphere of home, with sonship and fatherhood, +sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years fully +accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood—a +sweet and wholesome English home, with all the cloud +and sunshine of the English world drifting over its roof-trees, +and the soil of England beneath its stones, and +English duties for the breath of its being. To add such +a home to the household rights of English Literature is +perhaps something from which Arnold would have shrunk, +but it endears his memory."</p> + +<p class="indent"> + "It may be overmuch<br /> +He shunned the common stain and smutch,<br /> + From soilure of ignoble touch<br /> + Too grandly free,<br /> + Too loftily secure in such<br /> + Cold purity;<br /> +But he preserved from chance control<br /> +The fortress of his established soul,<br /> +In all things sought to see the whole;<br /> + Brooked no disguise,<br /> +And set his heart upon the goal,<br /> + Not on the prize."<br /> + +—MR. WILLIAM WATSON, <i>In Laleham Churchyard</i>.</p> + + +<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /> + +<h4>ARNOLD THE <a name="POET">POET</a></h4><span class="left">[p.xvi]</span> +<p> +Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. +No other author of modern times, perhaps no other +English author of any time, appeals so directly as he +to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of his +pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. +He is always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for +a word or phrase; and on the whole, his judgments are +good. Between his prose and verse, however, there is +a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual quality. +True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical +courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness +of phrase and manner; and is, in equal degree, the output +of a singularly sane and noble nature; but here the +comparison ends; for, while his prose is often stormy +and contentious, his poetry has always about it an +atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference +is not far to seek. His poetry, written in early +manhood, reflects his inner self, the more lovable side +of his nature; while his prose presents the critic and +the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and permitting +at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he +endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment +with themselves and their surroundings.</p> +<p> +With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's +poetical career began and ended inside of twenty years. +The reason for this can only be conjectured, and need +not be dwelt upon here. But although his poetic life<span class="left">[p.xvii]</span> +was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking +well up among the literary productions of the last century. +As a popular poet, however, he will probably never class +with Tennyson or Longfellow. His poems are too coldly +classical and too unattractive in subject to appeal to the +casual reader, who is, generally speaking, inclined toward +poetry of the emotions rather than of the intellect—Arnold's +usual kind. That he recognized this himself, +witness the following quiet statements made in letters +to his friends: "My poems are making their way, I think, +though slowly, and are perhaps never to make way very +far. There must always be some people, however, to +whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm.... They +represent, on the whole, the main movement +of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they +will probably have their day, as people become conscious +to themselves of what that movement of mind is, +and interested in the literary productions which reflect +it." Time has verified the accuracy of this judgment. +In short, Arnold has made a profound rather than a +wide impression. To a few, however, of each generation, +he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"—a poet with +a purpose and a message.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Poetic Culture</b>.—Obviously, the sources of +Arnold's culture were classical. As one critic has tersely +said, "He turned over his Greek models by day and by +night." Here he found his ideal standards, and here he +brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his +thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and<span class="left">[p.xviii]</span> +Epictetus (of mood congenial with his own) were props +of his mind, as were Sophocles, "who saw life steadily +and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he called +the purest of men. These like natures afforded him +repose and consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry +and Greek philosophy appealed profoundly to him. Of +the Greek poets he wrote: "No other poets have lived so +much by the imaginative reason; no other poets have +made their works so well balanced; no other poets have +so well satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied +the religious sense." More than any other English +poet he prized the qualities of measure, proportion, and +restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, and high seriousness, +conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the substance +of true poetry. In explaining his own position as +to his art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn +and practise, amid the bewildering confusion of our times, +what is sound and true in poetic art, I seem, to myself to +find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among +the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted +in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is +disheartening, and not hostile criticism." And again: +"The radical difference between the poetic theory of the +Greeks and our own is this: that with them, the poetical +character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, +was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed +mainly on the value of separate thoughts and images +which occur in the treatment of an action. They regard +the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems which<span class="left">[p.xix]</span> +seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, +and not for the sake of producing any total impression. +We have critics who seem to direct their +attention merely to detached expressions, to the language +about the action, not the action itself. I verily believe +that the majority of them do not believe that there is +such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a +poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will +permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to +suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies +them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with +a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is, they +permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided +that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their +curiosity."</p> +<p> +Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his +ideas of that unity which gratifies the poetical sense, +and has approached very close to his Greek models in +numerous instances; most notably so in his great epic or +narrative poem, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>, which is dealt with +elsewhere in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do +better than to quote for our consideration at this time, a +fine synthesis of Mr. Arthur Galton. He says: "In +Matthew Arnold's style and in his manner, he seems to +me to recall the great masters, and this in a striking and +in an abiding way.... To recall them at all is a rare +gift, but to recall them naturally, and with no strained +sense nor jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly +rare that it is almost enough in itself to place a<span class="left">[p.xx]</span> +writer among the great masters; to proclaim that he +is one of them. To recall them at all is a rare gift, +though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets +recall them too; but with these, with every one of them, +it is the exception when they resemble the great masters. +They have their own styles, which abide with them; it +is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they +break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal +style. Just the contrary of this is true of +Matthew Arnold. It is his own, his usual, and his most +natural style which recalls the great masters; and only +when he does not write like himself, does he cease to +resemble them.... No man who attains to this great +style can fail to have a distinguished function; and Matthew +Arnold, like Milton, will be 'a leaven and a power,' +because he, too, has made the great style current in English. +With his desire for culture and for perfection, +there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his +nature, his training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. +To convey the message of those ancients whom he loved +so well, in that English tongue which he was taught by +them to use so perfectly;—to serve as an eternal protest +against charlatanism and vulgarity;—is exactly the mission +he would have chosen for himself.... The few +writers of our language, therefore, who give us 'an ideal +of excellence, the most high and the most rare,' have an +important function; we should study their works continually, +and it should be a matter of passionate concern with +us, that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect<span class="left">[p.xxi]</span> +models, should abide with us forever." The Greeks +recognized three kinds of poetry,—Lyric, Dramatic, and +Epic. Arnold tried all three. First, then, as a lyricist.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Lyricist</b>.—Lyric poetry is the artistic expression +of the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, +hence it is subjective. The action is usually vapid, the +verse musical, the time quick. Unlike the Epic and +Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the +poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this +species of verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has +been said, one searches in vain through the whole course +of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay or serious, offhand +poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is +soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental +qualities of the poet's mind and temperament. Though +by no means lacking in emotional sensibility, Arnold was +too intellectually self-conscious to be carried away by the +impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With him +the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. +With the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at +least, reversed. The poet throws off intellectual restraint, +and "lets his illumined being o'errun" with music and +song. This Arnold could not or would not do. Then, +too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically. This, +combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues +a not too discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked +genius in inventing verse forms, and hence found himself +under the necessity of employing or adapting those +already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior<span class="left">[p.xxii]</span> +to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly +his own. Again, considerable portions of his lyric verse +consist merely of prose, cut into lines of different length, +in imitation of the unrhymed measures of the Greek +poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these +rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick +drawn by a city gamin sharply across the area railings,—a +not inapt comparison. That they were not always +successful, witness the following stanza from <i>Merope</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Thou confessest the prize<br /> +In the rushing, blundering, mad,<br /> +Cloud-enveloped, obscure,<br /> +Unapplauded, unsung<br /> +Race of Calamity, mine!" +</p> +<p> +Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, +Arnold was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at +times, in those same uneven measures in which are +found his most signal failures—the unrhymed Pindaric. +<i>Philomela</i> written in this style is one of the most exquisite +bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put +it, "It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." +In urbanity of phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it +is unsurpassed and shows Arnold at his best. <i>Rugby +Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of Man</i>, and +<i>A Dream</i> are good examples of his longer efforts in this +verse form. In the more common lyric measures, Arnold +was, at times, equally successful. Saintsbury, commenting +on <i>Requiescat</i>, says that the poet has "here achieved +the triple union of simplicity, pathos, and (in the best<span class="left">[p.xxiii]</span> +sense) elegance"; and adds that there is not a false note +in the poem. He also speaks enthusiastically of the +"honey-dropping trochees" of the <i>New Sirens</i>, and of +the "chiselled and classic perfection" of the lines of +<i>Resignation</i>. Herbert W. Paul, writing of <i>Mycerinus</i>, +declares that no such verse has been written in England +since Wordsworth's <i>Laodamia</i>; and continues, "The +poem abounds in single lines of haunting charm." +Among his more successful longer lyrics are <i>The Sick +King in Bokhara, Switzerland, Faded Leaves</i>, and <i>Tristram +and Iseult</i>, and <i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i>, +included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Dramatist</b>.—The drama is imitated human +action, and is intended to exhibit a picture of human life +by means of dialogue, acting, and stage accessories. In +nature, it partakes of both lyric and epic, thus uniting +sentiment and action with narration. Characters live +and act before us, and speak in our presence, the interest +being kept up by constantly shifting situations tending +toward some striking result. As a dramatist, Arnold +achieved no great success. Again the fundamental +qualities of his mind stood in the way. An author so +subjective, so absorbed in self-scrutiny and introspection +as he, is seldom able to project himself into the minds of +others to any considerable extent. His dramas are brilliant +with beautiful phrases, his pictures of landscapes +and of nature in her various aspects approach perfection; +but in the main, he fails to handle his plots in a dramatic +manner and, as a result, does not secure the totality of<span class="left">[p.xxiv]</span> +impression so vital to the drama. Frequently, too, his +characters are tedious, and in their dialogue manage to +be provokingly unnatural or insipid. They also lack in +individuality and independence in speech and action. +Many of his situations, likewise, are at fault. For +instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters +as Ulysses and Circe playing the subordinate roles +assigned to them in <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>. A true +dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a +blunder. <i>Merope</i> is written in imitation of the Greek +tragedians. It has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, +and a classic brevity of style; but it is frigid and +artificial, and fails in the most essential function of +drama—to stir the reader's emotions. <i>Empedocles on +Etna</i>, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some respects +a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, +and contains some of Arnold's best lyric verses and most +beautiful nature pictures; but the dialogue is colorless, +the rhymes poor, the plot, such as it contains, but indifferently +handled, and even Empedocles, the principal +character, is frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's +dramas show that his forte was not in character-drawing +nor in dialogue.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy</b>.—Epic poetry narrates +in grand style the achievements of heroes—the +poet telling the story as if present. It is simple in construction +and uniform in meter, yet it admits of the dialogue +and the episode, and though not enforcing a moral +it may hold one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive<span class="left">[p.xxv]</span> +in tone and expresses sorrow or lamentation. Both epic +and elegy are inevitably serious in mood, and slow and +stately in action. In these two forms of verse Arnold +was at his best. Stockton pronounced <i>Sohrab and +Rustum</i> the noblest poem in the English language. +Another critic has said that "it is the nearest analogue +in English to the rapidity of action, plainness of thought, +plainness of diction, and nobleness of Homer." Combining, +as it does, classic purity of style with romantic ardor +of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of Arnold's +poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume +of 1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his +idea of unity of impression; "while the truth of its +oriental color, the deep pathos of the situation, the fire +and intensity of the action, the strong conception of +character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make +it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer +poems, among which it is the largest in bulk and also +the most ambitious in scheme." <i>Balder Dead</i>, a characteristic +Arnoldian production, founded upon the Norse +legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great +as <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>, has much poetic worth and ranks +high among its kind; and <i>Tristram and Iseult</i>, with its +infinite tragedy, and <i>The Sick King in Bokhara</i>, gorgeous +in oriental color, are rare examples of the lyrical epic. +<i>The Forsaken Merman</i> and <i>Saint Brandan</i>, which are +dealt with elsewhere in this volume, are good examples +of his shorter narrative poems. In <i>Thyrsis</i>, the beautiful +threnody in which he celebrated his dead friend, Clough,<span class="left">[p.xxvi]</span> +Arnold gave to the world one of its greatest elegies. One +finds in this poem and its companion piece, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, +the same unity of classic form with romantic feeling +present in <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. Both are crystal-clear +without coldness, and restrained without loss of a full +volume of power. Mr. Saintsbury, writing of <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, +says: "It has everything—a sufficient scheme, a +definite meaning and purpose, a sustained and adequate +command of poetical presentation, and passages and +phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less +praise is due <i>Thyrsis</i>. Other of his elegiac poems +are <i>Heine's Grave, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, +Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," Obermann +Once More, Rugby Chapel</i>, and <i>Memorial Verses</i>, the +two last named being included in this volume. In such +measures as are used in these poems, in the long, stately, +swelling measures, whose graver movements accord with a +serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most at ease.</p> +<p> +<b>Greek Spirit in Arnold</b>.—But it is not alone in the fact +that he selects classic subjects, and writes after the manner +of the great masters, that Arnold's affinity with the +Greeks is manifested. His poems in spirit, as in form, +reflect the moods common to the ancient Hellenes, "One +feels the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, +"not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, +and Shelley there was Greek influence, but in them the +result was modern. In Arnold the antiquity remains—remains +in mood, just as in Landor it remains in form. +The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is<span class="left">[p.xxvii]</span> +pagan in philosophic spirit, not Attic, but of later and +stoical time; with the patience, endurance, suffering, not +in the Christian types, but as they now seem to a post-Christian +imagination, looking back to the past." Even +when his poems treat of modern or romantic subjects, one +is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with +the same quality of imagination as would the Greek +masters themselves: and in the same form.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Attitude toward Nature</b>.—In his attitude toward +Nature Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A +close study, however, reveals a wide difference, both in +the way Nature appealed to them and in their mood in +her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary refuge +from the doubts and distractions of our modern life,—a +soothing, consoling, uplifting power; to Wordsworth she +was an inspiration,—a presence that disturbed him "with +the joy of elevated thoughts." Conscious of the help he +found in her association, Arnold urged all men to follow +Nature's example; to possess their souls in quietude, despite +the storm and turmoil without. Pancoast says: +"He delights in leading us to contemplate the infinite +calm of Nature, beside which man's transitory woes are +reduced to a mere fretful insignificance. All the beautiful +poem of <i>Tristram and Iseult</i> is built upon the skilful +alternation of two themes. We pass from the feverish, +wasting, and ephemeral struggle of human passions and +desire, into an atmosphere that shames its heat and fume +by an immemorial coolness and repose;" and the same +comparison constitutes the theme for a considerable portion<span class="left">[p.xxviii]</span> +of his poetical work. In his method of approaching +Nature, Arnold also differed widely from Wordsworth, in +that he saw with the outward eye, that is objectively; +while Wordsworth saw rather with the inward eye, or +subjectively. In this Arnold is essentially Greek and +more Tennysonian than Wordsworthian. Many of his +poems, in full or in part, are mere nature pictures, and +are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus +stream at the close of <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>; the English +garden in <i>Thyrsis</i>; and the hunter on the arras, in <i>Tristram +and Iseult</i>, are all notable examples. This pictorial +method Wordsworth seldom used. In spirit, too, the +poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, first +of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in +the wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom +from the fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of +Nature's God.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Attitude toward Life</b>.—Arnold's attitude toward +life has been dwelt upon in the appreciations under the +biographical sketch in this volume and need only briefly +be summed up here. To him, human life in its higher +developments presented itself as a stern and strenuous +affair; but he never faltered nor sought to escape from +his share of the burden. "On the contrary, the prevailing +note of his poetry is self-reliance; help must come from +the soul itself, for</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"The fountains of life are all within." +</p> +<p> +He preaches fortitude and courage in the face of the<span class="left">[p.xxix]</span> +mysterious and the inevitable—a courage, indeed, forlorn +and pathetic in the eyes of many—and he constantly +takes refuge from the choking cares of life, in a +kind of stoical resignation. As a reformer, his function +was especially to stir people up, to make them dissatisfied +with themselves and their institutions, and to force them +to think, to become individual. Everywhere in his +works one is confronted by his unvarying insistence +upon the supremacy of conduct and duty. The modern +tendency to drift away from the old, established religious +faith was a matter of serious thought to him and led him +to give to the world a rational creed that would satisfy +the sceptics and attract the indifferent. We cannot do +better than quote for our closing thought the following +pregnant lines from the author's sonnet entitled <i>The +Better Part</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Hath man no second life? <i>Pitch this one high!</i><br /> +Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?<br /> +<i>More strictly, then, the inward judge obey</i>!<br /> +Was Christ a man like us? <i>Ah! let us try<br /> +If we then, too, can be such men as he!</i>" +</p> + + <br /><hr/><br /><br /> + + + +<h4>ARNOLD THE <a name="CRITIC">CRITIC</a></h4> +<p> +The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted +from well-known authorities.</p> +<p> +"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy +of his verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, +light-hearted. The classical bent of his mind<span class="left">[p.xxx]</span> +shows itself here, unmixed with the inheritance of romantic +feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is his +prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of +its definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect +which suffuses it; but the doctrine which he spent his +life in preaching is based upon a classical ideal, the ideal +of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he daringly called it, <i>perfection</i>.... Wherever, +in religion, politics, education, +or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination +of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word +of deliverance, 'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with +the best which has been thought and done in the world, +is his panacea for all ills.... In almost all of his +prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' +by which word he characterized the narrow-mindedness +and self-satisfaction of the British middle class.</p> +<p> +"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task +he had to perform.... In <i>Culture and Anarchy</i> and +many successive works, he made his plea for the gospel +of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, as befitted the +Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into the +dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in <i>Literature +and Dogma</i>, where he pleads for a more liberal +and literary reading of the Bible, his manner is quiet, +suave, and gently persuasive. At other times, as in +<i>Friendship's Garland</i>, he shoots the arrows of his sarcasm +into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate +raillery and scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, +because it is veiled by a mock humility, and is scrupulously<span class="left">[p.xxxi]</span> +polite.</p> +<p> +"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single +piece is the famous essay <i>On Translating Homer</i>, which +deserves careful study for the enlightenment it offers concerning +many of the fundamental questions of style. The +essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from <i>Essays in Criticism</i>, +and that on Emerson, from <i>Discourses in America</i>, +furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and +weight of matter in this province.</p> +<p> +"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose +may be described as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. +In comparison with Carlyle, Buskin, and Newman, he is +worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic vision of +these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, +the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. +He marks a return to the conventions of life after +the storm and stress of the romantic age. Yet in his +own way he also was a prophet and a preacher, striving +whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from bondage +to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry +and balance of character which has seemed to many noble +minds the true goal of human endeavor."—MOODY AND +LOVETT, <i>A History of English Literature</i>.</p> +<p> +"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment +were pretty nearly infallible. He combined a loyal +and reasonable submission to literary authority, with a +free and even daring use of private judgment. His admiration +for the acknowledged masters of human utterance—Homer, +Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe—<span class="left">[p.xxxii]</span>was genuine and enthusiastic, +and incomparably better +informed than that of some more conventional critics. +Yet this cordial submission to recognized authority, this +honest loyalty to established reputation, did not blind +him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating +praise; did not deter him from exposing the tendency to +verbiage in Burke and Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness +of much of Wordsworth's blank verse, the undercurrent +of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of +Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in +small. Whatever literary production was brought under +Matthew Arnold's notice, his judgment was clear, sympathetic, +and independent. He had the readiest appreciation +of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity +and inflation—of what he called endeavors to render +platitude endurable by making it pompous, and lively +horror of affectation and unreality."—Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL.</p> +<p> +"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a +high place among the foremost prose writers of the time. +His style is in marked contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence +of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's pure and radiant coloring. +It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, discriminating, +incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. Notwithstanding +its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is +often a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an +opponent by its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and +its calm air of assured superiority. By his insistence +on a high standard of technical excellence, and by his<span class="left">[p.xxxiii]</span> +admirable presentation of certain principles of literary +judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. +On the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the +human element, the comprehensive sympathy that we +recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. Yet Carlyle could +not have written the essay <i>On Translating Homer</i>, with +all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, +any more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's +large-hearted essay on <i>Burns</i>. Arnold's varied energy +and highly trained intelligence have been felt in many +different fields. He has won a peculiar and honorable +place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as +literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, +and finally, in his <i>Culture and Anarchy</i>, he has set forth +his scheme of social reform, and in certain later books +has made His contribution to contemporary thought."—PANCOAST, <i>Introduction to English Literature</i>.</p> + + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + +<h4>CHRONOLOGICAL <a name="LIST">LIST</a> OF ARNOLD'S WORKS</h4><span class="left">[p.xxxiv]</span> +<p class="indent2"><span class="outdent2"> +1840. Alaric at Rome. (Prize poem at Rugby.)</span><br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1843. Cromwell. (Prize poem at Oxford.)</span><br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1849. The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems.<br /></span> + Mycerinus.<br /> + The Strayed Reveller.<br /> + Fragment of an Antigone.<br /> + The Sick King in Bokhara.<br /> + Religious Isolation.<br /> + To my Friends.<br /> + A Modern Sappho.<br /> + The New Sirens.<br /> + The Voice.<br /> + To Fausta.<br /> + Stagyrus.<br /> + To a Gipsy Child.<br /> + The Hayswater Boat.<br /> + The Forsaken Merman.<br /> + The World and the Quietist.<br /> + In Utrumque Paratus.<br /> + Resignation.<br /> + <span class="outdent"> + Sonnets.</span><br /> + Quiet Work.<br /> + To a Friend.<br /> + Shakespeare.<br /> + To the Duke of Wellington.<br /> + Written in Butler's Sermons.<br /> + Written in Emerson's Essays.<br /> + To an Independent Preacher.<br /> + To George Cruikshank.<br /> + To a Republican Friend.<br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1852. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems.</span><br /><span class="left">[p.xxxv]</span> + Empedocles on Etna.<br /> + The River.<br /> + Excuse.<br /> + Indifference.<br /> + Too Late.<br /> + On the Rhine.<br /> + Longing.<br /> + The Lake.<br /> + Parting.<br /> + Absence.<br /> + Destiny. (Not reprinted.)<br /> + To Marguerite.<br /> + Human Life.<br /> + Despondency.<br /> + Youth's Agitations—A Sonnet.<br /> + Self-Deception.<br /> + Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.)<br /> + Tristram and Iseult.<br /> + Memorial Verses. (Previously published in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>.)<br /> + Courage. (Not reprinted.)<br /> + Self-Dependence.<br /> + A Summer Night.<br /> + The Buried Life.<br /> + A Farewell.<br /> + Stanzas in Memory of the Author of <i>Obermann</i>.<br /> + Consolation.<br /> + Lines written in Kensington Gardens.<br /> + The World's Triumphs—A Sonnet.<br /> + The Second Best.<br /> + Revolutions.<br /> + The Youth of Nature.<br /><span class="left">[p.xxxvi]</span> + The Youth of Man.<br /> + Morality.<br /> + Progress.<br /> + The Future.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1853. Poems.</span><br /> + Sohrab and Rustum.<br /> + Cadmus and Harmonia. (A fragment of Empedocles on Etna.)<br /> + Philomela.<br /> + Thekla's Answer.<br /> + The Church of Brou.<br /> + The Neckan.<br /> + Switzerland.<br /> + Richmond Hill. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.)<br /> + Requiescat.<br /> + The Scholar-Gipsy.<br /> + Stanzas in Memory of the Late Edward Quillman.<br /> + Power of Youth. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.)<br /><span class="outdent2"> +1854. A Farewell.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1855. Poems.</span><br /> + Balder Dead<br /> + Separation.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1858. Merope: A Tragedy.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1867. New Poems.</span><br /> + Persistency of Poetry.<br /> + Saint Brandan. <i>(Fraser's Magazine</i>, July, 1860.)<br /> + Sonnets.<br /> + A Picture of Newstead.<br /> + Rachel. (Three Sonnets.)<br /> + East London.<br /> + West London.<br /> + Anti-Desperation.<br /><span class="left">[p.xxxvii]</span> + Immorality.<br /> + Worldly Place.<br /> + The Divinity.<br /> + The Good Shepherd with the Kid.<br /> + Austerity of Poetry.<br /> + East and West.<br /> + Monica's Last Prayer.<br /> + Calais Sands.<br /> + Dover Beach.<br /> + The Terrace at Berne.<br /> + Stanzas composed at Carnæ.<br /> + A Southern Night. (Previously published in the <i>Victoria Regia</i>, 1861.)<br /> + Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira."<br /> + Palladium.<br /> + Early Death and Fame.<br /> + Growing Old.<br /> + The Progress of Poesy.<br /> + A Nameless Epitaph.<br /> + The Last Word.<br /> + A Wish.<br /> + A Caution to Poets.<br /> + Pis-Aller.<br /> + Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON.<br /> + Bacchanalia.<br /> + Rugby Chapel.<br /> + Heine's Grave.<br /> + Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1860. The Lord's Messengers. (<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, July.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1866. Thyrsis. (<i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, April.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1868. Obermann Once More.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1873. New Rome. (<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, June.)</span><br /><span class="left">[p.xxxviii]</span> + <span class="outdent2"> +1877. Haworth Churchyard with Epilogue. (<i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, May.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1881. Geist's Grave. (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, January.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1882. Westminster Abbey. (<i>Nineteenth Century Magazine</i>, January.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> + Poor Matthais. (<i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, December.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1887. Horatian Echo. (<i>The Century Guild Hobby Horse</i>, July.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> + Kaiser Dead. (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, July.)</span><br /><br /></p> + + + +<h4>PROSE WORKS</h4> +<p class="indent1"> +1859. England and the Italian Question.<br /> +1861. Popular Education in France.<br /> + On Translating Homer.<br /> +1864. A French Eton.<br /> +1865. Essays in Criticism.<br /> +1867. On Study of Celtic Literature.<br /> +1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent.<br /> +1869. Culture and Anarchy.<br /> +1870. St. Paul and Protestantism.<br /> +1871. Friendship's Garland.<br /> +1873. Literature and Dogma.<br /> +1874. Higher Schools and Universities in Germany.<br /> +1875. God and the Bible.<br /> +1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion.<br /> +1879. Mixed Essays.<br /> +1882. Irish Essays.<br /> +1885. Discourses in America.<br /> +1888. Essays in Criticism, Second Series.<br /> + Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad.<br /> + Civilization in the United States.<br /></p> + + + +<h4><a name="CONTEMPORARY">CONTEMPORARY</a> AUTHORS</h4><span class="left">[p.xxxix]</span> +<p class="indent2"> +Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881).<br /> +Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859).<br /> +Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).<br /> +Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892).<br /> +Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882).<br /> +William M. Thackeray (1811-1863).<br /> +Robert Browning (1812-1889).<br /> +Charles Dickens (1812-1870).<br /> +George Eliot (1819-1880).<br /> +John Ruskin (1819-1900).<br /> +Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).<br /> + +William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878).<br /> +Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).<br /> +Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).<br /> +John G. Whittier (1807-1892).<br /> +Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882).<br /> +Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).<br /> +James Russell Lowell (1819-1891).</p> + + + +<h4><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></h4><span class="left">[p.xl]</span> +<p class="indent3"> +<i>The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold</i> (The Macmillan Company, + one volume).<br /> +<i>The English Poets</i>, Vol. I, by T.H. Ward.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age</i>, edited by the English + Club of Sewanee, Tennessee.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Sir J.G. Fitch.<br /> +<i>Tennyson, Ruskin, and Other Literary Estimates</i>, by Frederic + Harrison.<br /> +<i>Studies in Interpretation</i>, by W.H. Hudson.<br /> +<i>Corrected Impressions on Matthew Arnold</i>, by G.E.B. Saintsbury.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Herbert W. Paul.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by G.E.B. Saintsbury.<br /> +<i>Arnold's Letters</i>, collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell.<br /> +<i>The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold</i>, edited by T.B. Smart.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Andrew Lang, in <i>Century Magazine</i>, + 1881-1882, p. 849.<br /> + +<i>The Poetry of Matthew Arnold</i>, by R.H. Hutton, in<br /> + <i>Essays Theological and Literary</i>, Vol. II.<br /> +<i>Religion and Culture</i>, by John Shairp.<br /> +<i>Arnold</i>, in <i>Victorian Poets</i>, by Stedman.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold, New Poems</i>, in <i>Essays and Studies</i>, by + A.C. Swinburne.<br /> +<i>Arnold</i>, in <i>Our Living Poets</i>, by Forman.</p> + + +<br /><br /> + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a name="SOHRAB">SOHRAB</a> AND RUSTUM</h2> + +<h3>AND OTHER POEMS</h3> + + + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.1]</span> +<h1>NARRATIVE POEMS</h1> + +<br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#NOTES">SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</a>°</h2> + +<h5>AN EPISODE</h5> +<br /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1">1</a></span>And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2">2</a></span>And the fog rose out of the Oxus° stream. <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3">3</a></span>But all the Tartar camp° along the stream <br /> +Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long<br /> +He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;<br /> +But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,<br /> +He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,<br /> +And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And went abroad into the cold wet fog,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11">11</a></span>Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's° tent.<br /><br /> +Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood<br /> +Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand<br /> +Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15">15</a></span>When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere° <br /> +Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,<br /> +And to a hillock came, a little back<br /> +From the stream's brink—the spot where first a boat,<br /> +Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The men of former times had crown'd the top<br /> +With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now<br /><span class="left">[p.2]</span> +The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,<br /> +A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.<br /> +And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,<br /> +And found the old man sleeping on his bed<br /> +Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.<br /> +And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step<br /> +Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:—<br /><br /> +"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.<br /> +Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"<br /><br /> +But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:—<br /> +"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>The sun is not yet risen, and the foe<br /> +Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie<br /> +Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38">38</a></span>For so did King Afrasiab° bid me seek<br /> +Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#40">40</a></span>In Samarcand,° before the army march'd;<br /> +And I will tell thee what my heart desires.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42">42</a></span>Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan° first <br /> +I came among the Tartars and bore arms,<br /> +I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45">45</a></span>At my boy's years,° the courage of a man.<br /> +This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on<br /> +The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,<br /> +And beat the Persians back on every field,<br /> +I seek one man, one man, and one alone—<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,<br /> +Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field,<br /> +His not unworthy, not inglorious son.<br /> +So I long hoped, but him I never find.<br /> +Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask.<br /><span class="left">[p.3]</span> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Let the two armies rest to-day; but I<br /> +Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords<br /> +To meet me, man to man; if I prevail,<br /> +Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall—<br /> +Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#60">60</a></span>Dim is the rumour of a common fight,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#61">61</a></span>Where host meets host, and many names are sunk°;<br /> +But of a single combat fame speaks clear."<br /><br /> +He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand<br /> +Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine!<br /> +Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#67">67</a></span>And share the battle's common chance° with us<br /> +Who love thee, but must press for ever first,<br /> +In single fight incurring single risk,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70">70</a></span>To find a father thou hast never seen°?<br /> +That were far best, my son, to stay with us<br /> +Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,<br /> +And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns.<br /> +But, if this one desire indeed rules all,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>To seek out Rustum—seek him not through fight!<br /> +Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms,<br /> +O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son!<br /> +But far hence seek him, for he is not here.<br /> +For now it is not as when I was young,<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>When Rustum was in front of every fray;<br /> +But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#82">82</a></span>In Seistan,° with Zal, his father old.<br /> +Whether that his own mighty strength at last<br /> +Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#85">85</a></span>Or in some quarrel° with the Persian King.°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#86">86</a></span>There go°!—Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes <br /> +Danger or death awaits thee on this field.<br /><span class="left">[p.4]</span> +Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost<br /> +To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>To seek thy father, not seek single fights<br /> +In vain;—but who can keep the lion's cub<br /> +From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son?<br /> +Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires."<br /><br /> +So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay;<br /> +And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat<br /> +He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet,<br /> +And threw a white cloak round him, and he took<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#99">99</a></span>In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword°;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#101">101</a></span>Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul°; <br /> +And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd<br /> +His herald to his side, and went abroad.<br /><br /> +The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.<br /> +And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#107">107</a></span>Into the open plain; so Haman° bade—<br /> +Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled<br /> +The host, and still was in his lusty prime.<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;<br /> +As when some grey November morn the files,<br /> +In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#113">113</a></span>Stream over Casbin° and the southern slopes <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#114">114</a></span>Of Elburz,° from the Aralian estuaries, <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#115">115</a></span>Or some frore° Caspian reed-bed, southward bound<br /> +For the warm Persian sea-board—so they stream'd.<br /> +The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,<br /> +First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#119">119</a></span>Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara° come <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#120">120</a></span>And Khiva,° and ferment the milk of mares.°<br /><span class="left">[p.5]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#121">121</a></span>Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns° of the south,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#122">122</a></span>The Tukas,° and the lances of Salore,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#123">123</a></span>And those from Attruck° and the Caspian sands;<br /> +Light men and on light steeds, who only drink<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.<br /> +And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came<br /> +From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#128">128</a></span>The Tartars of Ferghana,° from the banks<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#129">129</a></span>Of the Jaxartes,° men with scanty beards <br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#131">131</a></span>Who roam o'er Kipchak° and the northern waste,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#132">132</a></span>Kalmucks° and unkempt Kuzzaks,° tribes who stray <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#133">133</a></span>Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,° <br /> +Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>These all filed out from camp into the plain.<br /> +And on the other side the Persians form'd;—<br /> +First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#138">138</a></span>The Ilyats of Khorassan°; and behind, <br /> +The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel.<br /> +But Peran-Wisa with his herald came,<br /> +Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front,<br /> +And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks.<br /> +And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back,<br /> +He took his spear, and to the front he came,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#147">147</a></span>And check'd his ranks, and fix'd° them where they stood. <br /> +And the old Tartar came upon the sand<br /> +Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear!<br /> +Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.<br /> +But choose a champion from the Persian lords<br /> +To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man."<br /><br /><span class="left">[p.6]</span> +As, in the country, on a morn in June,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>When the dew glistens on the pearled ears,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#156">156</a></span>A shiver runs through the deep corn° for joy—<br /> +So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,<br /> +A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran<br /> +Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.<br /><br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#160">160</a></span>But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#161">161</a></span>Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,°<br /> +That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow;<br /> +Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass<br /> +Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves<br /> +Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries—<br /> +In single file they move, and stop their breath,<br /> +For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows—<br /> +So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up <br /> +To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came,<br /> +And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#173">173</a></span>Second, and was the uncle of the King°; <br /> +These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, <br /> +Yet champion have we none to match this youth.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#177">177</a></span>He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart.° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#178">178</a></span>But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits° <br /> +And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart.<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>Him will I seek, and carry to his ear<br /> +The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name.<br /> +Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight.<br /> +Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up."<br /><br /> +So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said!<br /> +Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man."<br /><span class="left">[p.7]</span> +He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode<br /> +Back through the opening squadrons to his tent.<br /> +But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran,<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd,<br /> +Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents.<br /> +Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay,<br /> +Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst<br /> +Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around.<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found<br /> +Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still<br /> +The table stood before him, charged with food—<br /> +A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#199">199</a></span>And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#200">200</a></span>Listless, and held a falcon° on his wrist,<br /> +And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood<br /> +Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand,<br /> +And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird,<br /> +And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight.<br /> +What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink."<br /><br /> +But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:—<br /> +"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink,<br /> +But not to-day; to-day has other needs.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze;<br /> +For from the Tartars is a challenge brought<br /> +To pick a champion from the Persian lords<br /> +To fight their champion—and thou know'st his name—<br /> +Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid.<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's!<br /> +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#217">217</a></span>And he is young, and Iran's° chiefs are old,<br /> +Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee.<br /> +Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!"<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.8]</span> + +<span class="right"> 220</span>He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#221">221</a></span>"Go to°! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I <br /> +Am older; if the young are weak, the King<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#223">223</a></span>Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo,°<br /> +Himself is young, and honours younger men,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>And lets the aged moulder to their graves.<br /> +Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young—<br /> +The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I.<br /> +For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame?<br /> +For would that I myself had such a son,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#230">230</a></span>And not that one slight helpless girl° I have—<br /> +A son so famed, so brave, to send to war,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#232">232</a></span>And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,°<br /> +My father, whom the robber Afghans vex,<br /> +And clip his borders short, and drive his herds,<br /> +<span class="right"> 235</span>And he has none to guard his weak old age.<br /> +There would I go, and hang my armour up,<br /> +And with my great name fence that weak old man,<br /> +And spend the goodly treasures I have got,<br /> +And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame,<br /> +<span class="right"> 240</span>And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings,<br /> +And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more."<br /><br /> + +He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:—<br /> +"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this,<br /> +When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks<br /> +<span class="right"> 245</span>Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks,<br /> +Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame,</i><br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#248">248</a></span><i class="indent4">And shuns to peril it with younger men."</i>° <br /><br /> + +And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words?<br /> +Thou knowest better words than this to say.<br /> +What is one more, one less, obscure or famed,<br /> +Valiant or craven, young or old, to me?<br /><span class="left">[p.9]</span> +Are not they mortal, am not I myself?<br /> +<span class="right"> 255</span>But who for men of nought would do great deeds?<br /> +Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257">257</a></span>But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms°; <br /> +Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd<br /> +In single fight with any mortal man."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 260</span>He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran<br /> +Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy—<br /> +Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came.<br /> +But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd<br /> +His followers in, and bade them bring his arms,<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#266">266</a></span>Were plain, and on his shield was no device,°<br /> +Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold,<br /> +And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume<br /> +Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume.<br /> +<span class="right"> 270</span>So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse,<br /> +Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel—<br /> +Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth,<br /> +The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once<br /> +Did in Bokhara by the river find<br /> +<span class="right"> 275</span>A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home,<br /> +And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#277">277</a></span><a name="Dight">Dight</a>° with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green<br /> +Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd<br /> +All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know.<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd<br /> +The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd.<br /> +And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts<br /> +Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was.<br /> +And dear as the wet diver to the eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore,<br /><span class="left">[p.10]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#286">286</a></span>By sandy Bahrein,° in the Persian Gulf,<br /> +Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#288">288</a></span>Having made up his tale° of precious pearls,<br /> +Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands—<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came.<br /><br /> + +And Rustum to the Persian front advanced,<br /> +And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came.<br /> +And as afield the reapers cut a swath<br /> +Down through the middle of a rich man's corn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>And on each side are squares of standing corn,<br /> +And in the midst a stubble, short and bare—<br /> +So on each side were squares of men, with spears<br /> +Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand.<br /> +And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast<br /> +<span class="right"> 300</span>His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw<br /> +Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came.<br /><br /> + +As some rich woman, on a winter's morn,<br /> +Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge<br /> +Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire—<br /> +<span class="right"> 305</span>At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#306">306</a></span>When the frost flowers° the whiten'd window-panes—<br /> +And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts<br /> +Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed<br /> +The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar<br /> +<span class="right"> 310</span>Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#311">311</a></span>All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused° <br /> +His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was.<br /> +For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd;<br /> +Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 315</span>Which in a queen's secluded garden throws<br /> +Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,<br /> +By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#318">318</a></span>So slender Sohrab seem'd,° so softly rear'd.<br /><span class="left">[p.11]</span> +And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul<br /> +<span class="right"> 320</span>As he beheld him coming; and he stood,<br /> +And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:—<br /> + "O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft,<br /> +And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold!<br /> +Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#325">325</a></span>Behold me! I am vast,° and clad in iron,<br /> +And tried°; and I have stood on many a field<br /> +Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#328">328</a></span>Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.°<br /> +O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#330">330</a></span>Be govern'd°! quit the Tartar host, and come<br /> +To Iran, and be as my son to me,<br /> +And fight beneath my banner till I die!<br /> +There are no youths in Iran brave as thou."<br /> + So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice,<br /> +<span class="right"> 335</span>The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw<br /> +His giant figure planted on the sand,<br /> +Sole, like some single tower, which a chief<br /> +Hath builded on the waste in former years<br /> +Against the robbers; and he saw that head,<br /> +<span class="right"> 340</span>Streak'd with its first grey hairs;—hope filled his soul,<br /> +And he ran forward and embraced his knees,<br /> +And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#343">343</a></span> "O, by thy father's head°! by thine own soul<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#344">344</a></span>Art thou not Rustum°? speak! art thou not he?"<br /> +<span class="right"> 345</span> But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,<br /> +And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:—<br /> + "Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean!<br /> +False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys.<br /> +For if I now confess this thing he asks,<br /> +<span class="right"> 350</span>And hide it not, but say: <i class="indent4">Rustum is here</i>!<br /> +He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,<br /><span class="left">[p.12]</span> +But he will find some pretext not to fight,<br /> +And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts<br /> +A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way.<br /> +<span class="right"> 355</span>And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall,<br /> +In Samarcand, he will arise and cry:<br /> +'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd<br /> +Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords<br /> +To cope with me in single fight; but they<br /> +<span class="right"> 360</span>Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I<br /> +Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.'<br /> +So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud;<br /> +Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me."<br /><br /> + +And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 365</span>"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus<br /> +Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#367">367</a></span>By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt,° or yield! <br /> +Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?<br /> +Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee!<br /> +<span class="right"> 370</span>For well I know, that did great Rustum stand<br /> +Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd,<br /> +There would be then no talk of fighting more.<br /> +But being what I am, I tell thee this—<br /> +Do thou record it in thine inmost soul:<br /> +<span class="right"> 375</span>Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield,<br /> +Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds<br /> +Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods,<br /> +Oxus in summer wash them all away."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#380">380</a></span>"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so°!<br /> +I am no girl to be made pale by words.<br /> +Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand<br /> +Here on this field, there were no fighting then.<br /> +But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here.<br /><span class="left">[p.13]</span> +<span class="right"> 385</span>Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I,<br /> +And thou art proved, I know, and I am young—<br /> +But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven.<br /> +And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure<br /> +Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know.<br /> +<span class="right"> 390</span>For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,<br /> +Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate,<br /> +Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.<br /> +And whether it will heave us up to land,<br /> +Or whether it will roll us out to sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 395</span>Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death,<br /> +We know not, and no search will make us know;<br /> +Only the event will teach us in its hour."<br /><br /> + +He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd<br /> +His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came,<br /> +<span class="right"> 400</span>As on some partridge, in the corn a hawk,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#401">401</a></span>That long has tower'd° in the airy clouds,<br /> +Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come,<br /> +And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear<br /> +Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand,<br /> +<span class="right"> 405</span>Which it sent flying wide;—then Sohrab threw<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#406">406</a></span>In turn, and full struck° Rustum's shield; sharp rang,<br /> +The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear.<br /> +And Rustum seized his club, which none but he<br /> +Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge,<br /> +<span class="right"> 410</span>Still rough—like those which men in treeless plains<br /> +To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#412">412</a></span>Hyphasis° or Hydaspes,° when, high up<br /> +By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#414">414</a></span>Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 415</span>And strewn the channels with torn boughs—so huge<br /> +The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck<br /> +One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,<br /><span class="left">[p.14]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#418">418</a></span>Lithe as the glancing° snake, and the club came <br /> +Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 420</span>And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell<br /> +To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand;<br /> +And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword,<br /> +And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay<br /> +Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand;<br /> +<span class="right"> 425</span>But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword,<br /> +But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float<br /> +Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones.<br /> +But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I;<br /> +<span class="right"> 430</span>No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul.<br /> +Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so!<br /> +Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?<br /> +Boy as I am, I have seen battles too—<br /> +Have waded foremost in their bloody waves,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#435">435</a></span>And heard their hollow° roar of dying men;<br /> +But never was my heart thus touch'd before.<br /> +Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart?<br /> +O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven!<br /> +Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears,<br /> +<span class="right"> 440</span>And make a truce, and sit upon this sand,<br /> +And pledge each other in red wine, like friends,<br /> +And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds.<br /> +There are enough foes in the Persian host,<br /> +Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang;<br /> +<span class="right"> 445</span>Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou<br /> +Mayst fight; fight <i class="indent4">them</i>, when they confront thy spear!<br /> +But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!"<br /><br /> + +He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen,<br /> +And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club<br /> +<span class="right"> 450</span>He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear,<br /><span class="left">[p.15]</span> +Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#452">452</a></span>Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,°<br /> +The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#454">454</a></span>His stately crest,° and dimm'd his glittering arms.<br /> +<span class="right"> 455</span>His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice<br /> +Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:—<br /><br /> + +"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands!<br /> +Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words!<br /> +Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more!<br /> +<span class="right"> 460</span>Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now<br /> +With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance;<br /> +But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance<br /> +Of battle, and with me, who make no play<br /> +Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 465</span>Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#466">466</a></span>Remember all thy valour°; try thy feints<br /> +And cunning! all the pity I had is gone;<br /> +Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#469">469</a></span>With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.°"<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#470">470</a></span>He spoke, and Sohrab kindled° at his taunts,<br /> +And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd<br /> +Together, as two eagles on one prey<br /> +Come rushing down together from the clouds,<br /> +One from the east, one from the west; their shields<br /> +<span class="right"> 475</span>Bash'd with a clang together, and a din<br /> +Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters<br /> +Make often in the forest's heart at morn,<br /> +Of hewing axes, crashing trees—such blows<br /> +Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd.<br /> +<span class="right"> 480</span>And you would say that sun and stars took part<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#481">481</a></span>In that unnatural° conflict; for a cloud°<br /> +Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun<br /> +Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose<br /><span class="left">[p.16]</span> +Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 485</span>And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair.<br /> +In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone;<br /> +For both the on-looking hosts on either hand<br /> +Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#489">489</a></span>And the sun sparkled° on the Oxus stream.<br /> +<span class="right"> 490</span>But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes<br /> +And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield<br /> +Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear<br /> +Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin,<br /> +And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#495">495</a></span>Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,°<br /> +Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#497">497</a></span>He shore° away, and that proud horsehair plume,<br /> +Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#499">499</a></span>And Rustum bow'd his head°; but then the gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 500</span>Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,<br /> +And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,<br /> +Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;—<br /> +No horse's cry was that, most like the roar<br /> +Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day<br /> +<span class="right"> 505</span>Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side,<br /> +And comes at night to die upon the sand.<br /> +The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#508">508</a></span>And Oxus curdled° as it cross'd his stream.<br /> +But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on,<br /> +<span class="right"> 510</span>And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd<br /> +His head; but this time all the blade, like glass,<br /> +Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm,<br /> +And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone.<br /> +Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 515</span>Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#516">516</a></span>And shouted: <i class="indent4">Rustum</i>°!—Sohrab heard that shout,<br /><span class="left">[p.17]</span> +And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step,<br /> +And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form;<br /> +And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 520</span>His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side.<br /> +He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground;<br /> +And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,<br /> +And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all<br /> +The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair—<br /> +<span class="right"> 525</span>Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet,<br /> +And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#527">527</a></span>Then, with a bitter smile,° Rustum began:—<br /> +"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill<br /> +A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse,<br /> +<span class="right"> 530</span>And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent.<br /> +Or else that the great Rustum would come down<br /> +Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move<br /> +His heart to take a gift, and let thee go.<br /> +And then that all the Tartar host would praise<br /> +<span class="right"> 535</span>Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#536">536</a></span>To glad° thy father in his weak old age.<br /> +Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#538">538</a></span>Dearer to the red jackals° shalt thou be<br /> +Than to thy friends, and to thy father old."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 540</span>And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain<br /> +Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!<br /> +No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.<br /> +For were I match'd with ten such men as thee,<br /> +<span class="right"> 545</span>And I were that which till to-day I was,<br /> +They should be lying here, I standing there<br /> +But that belovéd name unnerved my arm—<br /> +That name, and something, I confess, in thee,<br /> +Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield<br /><span class="left">[p.18]</span> +<span class="right"> 550</span>Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe.<br /> +And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate.<br /> +But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear<br /> +The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!<br /> +My father, whom I seek through all the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 555</span>He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!"<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#556">556</a></span>As when some hunter° in the spring hath found <br /> +A breeding eagle sitting on her nest,<br /> +Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,<br /> +And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,<br /> +<span class="right"> 560</span>And follow'd her to find her where she fell <br /> +Far off;—anon her mate comes winging back<br /> +From hunting, and a great way off descries<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#563">563</a></span>His huddling young left sole°; at that, he checks<br /> +His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps<br /> +<span class="right"> 565</span>Circles above his eyry, with loud screams<br /> +Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she<br /> +Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,<br /> +In some far stony gorge out of his ken,<br /> +A heap of fluttering feathers—never more<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#570">570</a></span>Shall the lake glass° her, flying over it;<br /> +Never the black and dripping precipices<br /> +Echo her stormy scream as she sails by—<br /> +As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,<br /> +So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 575</span>Over his dying son, and knew him not.<br /><br /> + +But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:—<br /> +"What prate is this of fathers and revenge?<br /> +The mighty Rustum never had a son."<br /><br /> + +And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 580</span>"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I.<br /> +Surely the news will one day reach his ear,<br /> +Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long,<br /><span class="left">[p.19]</span> +Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;<br /> +And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap<br /> +<span class="right"> 585</span>To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.<br /> +Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!<br /> +What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?<br /> +Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen!<br /> +Yet him I pity not so much, but her,<br /> +<span class="right"> 590</span>My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells<br /> +With that old king, her father, who grows grey<br /> +With age, and rules over the valiant Koords.<br /> +Her most I pity, who no more will see<br /> +Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp,<br /> +<span class="right"> 595</span>With spoils and honour, when the war is done.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#596">596</a></span>But a dark rumour will be bruited up,°<br /> +From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;<br /> +And then will that defenceless woman learn<br /> +That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,<br /> +<span class="right"> 600</span>But that in battle with a nameless foe,<br /> +By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud,<br /> +Thinking of her he left, and his own death.<br /> +He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought.<br /> +<span class="right"> 605</span>Nor did he yet believe it was his son<br /> +Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew;<br /> +For he had had sure tidings that the babe,<br /> +Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,<br /> +Had been a puny girl, no boy at all—<br /> +<span class="right"> 610</span>So that sad mother sent him word, for fear<br /> +Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms—<br /> +And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#613">613</a></span>By a false boast, the style° of Rustum's son;<br /> +Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.<br /> +<span class="right"> 615</span>So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought<br /><span class="left">[p.20]</span> +And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide<br /> +Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore<br /> +At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes;<br /> +For he remember'd his own early youth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 620</span>And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,<br /> +The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries<br /> +A far, bright city, smitten by the sun,<br /> +Through many rolling clouds—so Rustum saw<br /> +His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#625">625</a></span>And that old king,° her father, who loved well<br /> +His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child<br /> +With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,<br /> +They three, in that long-distant summer-time—<br /> +The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt<br /> +<span class="right"> 630</span>And hound, and morn on those delightful hills<br /> +In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#632">632</a></span>Of age and looks° to be his own dear son,<br /> +Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand;<br /> +Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe<br /> +<span class="right"> 635</span>Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,<br /> +Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,<br /> +And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,<br /> +On the mown, dying grass—so Sohrab lay,<br /> +Lovely in death, upon the common sand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 640</span>And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son<br /> +Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved.<br /> +Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men<br /> +Have told thee false—thou art not Rustum's son.<br /> +<span class="right"> 645</span>For Rustum had no son; one child he had—<br /> +But one—a girl; who with her mother now<br /> +Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us—<br /> +Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war."<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.21]</span> +But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now<br /> +<span class="right"> 650</span>The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce,<br /> +And he desired to draw forth the steel,<br /> +And let the blood flow free, and so to die—<br /> +But first he would convince his stubborn foe;<br /> +And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 655</span>"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? <br /> +Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,<br /> +And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#658">658</a></span>I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm° I bear<br /> +That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,<br /> +<span class="right"> 660</span>That she might prick it on the babe she bore."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,<br /> +And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand<br /> +Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#664">663</a></span>That the hard iron corslet° clank'd aloud;<br /> +<span class="right"> 665</span>And to his heart he press'd the other hand,<br /> +And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie!<br /> +If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son."<br /><br /> + +Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed<br /> +<span class="right"> 670</span>His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,<br /> +And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#672">672</a></span>Prick'd; as a cunning° workman, in Pekin,<br /> +Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,<br /> +An emperor's gift—at early morn he paints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 675</span>And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp<br /> +Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands—<br /> +So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd<br /> +On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#679">679</a></span>It was that griffin,° which of old rear'd Zal,<br /> +<span class="right"> 680</span>Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,<br /> +A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks;<br /><span class="left">[p.22]</span> +Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved—<br /> +Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign.<br /> +And Sohrab bared that image on his arm,<br /> +<span class="right"> 685</span>And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes,<br /> +And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:—<br /><br /> + +"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign<br /> +Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?"<br /><br /> + +He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 690</span>Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry:<br /> +<i class="indent4">O boy</i>—<i class="indent4">thy father!</i>—and his voice choked there.<br /> +And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes,<br /> +And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.<br /> +But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast<br /> +<span class="right"> 695</span>His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips,<br /> +And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,<br /> +Trying to call him back to life; and life<br /> +Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,<br /> +And they stood wide with horror; and he seized<br /> +<span class="right"> 700</span>In both his hands the dust which lay around,<br /> +And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,—<br /> +His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;<br /> +And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,<br /> +And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword,<br /> +<span class="right"> 705</span>To draw it, and for ever let life out.<br /> +But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands,<br /> +And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day<br /> +The doom which at my birth was written down<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#710">710</a></span>In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.°<br /> +Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,<br /> +When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,<br /> +I know it! but fate trod those promptings down<br /> +Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged<br /><span class="left">[p.23]</span> +<span class="right"> 715</span>The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear.<br /> +But let us speak no more of this! I find<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#717">717</a></span>My father; let me feel that I have found!°<br /> +Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take<br /> +My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,<br /> +<span class="right"> 720</span>And wash them with thy tears, and say: <i class="indent4">My son!</i><br /> +Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life,<br /> +And swift; for like the lightning to this field<br /> +I came, and like the wind I go away—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#724">724</a></span>Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.°<br /> +<span class="right"> 725</span>But it was writ in Heaven that this should be."<br /><br /> + +So said he, and his voice released the heart<br /> +Of Rustum, and his tears brake forth; he cast<br /> +His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,<br /> +And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts,<br /> +<span class="right"> 730</span>When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse,<br /> +With his head bowing to the ground and mane<br /> +Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe<br /> +First to the one then to the other moved<br /> +His head, as if inquiring what their grief<br /> +<span class="right"> 735</span>Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#736">736</a></span>The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked° the sand.<br /> +But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet<br /> +Should first have rotted on their nimble joints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 740</span>Or ere they brought thy master to this field!"<br /><br /> + +But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said:—<br /> +"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days,<br /> +My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,<br /> +My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,<br /> +<span class="right"> 745</span>That I should one day find thy lord and thee.<br /> +Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!<br /> +O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;<br /><span class="left">[p.24]</span> +For thou hast gone where I shall never go,<br /> +And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home.<br /> +<span class="right"> 750</span>And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#751">751</a></span>And seen the River of Helmund,° and the Lake<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#752">752</a></span>Of Zirrah°; and the aged Zal himself<br /> +Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,<br /> +Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 755</span>And said: <i class="indent4">O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!</i>—but I<br /> +Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face,<br /> +Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,<br /> +Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;<br /> +But lodged among my father's foes, and seen<br /> +<span class="right"> 760</span>Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,<br /> +Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,<br /> +And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#763">763</a></span>The desert rivers, Moorghab° and Tejend,°<br /> +Kohik,° and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#765">765</a></span>The northern Sir°; and this great Oxus stream,<br /> +The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die."<br /><br /> + +Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:—<br /> +"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me!<br /> +Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt<br /> +<span class="right"> 770</span>Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!"<br /><br /> + +But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"Desire not that, my father! thou must live.<br /> +For some are born to do great deeds, and live,<br /> +As some are born to be obscured, and die.<br /> +<span class="right"> 775</span>Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,<br /> +And reap a second glory in thine age;<br /> +Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.<br /> +But come! thou seest this great host of men<br /> +Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!<br /> +<span class="right"> 780</span>Let me entreat for them; what have they done?<br /><span class="left">[p.25]</span> +They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star.<br /> +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.<br /> +But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,<br /> +But carry me with thee to Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right"> 785</span>And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,<br /> +Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends.<br /> +And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#788">788</a></span>And heap a stately mound° above my bones,<br /> +And plant a far-seen pillar over all.<br /> +<span class="right"> 790</span>That so the passing horseman on the waste<br /> +May see my tomb a great way off, and cry:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there,<br /> +Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!</i><br /> +And I be not forgotten in my grave."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 795</span>And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:—<br /> +"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,<br /> +So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,<br /> +And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,<br /> +And carry thee away to Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right"> 800</span>And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,<br /> +With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.<br /> +And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,<br /> +And heap a stately mound above thy bones,<br /> +And plant a far-seen pillar over all,<br /> +<span class="right"> 805</span>And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.<br /> +And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!<br /> +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!<br /> +What should I do with slaying any more?<br /> +For would that all that I have ever slain<br /> +<span class="right"> 810</span>Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes,<br /> +And they who were call'd champions in their time,<br /> +And through whose death I won that fame I have—<br /> +And I were nothing but a common man,<br /><span class="left">[p.26]</span> +A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,<br /> +<span class="right"> 815</span>So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!<br /> +Or rather would that I, even I myself,<br /> +Might now be lying on this bloody sand,<br /> +Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,<br /> +Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou;<br /> +<span class="right"> 820</span>And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan;<br /> +And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;<br /> +And say: <i class="indent4">O son, I weep thee not too sore,<br /> +For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!</i><br /> +But now in blood and battles was my youth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 825</span>And full of blood and battles is my age,<br /> +And I shall never end this life of blood."<br /><br /> + +Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man!<br /> +But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#830">830</a></span>Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,°<br /> +When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship,<br /> +Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo,<br /> +Returning home over the salt blue sea,<br /> +From laying thy dear master in his grave."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 835</span>And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:—<br /> +"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea!<br /> +Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took<br /> +The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased<br /> +<span class="right"> 840</span>His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood<br /> +Came welling from the open gash, and life<br /> +Flow'd with the stream;—all down his cold white side<br /> +The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd,<br /> +Like the soil'd tissue of white violets<br /> +<span class="right"> 845</span>Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank,<br /> +By children whom their nurses call with haste<br /><span class="left">[p.27]</span> +Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low,<br /> +His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay—<br /> +White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps,<br /> +<span class="right"> 850</span>Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,<br /> +Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them,<br /> +And fix'd them feebly on his father's face;<br /> +Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs<br /> +Unwillingly the spirit fled away,<br /> +<span class="right"> 855</span>Regretting the warm mansion which it left,<br /> +And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.<br /><br /> + +So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;<br /> +And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak<br /> +Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.<br /> +<span class="right"> 860</span>As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#861">861</a></span>By Jemshid in Persepolis,° to bear<br /> +His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps<br /> +Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side—<br /> +So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 865</span>And night came down over the solemn waste,<br /> +And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,<br /> +And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night,<br /> +Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,<br /> +As of a great assembly loosed, and fires<br /> +<span class="right"> 870</span>Began to twinkle through the fog; for now<br /> +Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal;<br /> +The Persians took it on the open sands<br /> +Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;<br /> +And Rustum and his son were left alone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 875</span>But the majestic river floated on,<br /> +Out of the mist and hum of that low land,<br /> +Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#878">878</a></span>Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian° waste,<br /> +Under the solitary moon;—he flow'd<br /><span class="left">[p.28]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#880">880</a></span>Right for the polar star,° past Orgunjè,°<br /> +Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin<br /> +To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,<br /> +And split his currents; that for many a league<br /> +The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along<br /> +<span class="right"> 885</span>Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—<br /> +Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had<br /> +In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,<br /> +A foil'd circuitous wanderer—till at last<br /> +The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#890">890</a></span>His luminous home° of waters opens, bright<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#891">891</a></span>And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars°<br /> +Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#SAINT">SAINT BRANDAN</a><a name="BRANDAN">°</a></h2> + +<p class="indent4"> +Saint Brandan sails the northern main;<br /> +The brotherhood of saints are glad.<br /> +He greets them once, he sails again;<br /> +So late!—such storms!—The Saint is mad!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>He heard, across the howling seas,<br /> +Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7b">7</a></span>He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,°<br /> +Twinkle the monastery-lights;<br /><br /> + +But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd—<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And now no bells, no convents more!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11b">11</a></span>The hurtling Polar lights° are near'd,<br /> +The sea without a human shore.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.29]</span> +At last—(it was the Christmas night;<br /> +Stars shone after a day of storm)—<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>He sees float past an iceberg white,<br /> +And on it—Christ!—a living form.<br /><br /> + +That furtive mien, that scowling eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18b">18</a></span>Of hair that red° and tufted fell—<br /> +It is—Oh, where shall Brandan fly?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The traitor Judas, out of hell!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21b">21</a></span>Palsied with terror, Brandan sate°;<br /> +The moon was bright, the iceberg near.<br /> +He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait!<br /> +By high permission I am here.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>"One moment wait, thou holy man<br /> +On earth my crime, my death, they knew;<br /> +My name is under all men's ban—<br /> +Ah, tell them of my respite too!<br /><br /> + +"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night—<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>(It was the first after I came,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31b">31</a></span>Breathing self-murder,° frenzy, spite,<br /> +To rue my guilt in endless flame)—<br /><br /> + +"I felt, as I in torment lay<br /> +'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>An angel touch my arm, and say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!</i><br /><br /> + +"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38b">38</a></span><i class="indent4">The Leper recollect,</i>° said he,<br /> +<i class="indent4">Who ask'd the passers-by for aid,</i><br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#40b">40</a></span><i class="indent4">In Joppa,° and thy charity.</i><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.30]</span> +"Then I remember'd how I went,<br /> +In Joppa, through the public street,<br /> +One morn when the sirocco spent<br /> +Its storms of dust with burning heat;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 45</span>"And in the street a leper sate,<br /> +Shivering with fever, naked, old;<br /> +Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,<br /> +The hot wind fever'd him five-fold.<br /><br /> + +"He gazed upon me as I pass'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>And murmur'd: <i class="indent4">Help me, or I die!</i>—<br /> +To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,<br /> +Saw him look eased, and hurried by.<br /><br /> + +"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,<br /> +What blessing must full goodness shower,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>When fragment of it small, like mine,<br /> +Hath such inestimable power!<br /><br /> + +"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I<br /> +Did that chance act of good, that one!<br /> +Then went my way to kill and lie—<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Forgot my good as soon as done.<br /><br /> + +"That germ of kindness, in the womb<br /> +Of mercy caught, did not expire;<br /> +Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,<br /> +And friends me in the pit of fire.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>"Once every year, when carols wake,<br /> +On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,<br /> +Arising from the sinner's lake,<br /> +I journey to these healing snows.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.31]</span> +"I stanch with ice my burning breast,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>With silence balm my whirling brain.<br /> +Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest<br /> +That Joppan leper's ease was pain."—<br /><br /> + +Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;<br /> +He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer—<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies!<br /> +The iceberg, and no Judas there!<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#MERMAN">THE FORSAKEN MERMAN</a><a name="FORSAKEN">°</a></h2> + +<p class="indent4"> +Come, dear children, let us away;<br /> +Down and away below!<br /> +Now my brothers call from the bay,<br /> +Now the great winds shoreward blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Now the salt tides seaward flow;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6m">6</a></span>Now the wild white horses° play,<br /> +Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.<br /> +Children dear, let us away!<br /> +This way, this way!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 10</span>Call her once before you go—<br /> +Call once yet!<br /> +In a voice that she will know:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13m">13</a></span>"Margaret°! Margaret!"<br /> +Children's voices should be dear<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>(Call once more) to a mother's ear;<br /> +Children's voices, wild with pain—<br /> +Surely she will come again!<br /><span class="left">[p.32]</span> +Call her once and come away;<br /> +This way, this way!<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>"Mother dear, we cannot stay!<br /> +The wild white horses foam and fret."<br /> +Margaret! Margaret!<br /><br /> + +Come, dear children, come away down;<br /> +Call no more!<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>One last look at the white-wall'd town,<br /> +And the little grey church on the windy shore;<br /> +Then come down!<br /> +She will not come though you call all day;<br /> +Come away, come away!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 30</span>Children dear, was it yesterday<br /> +We heard the sweet bells over the bay?<br /> +In the caverns where we lay,<br /> +Through the surf and through the swell,<br /> +The far-off sound of a silver bell?<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,<br /> +Where the winds are all asleep;<br /> +Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,<br /> +Where the salt weed sways in the stream,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#39m">39</a></span>Where the sea-beasts, ranged° all round,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;<br /> +Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42m">42</a></span>Dry their mail° and bask in the brine;<br /> +Where great whales come sailing by,<br /> +Sail and sail, with unshut eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Round the world for ever and aye? <br /> +When did music come this way?<br /> +Children dear, was it yesterday?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.33]</span> +Children dear, was it yesterday<br /> +(Call yet once) that she went away?<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Once she sate with you and me,<br /> +On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,<br /> +And the youngest sate on her knee.<br /> +She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#54m">54</a></span>When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.°<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;<br /> +She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray<br /> +In the little grey church on the shore to-day.<br /> +'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!<br /> +And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;<br /> +Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"<br /> +She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.<br /> +Children dear, was it yesterday?<br /><br /> + + Children dear, were we long alone?<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;<br /> +Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;<br /> +Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.<br /> +We went up the beach, by the sandy down<br /> +Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,<br /> +To the little grey church on the windy hill.<br /> +From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,<br /> +But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.<br /> +We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.<br /> +She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:<br /> +"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!<br /> +Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;<br /> +The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."<br /><span class="left">[p.34]</span> +<span class="right"> 80</span>But, ah, she gave me never a look,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81m">81</a></span>For her eyes were seal'd° to the holy book!<br /> +Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.<br /> +Come away, children, call no more!<br /> +Come away, come down, call no more!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 85</span>Down, down, down! <br /> +Down to the depths of the sea!<br /> +She sits at her wheel in the humming town, +Singing most joyfully.<br /> +Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>For the humming street, and the child with its toy!<br /> +For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;<br /> +For the wheel where I spun,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#93m">93</a></span>And the blessed light of the sun°!"<br /> +And so she sings her fill,<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Singing most joyfully,<br /> +Till the spindle drops from her hand,<br /> +And the whizzing wheel stands still.<br /> +She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,<br /> +And over the sand at the sea;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And her eyes are set in a stare; <br /> +And anon there breaks a sigh,<br /> +And anon there drops a tear,<br /> +From a sorrow-clouded eye,<br /> +And a heart sorrow-laden,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>A long, long sigh;<br /> +For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden<br /> +And the gleam of her golden hair.<br /><br /> + + Come away, away, children;<br /> +Come children, come down!<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>The hoarse wind blows coldly;<br /> +Lights shine in the town.<br /><span class="left">[p.35]</span> +She will start from her slumber<br /> +When gusts shake the door;<br /> +She will hear the winds howling,<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>Will hear the waves roar.<br /> +We shall see, while above us<br /> +The waves roar and whirl,<br /> +A ceiling of amber,<br /> +A pavement of pearl.<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>Singing: "Here came a mortal,<br /> +But faithless was she!<br /> +And alone dwell for ever<br /> +The kings of the sea."<br /><br /> + +But, children, at midnight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>When soft the winds blow,<br /> +When clear falls the moonlight,<br /> +When spring-tides are low;<br /> +When sweet airs come seaward<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#129m">129</a></span>From heaths starr'd with broom,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>And high rocks throw mildly<br /> +On the blanch'd sands a gloom;<br /> +Up the still, glistening beaches,<br /> +Up the creeks we will hie,<br /> +Over banks of bright seaweed<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>The ebb-tide leaves dry.<br /> +We will gaze, from the sand-hills,<br /> +At the white, sleeping town;<br /> +At the church on the hill-side—<br /> +And then come back down.<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Singing: "There dwells a loved one,<br /> +But cruel is she!<br /> +She left lonely for ever<br /> +The kings of the sea."<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.35]</span> +<h2><a href="#TRISTRAM">TRISTRAM AND ISEULT</a><a name="ISEULT">°</a></h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<h3>TRISTRAM</h3>. + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1t">1</a></span><i>Tristram</i>. Is she not come°? The messenger was sure—<br /> +Prop me upon the pillows once again—<br /> +Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.<br /> +—Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5t">5</a></span>What lights will those out to the northward be°?<br /><br /> + +<i>The Page</i>. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Soft—who is that, stands by the dying fire?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#8t">8</a></span><i>The Page</i>. Iseult.°<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Ah! not the Iseult I desire.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +What Knight is this so weak and pale,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head,<br /> +Propt on pillows in his bed, <br /> +Gazing seaward for the light<br /> +Of some ship that fights the gale<br /> +On this wild December night?<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Over the sick man's feet is spread <br /> +A dark green forest-dress;<br /> +A gold harp leans against the bed,<br /> +Ruddy in the fire's light.<br /> +I know him by his harp of gold,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#20t">20</a></span>Famous in Arthur's court° of old; <br /> +I know him by his forest-dress—<br /> +The peerless hunter, harper, knight,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23t">23</a></span>Tristram of Lyoness.°<br /><span class="left">[p.37]</span> +What Lady is this, whose silk attire<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Gleams so rich in the light of the fire?<br /> +The ringlets on her shoulders lying<br /> +In their flitting lustre vying<br /> +With the clasp of burnish'd gold<br /> +Which her heavy robe doth hold.<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Her looks are mild, her fingers slight<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31t">31</a></span>As the driven snow are white°;<br /> +But her cheeks are sunk and pale.<br /> +Is it that the bleak sea-gale<br /> +Beating from the Atlantic sea<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>On this coast of Brittany,<br /> +Nips too keenly the sweet flower?<br /> +Is it that a deep fatigue<br /> +Hath come on her, a chilly fear,<br /> +Passing all her youthful hour<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Spinning with her maidens here,<br /> +Listlessly through the window-bars<br /> +Gazing seawards many a league,<br /> +From her lonely shore-built tower,<br /> +While the knights are at the wars?<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Or, perhaps, has her young heart<br /> +Felt already some deeper smart,<br /> +Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive,<br /> +Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair?<br /> +Who is this snowdrop by the sea?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>I know her by her mildness rare,<br /> +Her snow-white hands, her golden hair;<br /> +I know her by her rich silk dress,<br /> +And her fragile loveliness—<br /> +The sweetest Christian soul alive,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Iseult of Brittany.</p> +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.38]</span> +Iseult of Brittany?—but where<br /> +Is that other Iseult fair,<br /> +That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen?<br /> +She, whom Tristram's ship of yore<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>From Ireland to Cornwall bore,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">61</a></span>To Tyntagel,° to the side<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">62</a></span>Of King Marc,° to be his bride?<br /> +She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd<br /> +With Tristram that spiced magic draught,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Which since then for ever rolls<br /> +Through their blood, and binds their souls,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">67</a></span>Working love, but working teen°?—.<br /> +There were two Iseults who did sway<br /> +Each her hour of Tristram's day;<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>But one possess'd his waning time,<br /> +The other his resplendent prime.<br /> +Behold her here, the patient flower,<br /> +Who possess'd his darker hour!<br /> +Iseult of the Snow-White Hand<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Watches pale by Tristram's bed.<br /> +She is here who had his gloom,<br /> +Where art thou who hadst his bloom?<br /> +One such kiss as those of yore<br /> +Might thy dying knight restore!<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Does the love-draught work no more?<br /> +Art thou cold, or false, or dead,<br /> +Iseult of Ireland?</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain,<br /> +And the knight sinks back on his pillows again.<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>He is weak with fever and pain; <br /> +And his spirit is not clear.<br /><span class="left">[p.39]</span> +Hark! he mutters in his sleep,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88t">88</a></span>As he wanders° far from here,<br /> +Changes place and time of year,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>And his closéd eye doth sweep<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#91t">91</a></span>O'er some fair unwintry sea,°<br /> +Not this fierce Atlantic deep,<br /> +While he mutters brokenly:—</p><br /> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails;<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales,<br /> +And overhead the cloudless sky of May.—<br /> +<i class="indent4">"Ah, would I were in those green fields at play,<br /> +Not pent on ship-board this delicious day!<br /> +Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy,</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span><i class="indent4">Reach me my golden phial stands by thee,<br /> +But pledge me in it first for courtesy."</i>—<br /> +Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine?<br /> +Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine!<br /> +Iseult!...</p><br /> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Ah, sweet angels, let him dream!<br /> +Keep his eyelids! let him seem<br /> +Not this fever-wasted wight<br /> +Thinn'd and paled before his time,<br /> +But the brilliant youthful knight<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>In the glory of his prime,<br /> +Sitting in the gilded barge,<br /> +At thy side, thou lovely charge,<br /> +Bending gaily o'er thy hand,<br /> +Iseult of Ireland!<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And she too, that princess fair,<br /> +If her bloom be now less rare,<br /><span class="left">[p.40]</span> +Let her have her youth again—<br /> +Let her be as she was then!<br /> +Let her have her proud dark eyes,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And her petulant quick replies—<br /> +Let her sweep her dazzling hand<br /> +With its gesture of command,<br /> +And shake back her raven hair<br /> +With the old imperious air!<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>As of old, so let her be,<br /> +That first Iseult, princess bright,<br /> +Chatting with her youthful knight<br /> +As he steers her o'er the sea,<br /> +Quitting at her father's will<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#130t">130</a></span>The green isle° where she was bred,<br /> +And her bower in Ireland,<br /> +For the surge-beat Cornish strand<br /> +Where the prince whom she must wed<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134t">134</a></span>Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>High above the sounding sea.<br /> +And that potion rare her mother<br /> +Gave her, that her future lord,<br /> +Gave her, that King Marc and she,<br /> +Might drink it on their marriage-day,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>And for ever love each other—<br /> +Let her, as she sits on board,<br /> +Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly!<br /> +See it shine, and take it up,<br /> +And to Tristram laughing say:<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>"Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy,<br /> +Pledge me in my golden cup!"<br /> +Let them drink it—let their hands<br /> +Tremble, and their cheeks be flame,<br /> +As they feel the fatal bands<br /><span class="left">[p.41]</span> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Of a love they dare not name,<br /> +With a wild delicious pain,<br /> +Twine about their hearts again!<br /> +Let the early summer be<br /> +Once more round them, and the sea<br /> +<span class="right">155 </span>Blue, and o'er its mirror kind<br /> +Let the breath of the May-wind,<br /> +Wandering through their drooping sails,<br /> +Die on the green fields of Wales!<br /> +Let a dream like this restore<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#160t">160</a></span>What his eye must see no more!°</p> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks° are drear—<br /> +Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here?<br /> +Were feet like those made for so wild a way?<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#164t">164</a></span>The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day!<br /> +<i class="indent4">"Tristram!—nay, nay—thou must not take my hand!—<br /> +Tristram!—sweet love!—we are betray'd—out-plann'd.<br /> +Fly—save thyself—save me!—I dare not stay."</i>—<br /> +One last kiss first!—<i class="indent4">"'Tis vain—to horse—away!"</i></p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move<br /> +Faster surely than it should,<br /> +From the fever in his blood!<br /> +All the spring-time of his love<br /> +Is already gone and past,<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>And instead thereof is seen<br /> +Its winter, which endureth still—<br /> +Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,<br /> +The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen,<br /><span class="left">[p.42]</span> +The flying leaves, the straining blast,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#180t">180</a></span>And that long, wild kiss—their last.°<br /> +And this rough December-night,<br /> +And his burning fever-pain,<br /> +Mingle with his hurrying dream,<br /> +Till they rule it, till he seem<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>The press'd fugitive again,<br /> +The love-desperate banish'd knight<br /> +With a fire in his brain<br /> +Flying o'er the stormy main.<br /> +—Whither does he wander now?<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>Haply in his dreams the wind<br /> +Wafts him here, and lets him find<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#192t">192</a></span>The lovely orphan child° again<br /> +In her castle by the coast;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#194t">194</a></span>The youngest, fairest chatelaine,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Whom this realm of France can boast,<br /> +Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,<br /> +Iseult of Brittany. <br /> +And—for through the haggard air,<br /> +The stain'd arms, the matted hair<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#200t">200</a></span>Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,°<br /> +There gleam'd something, which recall'd<br /> +The Tristram who in better days<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#203t">203</a></span>Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard°—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#204t">204</a></span>Welcomed here,° and here install'd,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Tended of his fever here,<br /> +Haply he seems again to move<br /> +His young guardian's heart with love<br /> +In his exiled loneliness,<br /> +In his stately, deep distress,<br /> +<span class="right">210</span>Without a word, without a tear.<br /> +—Ah! 'tis well he should retrace<br /><span class="left">[p.43]</span> +His tranquil life in this lone place;<br /> +His gentle bearing at the side<br /> +Of his timid youthful bride;<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>His long rambles by the shore<br /> +On winter-evenings, when the roar<br /> +Of the near waves came, sadly grand,<br /> +Through the dark, up the drown'd sand,<br /> +Or his endless reveries<br /> +<span class="right"> 220</span>In the woods, where the gleams play<br /> +On the grass under the trees,<br /> +Passing the long summer's day<br /> +Idle as a mossy stone<br /> +In the forest-depths alone,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>The chase neglected, and his hound<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#226t">226</a></span>Couch'd beside him on the ground.°<br /> +—Ah! what trouble's on his brow?<br /> +Hither let him wander now;<br /> +Hither, to the quiet hours<br /> +<span class="right"> 230</span>Pass'd among these heaths of ours.<br /> +By the grey Atlantic sea;<br /> +Hours, if not of ecstasy,<br /> +From violent anguish surely free!</p><br /> +<p class="indent4"><br /> +<i>Tristram</i>. All red with blood the whirling river flows,<br /> +<span class="right"> 235</span>The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows.<br /> +Upon us are the chivalry of Rome—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#237t">237</a></span>Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.°<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#238t">238</a></span>"Up, Tristram, up," men cry, "thou moonstruck knight°!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#239t">239</a></span>What foul fiend rides thee°? On into the fight!"<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#240t">240</a></span>—Above the din her° voice is in my ears;<br /> +I see her form glide through the crossing spears.—<br /> +Iseult!...</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.44]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#243t">243</a></span>Ah! he wanders forth again°;<br /> +We cannot keep him; now, as then,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#245t">245</a></span>There's a secret in his breast°<br /> +Which will never let him rest.<br /> +These musing fits in the green wood<br /> +They cloud the brain, they dull the blood!<br /> +—His sword is sharp, his horse is good;<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>Beyond the mountains will he see<br /> +The famous towns of Italy,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#252t">252</a></span>And label with the blessed sign°<br /> +The heathen Saxons on the Rhine.<br /> +At Arthur's side he fights once more<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#255t">255</a></span>With the Roman Emperor.°<br /> +There's many a gay knight where he goes<br /> +Will help him to forget his care;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#258t">258</a></span>The march, the leaguer,° Heaven's blithe air,<br /> +The neighing steeds, the ringing blows—<br /> +<span class="right"> 260</span>Sick pining comes not where these are.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#261t">261</a></span>Ah! what boots it,° that the jest<br /> +Lightens every other brow,<br /> +What, that every other breast<br /> +Dances as the trumpets blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>If one's own heart beats not light<br /> +On the waves of the toss'd fight,<br /> +If oneself cannot get free<br /> +From the clog of misery?<br /> +Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale<br /> +<span class="right"> 270</span>Watching by the salt sea-tide<br /> +With her children at her side<br /> +For the gleam of thy white sail.<br /> +Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!<br /> +To our lonely sea complain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 275</span>To our forests tell thy pain! </p> +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.45]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,<br /> +But it is moonlight in the open glade;<br /> +And in the bottom of the glade shine clear<br /> +The forest-chapel and the fountain near.<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>—I think, I have a fever in my blood;<br /> +Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,<br /> +Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.<br /> +—Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light;<br /> +God! 'tis <i class="indent4">her</i> face plays in the waters bright.<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon,<br /> +At this soft hour under this sweet moon?"—<br /> +Iseult!...</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> + Ah, poor soul! if this be so,<br /> +Only death can balm thy woe.<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>The solitudes of the green wood<br /> +Had no medicine for thy mood;<br /> +The rushing battle clear'd thy blood<br /> +As little as did solitude.<br /> +—Ah! his eyelids slowly break<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>Their hot seals, and let him wake;<br /> +What new change shall we now see?<br /> +A happier? Worse it cannot be.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire!<br /> +Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright;<br /> +<span class="right"> 300</span>The wind is down—but she'll not come to-night.<br /> +Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now,<br /> +Far hence; her dreams are fair—smooth is her brow<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#303t">303</a></span>Of me she recks not,° nor my vain desire.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.46]</span> +—I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page,<br /> +<span class="right"> 305</span>Would take a score years from a strong man's age;<br /> +And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear,<br /> +Scant leisure for a second messenger.<br /><br /> + +—My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait!<br /> +To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by;<br /> +<span class="right"> 310</span>To-night my page shall keep me company.<br /> +Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me!<br /> +Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I;<br /> +This comes of nursing long and watching late.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#314t">314</a></span>To bed—good night!°</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 315</span>She left the gleam-lit fireplace,<br /> +She came to the bed-side;<br /> +She took his hands in hers—her tears<br /> +Down on his wasted fingers rain'd.<br /> +She raised her eyes upon his face—<br /> +<span class="right"> 320</span>Not with a look of wounded pride,<br /> +A look as if the heart complained—<br /> +Her look was like a sad embrace;<br /> +The gaze of one who can divine<br /> +A grief, and sympathise.<br /> +<span class="right"> 325</span>Sweet flower! thy children's eyes<br /> +Are not more innocent than thine.<br /> + But they sleep in shelter'd rest,<br /> +Like helpless birds in the warm nest,<br /> +On the castle's southern side;<br /> +<span class="right"> 330</span>Where feebly comes the mournful roar<br /> +Of buffeting wind and surging tide<br /> +Through many a room and corridor.<br /> +—Full on their window the moon's ray<br /> +Makes their chamber as bright as day.<br /><span class="left">[p.47]</span> +<span class="right"> 335</span>It shines upon the blank white walls,<br /> +And on the snowy pillow falls,<br /> +And on two angel-heads doth play<br /> +Turn'd to each other—the eyes closed,<br /> +The lashes on the cheeks reposed.<br /> +<span class="right"> 340</span>Round each sweet brow the cap close-set<br /> +Hardly lets peep the golden hair;<br /> +Through the soft-open'd lips the air<br /> +Scarcely moves the coverlet.<br /> +One little wandering arm is thrown<br /> +<span class="right"> 345</span>At random on the counterpane,<br /> +And often the fingers close in haste<br /> +As if their baby-owner chased<br /> +The butterflies again.<br /> +<span class="right"> 350</span>This stir they have, and this alone;<br /> +But else they are so still!<br /> +—Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still;<br /> +But were you at the window now,<br /> +To look forth on the fairy sight<br /> +<span class="right"> 355</span>Of your illumined haunts by night,<br /> +To see the park-glades where you play<br /> +Far lovelier than they are by day,<br /> +To see the sparkle on the eaves,<br /> +And upon every giant-bough<br /> +<span class="right"> 360</span>Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves<br /> +Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain—<br /> +How would your voices run again!<br /> +And far beyond the sparkling trees<br /> +Of the castle-park one sees<br /> +<span class="right"> 365</span>The bare heaths spreading, clear as day,<br /> +Moor behind moor, far, far away,<br /> +Into the heart of Brittany.<br /> +And here and there, lock'd by the land,<br /><span class="left">[p.48]</span> +Long inlets of smooth glittering sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 370</span>And many a stretch of watery sand<br /> +All shining in the white moon-beams—<br /> +But you see fairer in your dreams!<br /><br /> + +What voices are these on the clear night-air?<br /> +What lights in the court—what steps on the stair?<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3><a href="#II">ISEULT OF IRELAND</a><a name="IRELAND">°</a></h3> + +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.—<br /> + Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen!<br /> +Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever;<br /> + Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span><i>Iseult</i>. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried;<br /> + Bound I was, I could not break the band.<br /> +Chide not with the past, but feel the present!<br /> + I am here—we meet—I hold thy hand.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Thou art come, indeed—thou hast rejoin'd me;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> Thou hast dared it—but too late to save.<br /> +Fear not now that men should tax thine honour!<br /> + I am dying: build—(thou may'st)—my grave!<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly!<br /> + What, I hear these bitter words from thee?<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel—<br /> + Take my hand—dear Tristram, look on me!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.49]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage—<br /> + Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair.<br /> +But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult!<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span> And thy beauty never was more fair.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty!<br /> + I, like thee, have left my youth afar.<br /> +Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers—<br /> + See my cheek and lips, how white they are!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span><i>Tristram</i>. Thou art paler—but thy sweet charm, Iseult!<br /> + Would not fade with the dull years away.<br /> +Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight!<br /> + I forgive thee, Iseult!—thou wilt stay?<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Fear me not, I will be always with thee;<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain;<br /> +Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers,<br /> + Join'd at evening of their days again.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding<br /> + Something alter'd in thy courtly tone.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Sit—sit by me! I will think, we've lived so<br /> + In the green wood, all our lives, alone.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me,<br /> + Love like mine is alter'd in the breast;<br /> +Courtly life is light and cannot reach it—<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd!<br /><br /> + +What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers<br /> + Words by which the wretched are consoled?<br /> +What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler,<br /> + Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.50]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband—<br /> + That was bliss to make my sorrows flee!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#47t2">47</a></span>Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings°—<br /> + Those were friends to make me false to thee!<br /><br /> + +Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced,<br /> + <span class="right"> 50</span> Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown—<br /> +Thee, a pining exile in thy forest,<br /> + Me, a smiling queen upon my throne?<br /><br /> + +Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd,<br /> + Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Both have brought their anxious day to evening,<br /> + And have now short space for being glad!<br /><br /> + +Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people,<br /> + Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill,<br /> +That a former rival shares her office,<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> When she sees her humbled, pale, and still.<br /><br /> + +I, a faded watcher by thy pillow,<br /> + I, a statue on thy chapel-floor,<br /> +Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother,<br /> + Rouse no anger, make no rivals more.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>She will cry: "Is this the foe I dreaded?<br /> + This his idol? this that royal bride?<br /> +Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight!<br /> + Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side."<br /><br /> + +Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me.<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep.<br /> +Close thine eyes—this flooding moonlight blinds them!—<br /> + Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.51]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something<br /> + Swells my heart, and takes my breath away.<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Through a mist I see thee; near—come nearer!<br /> + Bend—bend down!—I yet have much to say.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow—<br /> + Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail!<br /> +Call on God and on the holy angels!<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span> What, love, courage!—Christ! he is so pale.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching!<br /> + This is what my mother said should be,<br /> +When the fierce pains took her in the forest,<br /> + The deep draughts of death, in bearing me.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 85</span>"Son," she said, "thy name shall be of sorrow;<br /> + Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake."<br /> +So she said, and died in the drear forest.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88t2">88</a></span> Grief since then his home with me doth make.°<br /><br /> + +I am dying.—Start not, nor look wildly!<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span> Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save.<br /> +But, since living we were ununited,<br /> + Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave.<br /><br /> + +Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult;<br /> + Speak her fair, she is of royal blood!<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me—<br /> + She will grant it; she is kind and good.<br /><br /> + +Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee—<br /> + One last kiss upon the living shore!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.52]</span> +<i>Iseult</i>. Tristram!—Tristram!—stay—receive me with thee!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#100t2">100</a></span> Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more.°</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +You see them clear—the moon shines bright.<br /> +Slow, slow and softly, where she stood,<br /> +She sinks upon the ground;—her hood<br /> +Has fallen back; her arms outspread<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Still hold her lover's hand; her head<br /> +Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed.<br /> +O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair<br /> +Lies in disorder'd streams; and there,<br /> +Strung like white stars, the pearls still are,<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare,<br /> +Flash on her white arms still.<br /> +The very same which yesternight<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#113t2">113</a></span>Flash'd in the silver sconces'° light,<br /> +When the feast was gay and the laughter loud<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>In Tyntagel's palace proud.<br /> +But then they deck'd a restless ghost<br /> +With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes,<br /> +And quivering lips on which the tide<br /> +Of courtly speech abruptly died,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And a glance which over the crowded floor,<br /> +The dancers, and the festive host,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#122t2">122</a></span>Flew ever to the door.°<br /> +That the knights eyed her in surprise,<br /> +And the dames whispered scoffingly:<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>"Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers!<br /> +But yesternight and she would be<br /> +As pale and still as wither'd flowers,<br /> +And now to-night she laughs and speaks<br /> +And has a colour in her cheeks;<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Christ keep us from such fantasy!"—<br /><span class="left">[p.53]</span> +Yes, now the longing is o'erpast,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#132t2">132</a></span>Which, dogg'd° by fear and fought by shame,<br /> +Shook her weak bosom day and night,<br /> +Consumed her beauty like a flame,<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>And dimm'd it like the desert-blast.<br /> +And though the bed-clothes hide her face,<br /> +Yet were it lifted to the light,<br /> +The sweet expression of her brow<br /> +Would charm the gazer, till his thought<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Erased the ravages of time,<br /> +Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought<br /> +A freshness back as of her prime—<br /> +So healing is her quiet now.<br /> +So perfectly the lines express<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>A tranquil, settled loveliness,<br /> +Her younger rival's purest grace.<br /><br /> + +The air of the December-night<br /> +Steals coldly around the chamber bright,<br /> +Where those lifeless lovers be;<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Swinging with it, in the light<br /> +Flaps the ghostlike tapestry.<br /> +And on the arras wrought you see<br /> +A stately Huntsman, clad in green,<br /> +And round him a fresh forest-scene.<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>On that clear forest-knoll he stays,<br /> +With his pack round him, and delays.<br /> +He stares and stares, with troubled face,<br /> +At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace,<br /> +At that bright, iron-figured door,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>And those blown rushes on the floor.<br /> +He gazes down into the room<br /> +With heated cheeks and flurried air,<br /><span class="left">[p.54]</span> +And to himself he seems to say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">"What place is this, and who are they?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span><i class="indent4">Who is that kneeling Lady fair?<br /> +And on his pillows that pale Knight<br /> +Who seems of marble on a tomb?<br /> +How comes it here, this chamber bright,<br /> +Through whose mullion'd windows clear</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span><i class="indent4">The castle-court all wet with rain,<br /> +The drawbridge and the moat appear,<br /> +And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray,<br /> +The sunken reefs, and far away<br /> +The unquiet bright Atlantic plain?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>—<i class="indent4">What, has some glamour made me sleep,<br /> +And sent me with my dogs to sweep,<br /> +By night, with boisterous bugle-peal,<br /> +Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,<br /> +Not in the free green wood at all?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span><i class="indent4">That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer<br /> +That Lady by the bed doth kneel—<br /> +Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!"</i><br /> +—The wild boar rustles in his lair;<br /> +The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air;<br /> +But lord and hounds keep rooted there.<br /><br /> + +Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,<br /> +O Hunter! and without a fear<br /> +Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow,<br /> +And through the glades thy pastime take—<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here!<br /> +For these thou seest are unmoved;<br /> +Cold, cold as those who lived and loved<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#193t2">193</a></span>A thousand years ago.°</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3>III</h3> +<span class="left">[p.55]</span> +<h3><a href="#IB">ISEULT OF BRITTANY</a><a name="BRITTANY">°</a></h3> +<p class="indent4"> +A year had flown, and o'er the sea away,<br /> +In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay;<br /> +In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old—<br /> +There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,<br /> +Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play<br /> +In a green circular hollow in the heath<br /> +Which borders the sea-shore—a country path<br /> +Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined,<br /> +And to one standing on them, far and near<br /> +The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13t3">13</a></span>Over the waste. This cirque° of open ground<br /> +Is light and green; the heather, which all round<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass<br /> +Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass<br /> +Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18t3">18</a></span>Dotted with holly-trees and juniper.°<br /> +In the smooth centre of the opening stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Three hollies side by side, and made a screen,<br /> +Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#22t3">22</a></span>With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's° food.<br /> +Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands,<br /> +Watching her children play; their little hands<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#26t3">26</a></span>Of stagshorn° for their hats; anon, with screams<br /><span class="left">[p.56]</span> +Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound<br /> +Among the holly-clumps and broken ground,<br /> +Racing full speed, and startling in their rush<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush<br /> +Out of their glossy coverts;—but when now<br /> +Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow,<br /> +Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair,<br /> +In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair—<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three<br /> +Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37t3">37</a></span>Told them an old-world Breton history.°<br /><br /> + +Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there,<br /> +Under the hollies, in the clear still air—<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering<br /> +Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring.<br /> +Long they stay'd still—then, pacing at their ease,<br /> +Moved up and down under the glossy trees.<br /> +But still, as they pursued their warm dry road,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd,<br /> +And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes<br /> +Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise;<br /> +Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side,<br /> +Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away<br /> +From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay,<br /> +Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams<br /> +Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams,<br /> +Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>The fell-fares settled on the thickets near.<br /> +And they would still have listen'd, till dark night<br /> +Came keen and chill down on the heather bright;<br /> +But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold,<br /><span class="left">[p.57]</span> +And the grey turrets of the castle old<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, <br /> +Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair,<br /> +And brought her tale to an end, and found the path,<br /> +And led them home over the darkening heath.<br /><br /> + +And is she happy? Does she see unmoved<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>The days in which she might have lived and loved<br /> +Slip without bringing bliss slowly away,<br /> +One after one, to-morrow like to-day?<br /> +Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will—<br /> +Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet,<br /> +So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet<br /> +Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone<br /> +Hath yet an infantine and silver tone,<br /> +But even that comes languidly; in truth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>She seems one dying in a mask of youth.<br /> +And now she will go home, and softly lay<br /> +Her laughing children in their beds, and play<br /> +Awhile with them before they sleep; and then<br /> +She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81t3">81</a></span>Along this iron coast,° know like a star,°<br /> +And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit<br /> +Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it;<br /> +Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Her children, or to listen to the wind.<br /> +And when the clock peals midnight, she will move<br /> +Her work away, and let her fingers rove<br /> +Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound<br /> +Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground;<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes<br /><span class="left">[p.58]</span> +Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#92t3">92</a></span>And at her prie-dieu° kneel, until she have told<br /> +Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold,<br /> +Then to her soft sleep—and to-morrow'll be<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>To-day's exact repeated effigy.<br /><br /> + +Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#97t3">97</a></span>The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal,°<br /> +Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound,<br /> +Are there the sole companions to be found.<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>But these she loves; and noiser life than this<br /> +She would find ill to bear, weak as she is.<br /> +She has her children, too, and night and day<br /> +Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play,<br /> +The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails,<br /> +These are to her dear as to them; the tales<br /> +With which this day the children she beguiled<br /> +She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child,<br /> +In every hut along this sea-coast wild.<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>She herself loves them still, and, when they are told,<br /> +Can forget all to hear them, as of old.<br /><br /> + +Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,<br /> +Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear<br /> +To all that has delighted them before,<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And lets us be what we were once no more.<br /> +No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain<br /> +Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,<br /> +By what of old pleased us, and will again.<br /> +No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd<br /> +Until they crumble, or else grow like steel—<br /><span class="left">[p.59]</span> +Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring—<br /> +Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,<br /> +But takes away the power—this can avail,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>By drying up our joy in everything,<br /> +To make our former pleasures all seem stale.<br /> +This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit<br /> +Of passion, which subdues our souls to it,<br /> +Till for its sake alone we live and move—<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Call it ambition, or remorse, or love—<br /> +This too can change us wholly, and make seem<br /> +All which we did before, shadow and dream.<br /><br /> + +And yet, I swear, it angers me to see<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134t3">134</a></span>How this fool passion gulls° men potently;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest,<br /> +And an unnatural overheat at best.<br /> +How they are full of languor and distress<br /> +Not having it; which when they do possess,<br /> +They straightway are burnt up with fume and care,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#140t3">140</a></span>And spend their lives in posting here and there°<br /> +Where this plague drives them; and have little ease,<br /> +Are furious with themselves, and hard to please.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#143t3">143</a></span>Like that bold Cæsar,° the famed Roman wight,<br /> +Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>Who made a name at younger years than he;<br /> +Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150t3">147</a></span>Prince Alexander,° Philip's peerless son,<br /> +Who carried the great war from Macedon<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150t3">149</a></span>Into the Soudan's° realm, and thundered on<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>To die at thirty-five in Babylon.<br /><br /> + +What tale did Iseult to the children say,<br /> +Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day?<br /><span class="left">[p.60]</span> +She told them of the fairy-haunted land<br /> +Away the other side of Brittany,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">156</a></span>Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,°<br /> +Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps<br /> +Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">159</a></span>For here he came with the fay° Vivian,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>One April, when the warm days first began.<br /> +He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend,<br /> +On her white palfrey; here he met his end,<br /> +In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">164</a></span>This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay°<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear<br /> +Before the children's fancy him and her.<br /><br /> + +Blowing between the stems, the forest-air<br /> +Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair,<br /> +Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise.<br /> +Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat,<br /> +For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet.<br /> +A brier in that tangled wilderness<br /> +Had scored her white right hand, which she allows<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress;<br /> +The other warded off the drooping boughs.<br /> +But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes<br /> +Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize.<br /> +Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace,<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>The spirit of the woods was in her face.<br /> +She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight<br /> +Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight;<br /> +And he grew fond, and eager to obey<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">184</a></span>His mistress, use her empire° as she may.<br /><span class="left">[p.61]</span> +<span class="right"> 185</span>They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day <br /> +Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away,<br /> +In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook;<br /> +And up as high as where they stood to look<br /> +On the brook's farther side was clear, but then<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>The underwood and trees began again.<br /> +This open glen was studded thick with thorns<br /> +Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns,<br /> +Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer<br /> +Who come at noon down to the water here.<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along<br /> +Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong<br /> +The blackbird whistled from the dingles near,<br /> +And the weird chipping of the woodpecker<br /> +Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair,<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere.<br /> +Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow,<br /> +To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough<br /> +Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild.<br /> +As if to itself the quiet forest smiled.<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here<br /> +The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear<br /> +Across the hollow; white anemones<br /> +Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses<br /> +Ran out from the dark underwood behind.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>No fairer resting-place a man could find.<br /> +"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she<br /> +Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.<br /><br /> + +They sate them down together, and a sleep<br /> +Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep.<br /> +<span class="right"> 215 </span>Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose<br /> +And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws,<br /><span class="left">[p.62]</span> +And takes it in her hand, and waves it over<br /> +The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">219</a></span>Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple° round,<br /> +<span class="right"> 220</span>And made a little plot of magic ground.<br /> +And in that daised circle, as men say,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">222</a></span>Is Merlin prisoner° till the judgment-day;<br /> +But she herself whither she will can rove—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224-2t3">224</a></span>For she was passing weary of his love.° +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> +<h1>LYRICAL POEMS</h1> + +<br /><br /><span class="left">[p.63]</span> +<h2><a href="#BROU">THE CHURCH OF BROU</a><a name="CHURCH">°</a></h2> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<h3>THE CASTLE</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1cb">1</a></span>Down the Savoy° valleys sounding,<br /> + Echoing round this castle old,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3cb">3</a></span>'Mid the distant mountain-chalets°<br /> + Hark! what bell for church is toll'd?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>In the bright October morning <br /> + Savoy's Duke had left his bride.<br /> +From the castle, past the drawbridge,<br /> + Flow'd the hunters' merry tide.<br /><br /> + +Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> Gay, her smiling lord to greet,<br /> +From her mullion'd chamber-casement<br /> + Smiles the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +From Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Here she came, a bride, in spring.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Now the autumn crisps the forest;<br /> + Hunters gather, bugles ring.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.64]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17cb">17</a></span>Hounds are pulling, prickers° swearing,<br /> + Horses fret, and boar-spears glance.<br /> +Off!—They sweep the marshy forests.<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span> Westward, on the side of France.<br /><br /> + +Hark! the game's on foot; they scatter!—<br /> + Down the forest-ridings lone,<br /> +Furious, single horsemen gallop——<br /> + Hark! a shout—a crash—a groan!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Pale and breathless, came the hunters;<br /> + On the turf dead lies the boar—<br /> +God! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him,<br /> + Senseless, weltering in his gore.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> +<p class="indent4"> +In the dull October evening,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> Down the leaf-strewn forest-road,<br /> +To the castle, past the drawbridge,<br /> + Came the hunters with their load.<br /><br /> + +In the hall, with sconces blazing,<br /> + Ladies waiting round her seat,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#35cb">35</a></span>Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais°<br /> + Sate the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +Hark! below the gates unbarring!<br /> + Tramp of men and quick commands!<br /> +"—'Tis my lord come back from hunting—"<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> And the Duchess claps her hands.<br /><br /> + +Slow and tired, came the hunters—<br /> + Stopp'd in darkness in the court.<br /> +"—Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters!<br /> + To the hall! What sport? What sport?"—<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.65]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Slow they enter'd with their master;<br /> + In the hall they laid him down.<br /> +On his coat were leaves and blood-stains,<br /> + On his brow an angry frown.<br /><br /> + +Dead her princely youthful husband<br /> + <span class="right"> 50</span> Lay before his youthful wife,<br /> +Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces—<br /> + And the sight froze all her life.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> +<p class="indent4"> +In Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Kings hold revel, gallants meet.<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Gay of old amid the gayest<br /> + Was the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +In Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Feast and dance her youth beguiled.<br /> +Till that hour she never sorrow'd;<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> But from then she never smiled.<br /><br /> + +'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys<br /> + Far from town or haunt of man,<br /> +Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd,<br /> + Which the Duchess Maud began;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>Old, that Duchess stern began it,<br /> + In grey age, with palsied hands;<br /> +But she died while it was building,<br /> + And the Church unfinish'd stands—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#69cb">69</a></span>Stands as erst° the builders left it,<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> When she sank into her grave;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71cb">71</a></span>Mountain greensward paves the chancel,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#72cb">72</a></span> Harebells flower in the nave.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.66]</span> +"—In my castle all is sorrow,"<br /> + Said the Duchess Marguerite then;<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>"Guide me, some one, to the mountain!<br /> + We will build the Church again."—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#77cb">77</a></span>Sandall'd palmers,° faring homeward,<br /> + Austrian knights from Syria came.<br /> +"—Austrian wanderers bring, O warders!<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span> Homage to your Austrian dame."—<br /><br /> + +From the gate the warders answer'd:<br /> + "—Gone, O knights, is she you knew!<br /> +Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess;<br /> + Seek her at the Church of Brou!"—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 85</span>Austrian knights and march-worn palmers<br /> + Climb the winding mountain-way.—<br /> +Reach the valley, where the Fabric<br /> + Rises higher day by day.<br /><br /> + +Stones are sawing, hammers ringing;<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span> On the work the bright sun shines,<br /> +In the Savoy mountain-meadows,<br /> + By the stream, below the pines.<br /><br /> + +On her palfry white the Duchess<br /> + Sate and watch'd her working train—<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders,<br /> + German masons, smiths from Spain.<br /><br /> + +Clad in black, on her white palfrey,<br /> + Her old architect beside—<br /><span class="left">[p.67]</span> +There they found her in the mountains,<br /> + <span class="right"> 100</span> Morn and noon and eventide.<br /><br /> + +There she sate, and watch'd the builders,<br /> + Till the Church was roof'd and done.<br /> +Last of all, the builders rear'd her<br /> + In the nave a tomb of stone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 105</span>On the tomb two forms they sculptured,<br /> + Lifelike in the marble pale—<br /> +One, the Duke in helm and armour;<br /> + One, the Duchess in her veil.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#109cb">109</a></span>Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork°<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span> Was at Easter-tide put on.<br /> +Then the Duchess closed her labours;<br /> + And she died at the St. John.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3>THE CHURCH</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +Upon the glistening leaden roof<br /> +Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines;<br /> + The stream goes leaping by.<br /> +The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof;<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>'Mid bright green fields, below the pines,<br /> + Stands the Church on high.<br /> +What Church is this, from men aloof?—<br /> +'Tis the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +At sunrise, from their dewy lair<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Crossing the stream, the kine are seen <br /> + Round the wall to stray—<br /><span class="left">[p.68]</span> +The churchyard wall that clips the square<br /> +Of open hill-sward fresh and green<br /> + Where last year they lay.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>But all things now are order'd fair<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17cb2">17</a></span>On Sundays, at the matin-chime,°<br /> +The Alpine peasants, two and three,<br /> + Climb up here to pray;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Burghers and dames, at summer's prime,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21cb2">21</a></span>Ride out to church from Chambery,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#22cb2">22</a></span> Dight° with mantles gay.<br /> +But else it is a lonely time<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>On Sundays, too, a priest doth come <br /> +From the wall'd town beyond the pass,<br /> + Down the mountain-way;<br /> +And then you hear the organ's hum,<br /> +You hear the white-robed priest say mass,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> And the people pray.<br /> +But else the woods and fields are dumb<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +And after church, when mass is done,<br /> +The people to the nave repair<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span> Round the tomb to stray;<br /> +And marvel at the Forms of stone,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37cb2">37</a></span>And praise the chisell'd broideries° rare—<br /> + Then they drop away.<br /> +The princely Pair are left alone<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>In the Church of Brou.</p> + +<span class="left">[p.69]</span> +<h3>III</h3> + +<h3>THE TOMB</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair!<br /> +In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air,<br /> +Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come.<br /> +Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>From the rich painted windows of the nave,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6cb3">6</a></span>On aisle, and transept,° and your marble grave;<br /> +Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise<br /> +From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies,<br /> +On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds <br /> +To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve;<br /> +And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive,<br /> +Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,<br /> +The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Coming benighted to the castle-gate.<br /><br /> + + So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair!<br /> +Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair<br /> +On the carved western front a flood of light<br /> +Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, <br /> +In the vast western window of the nave,<br /> +And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints<br /> +A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints,<br /> +And amethyst, and ruby—then unclose<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose,<br /> +And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads,<br /> +And rise upon your cold white marble beds;<br /><span class="left">[p.70]</span> +And, looking down on the warm rosy tints,<br /> +Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Say: <i class="indent4">What is this? we are in bliss—forgiven—</i><br /> +<i class="indent4">Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!</i><br /> +Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain<br /> +Doth rustlingly above your heads complain<br /> +On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Shedding her pensive light at intervals<br /> +The moon through the clere-story windows shines,<br /> +And the wind washes through the mountain-pines.<br /> +Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#39cb3">39</a></span>The foliaged marble forest° where ye lie,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span><i class="indent4">Hush</i>, ye will say, <i class="indent4">it is eternity!</i><br /> +<i class="indent4">This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these<br /> +The columns of the heavenly palaces!</i><br /> +And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear<br /> +The passage of the Angels' wings will hear,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45cb3">45</a></span>And on the lichen-crusted leads° above <br /> +The rustle of the eternal rain of love. +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#REQUIESCAT">REQUIESCAT</a><a name="REQ">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Strew on her roses, roses,<br /> + And never a spray of yew!<br /> +In quiet she reposes;<br /> + Ah, would that I did too!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Her mirth the world required;<br /> + She bathed it in smiles of glee.<br /> +But her heart was tired, tired,<br /> + And now they let her be.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.71]</span> +Her life was turning, turning,<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> In mazes of heat and sound.<br /> +But for peace her soul was yearning,<br /> + And now peace laps her round.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13r">13</a></span>Her cabin'd,° ample spirit,<br /> + It flutter'd and fail'd for breath<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>To-night it doth inherit <br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#16r">16</a></span> The vasty° hall of death. +</p><br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#CONSOLATION">CONSOLATION</a><a name="CON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Mist clogs the sunshine.<br /> +Smoky dwarf houses<br /> +Hem me round everywhere;<br /> +A vague dejection<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Weighs down my soul.<br /><br /> + +Yet, while I languish,<br /> +Everywhere countless<br /> +Prospects unroll themselves,<br /> +And countless beings<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Pass countless moods.<br /><br /> + +Far hence, in Asia,<br /> +On the smooth convent-roofs,<br /> +On the gilt terraces,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14c">14</a></span>Of holy Lassa,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Bright shines the sun.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.72]</span> +Grey time-worn marbles<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17c">17</a></span>Hold the pure Muses°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18c">18</a></span>In their cool gallery,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#19c">19</a></span>By yellow Tiber,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>They still look fair.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21c">21</a></span>Strange unloved uproar°<br /> +Shrills round their portal;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23c">23</a></span>Yet not on Helicon°<br /> +Kept they more cloudless<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Their noble calm.<br /><br /> + +Through sun-proof alleys<br /> +In a lone, sand-hemm'd<br /> +City of Africa,<br /> +A blind, led beggar,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Age-bow'd, asks alms.<br /><br /> + +No bolder robber<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#32c">32</a></span>Erst° abode ambush'd<br /> +Deep in the sandy waste;<br /> +No clearer eyesight<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Spied prey afar.<br /><br /> + +Saharan sand-winds<br /> +Sear'd his keen eyeballs;<br /> +Spent is the spoil he won.<br /> +For him the present<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Holds only pain.<br /><br /> + +Two young, fair lovers,<br /> +Where the warm June-wind,<br /><span class="left">[p.73]</span> +Fresh from the summer fields<br /> +Plays fondly round them,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Stand, tranced in joy.<br /><br /> + +With sweet, join'd voices,<br /> +And with eyes brimming:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48c">48</a></span>"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,°<br /> +Prolong the present!<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Time, stand still here!"<br /><br /> + +The prompt stern Goddess<br /> +Shakes her head, frowning;<br /> +Time gives his hour-glass<br /> +Its due reversal;<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Their hour is gone.<br /><br /> + +With weak indulgence<br /> +Did the just Goddess<br /> +Lengthen their happiness,<br /> +She lengthen'd also<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Distress elsewhere.<br /><br /> + +The hour, whose happy<br /> +Unalloy'd moments<br /> +I would eternalise,<br /> +Ten thousand mourners<br /> +<span class="right"> 65 </span>Well pleased see end.<br /><br /> + +The bleak, stern hour,<br /> +Whose severe moments<br /> +I would annihilate,<br /> +Is pass'd by others<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>In warmth, light, joy.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.74]</span> +Time, so complain'd of,<br /> +Who to no one man<br /> +Shows partiality,<br /> +Brings round to all men<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Some undimm'd hours. +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<h2>A <a name="DREAM">DREAM</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd,<br /> +Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream,<br /> +Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun,<br /> +On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>On the red pinings of their forest-floor, <br /> +Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines<br /> +The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change<br /> +Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees<br /> +And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes,<br /> +And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came<br /> +Notes of wild pastoral music—over all<br /> +Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow.<br /> +Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood,<br /> +Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves<br /> +Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof<br /> +Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,<br /> +Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>We shot beneath the cottage with the stream.<br /> +On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms<br /> +Came forth—Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine.<br /><span class="left">[p.75]</span> +Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;<br /> +Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue,<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd.<br /> +They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved,<br /> +And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes.<br /> +Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly,<br /> +Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed.<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat<br /> +Hung poised—and then the darting river of Life<br /> +(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life,<br /> +Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd,<br /> +Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines<br /> +Faded—the moss—the rocks; us burning plains,<br /> +Bristled with cities, us the sea received.</p> + + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#LINES">LINES</a><a name="KENSINGTON">°</a></h2> + + +<h2>WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS</h2> +<p class="indent4"> +In this lone, open glade I lie,<br /> +Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;<br /> +And at its end, to stay the eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4l">4</a></span>Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees° stand!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Birds here make song, each bird has his,<br /> +Across the girdling city's hum.<br /> +How green under the boughs it is!<br /> +How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.76]</span> +Sometimes a child will cross the glade<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>To take his nurse his broken toy; <br /> +Sometimes a thrush flit overhead<br /> +Deep in her unknown day's employ.<br /><br /> + +Here at my feet what wonders pass,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14l">14</a></span>What endless, active life is here°!<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!<br /> +An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.<br /><br /> + +Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod<br /> +Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,<br /> +And, eased of basket and of rod,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21l">21</a></span>In the huge world,° which roars hard by,<br /> +Be others happy if they can!<br /> +But in my helpless cradle I<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#24l">24</a></span>Was breathed on by the rural Pan.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,<br /> +Think often, as I hear them rave,<br /> +That peace has left the upper world<br /> +And now keeps only in the grave.<br /><br /> + +Yet here is peace for ever new!<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>When I who watch them am away,<br /> +Still all things in this glade go through<br /> +The changes of their quiet day.<br /><br /> + +Then to their happy rest they pass!<br /> +The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>The night comes down upon the grass,<br /> +The child sleeps warmly in his bed.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.77]</span> +Calm soul of all things! make it mine<br /> +To feel, amid the city's jar,<br /> +That there abides a peace of thine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Man did not make, and cannot mar.<br /><br /> + +The will to neither strive nor cry,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42l">42</a></span>The power to feel with others give°!<br /> +Calm, calm me more! nor let me die<br /> +Before I have begun to live.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#STRAYED">THE STRAYED REVELLER</a><a name="REVELLER">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>The Portico of Circe's Palace. Evening.</i><br /><br /> + +A YOUTH. <a href="#CIRCE">CIRCE</a>.°<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Faster, faster,<br /> +O Circe, Goddess,<br /> +Let the wild, thronging train,<br /> +The bright procession<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Of eddying forms,<br /> +Sweep through my soul!<br /><br /> + +Thou standest, smiling<br /> +Down on me! thy right arm,<br /> +Lean'd up against the column there,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Props thy soft cheek;<br /> +Thy left holds, hanging loosely,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12sr">12</a></span>The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,°<br /> +I held but now.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.78]</span> +Is it, then, evening<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>So soon? I see, the night-dews,<br /> +Cluster'd in thick beads, dim<br /> +The agate brooch-stones<br /> +On thy white shoulder;<br /> +The cool night-wind, too,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Blows through the portico,<br /> +Stirs thy hair, Goddess,<br /> +Waves thy white robe!<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Whence art thou, sleeper?<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. When the white dawn first<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Through the rough fir-planks<br /> +Of my hut, by the chestnuts,<br /> +Up at the valley-head,<br /> +Came breaking, Goddess!<br /> +I sprang up, I threw round me<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>My dappled fawn-skin;<br /> +Passing out, from the wet turf,<br /> +Where they lay, by the hut door,<br /> +I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff,<br /> +All drench'd in dew—<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Came swift down to join<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#36sr">36</a></span>The rout° early gather'd<br /> +In the town, round the temple,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38sr">38</a></span>Iacchus'° white fane°<br /> +On yonder hill.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 40</span>Quick I pass'd, following<br /> +The wood-cutters' cart-track<br /> +Down the dark valley;—I saw<br /> +On my left, through, the beeches,<br /><span class="left">[p.79]</span> +Thy palace, Goddess,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Smokeless, empty!<br /> +Trembling, I enter'd; beheld<br /> +The court all silent,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48sr">48</a></span>The lions sleeping,°<br /> +On the altar this bowl.<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>I drank, Goddess!<br /> +And sank down here, sleeping,<br /> +On the steps of thy portico.<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?<br /> +Thou lovest it, then, my wine?<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Wouldst more of it? See, how glows,<br /> +Through the delicate, flush'd marble,<br /> +The red, creaming liquor,<br /> +Strown with dark seeds!<br /> +Drink, then! I chide thee not,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Deny thee not my bowl.<br /> +Come, stretch forth thy hand, then—so!<br /> +Drink—drink again!<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Thanks, gracious one!<br /> +Ah, the sweet fumes again!<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>More soft, ah me,<br /> +More subtle-winding<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#67sr">67</a></span>Than Pan's flute-music!°<br /> +Faint—faint! Ah me,<br /> +Again the sweet sleep!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 70</span> <i>Circe</i>. Hist! Thou—within there! <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71sr">71</a></span>Come forth, Ulysses°!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#72sr">72</a></span>Art° tired with hunting?<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#73sr">73</a></span>While we range° the woodland,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#74sr">74</a></span>See what the day brings.°<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.80]</span> + <span class="right"> 75</span> <i>Ulysses</i>. Ever new magic!<br /> +Hast thou then lured hither,<br /> +Wonderful Goddess, by thy art,<br /> +The young, languid-eyed Ampelus,<br /> +Iacchus' darling—<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Or some youth beloved of Pan,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81sr">81</a></span>Of Pan and the Nymphs°?<br /> +That he sits, bending downward<br /> +His white, delicate neck<br /> +To the ivy-wreathed marge<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves<br /> +That crown his hair,<br /> +Falling forward, mingling<br /> +With the dark ivy-plants—<br /> +His fawn-skin, half untied,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he,<br /> +That he sits, overweigh'd<br /> +By fumes of wine and sleep,<br /> +So late, in thy portico?<br /> +What youth, Goddess,—what guest<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Of Gods or mortals?<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Hist! he wakes!<br /> +I lured him not hither, Ulysses.<br /> +Nay, ask him!<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Who speaks? Ah, who comes forth<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>To thy side, Goddess, from within?<br /> +How shall I name him?<br /> +This spare, dark-featured,<br /> +Quick-eyed stranger?<br /> +Ah, and I see too<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>His sailor's bonnet,<br /><span class="left">[p.81]</span> +His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#107sr">107</a></span>With one arm bare°!—<br /> +Art thou not he, whom fame<br /> +This long time rumours<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#110sr">110</a></span>The favour'd guest of Circe,° brought by the waves?<br /> +Art thou he, stranger?<br /> +The wise Ulysses,<br /> +Laertes' son?<br /><br /> + +<i>Ulysses</i>. I am Ulysses.<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And thou, too, sleeper?<br /> +Thy voice is sweet.<br /> +It may be thou hast follow'd<br /> +Through the islands some divine bard,<br /> +By age taught many things,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#120sr">120</a></span>Age and the Muses°; <br /> +And heard him delighting<br /> +The chiefs and people<br /> +In the banquet, and learn'd his songs,<br /> +Of Gods and Heroes,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Of war and arts,<br /> +And peopled cities,<br /> +Inland, or built<br /> +By the grey sea.—If so, then hail!<br /> +I honour and welcome thee.<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 130</span><i>The Youth</i>. The Gods are happy.<br /> +They turn on all sides<br /> +Their shining eyes,<br /> +And see below them<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134sr">134</a></span>The earth and men.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">135</a></span>They see Tiresias°<br /> +Sitting, staff in hand,<br /><span class="left">[p.82]</span> +On the warm, grassy<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">138</a></span>Asopus° bank,<br /> +His robe drawn over<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>His old, sightless head,<br /> +Revolving inly<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">142</a></span>The doom of Thebes.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#143sr">143</a></span>They see the Centaurs°<br /> +In the upper glens<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#145sr">145</a></span>Of Pelion,° in the streams,<br /> +Where red-berried ashes fringe<br /> +The clear-brown shallow pools,<br /> +With streaming flanks, and heads<br /> +Rear'd proudly, snuffing<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>The mountain wind.<br /><br /> + +They see the Indian<br /> +Drifting, knife in hand,<br /> +His frail boat moor'd to<br /> +A floating isle thick-matted<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants,<br /> +And the dark cucumber.<br /> +He reaps, and stows them,<br /> +Drifting—drifting;—round him,<br /> +Round his green harvest-plot,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Flow the cool lake-waves,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#161sr">161</a></span>The mountains ring them.°<br /><br /> + +They see the Scythian<br /> +On the wide stepp, unharnessing<br /> +His wheel'd house at noon.<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal— <br /> +Mares' milk, and bread<br /><span class="left">[p.83]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#167sr">167</a></span>Baked on the embers°;—all around<br /> +The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd<br /> +With saffron and the yellow hollyhock<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>And flag-leaved iris-flowers.<br /> +Sitting in his cart,<br /> +He makes his meal; before him, for long miles,<br /> +Alive with bright green lizards,<br /> +And the springing bustard-fowl,<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>The track, a straight black line,<br /> +Furrows the rich soil; here and there<br /> +Clusters of lonely mounds<br /> +Topp'd with rough-hewn,<br /> +Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#180sr">180</a></span>The sunny waste.°<br /><br /> + +They see the ferry<br /> +On the broad, clay-laden.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#183sr">183</a></span>Lone Chorasmian stream°;—thereon<br /> +With snort and strain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>Two horses, strongly swimming, tow<br /> +The ferry-boat, with woven ropes<br /> +To either bow<br /> +Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief,<br /> +With shout and shaken spear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern<br /> +The cowering merchants, in long robes,<br /> +Sit pale beside their wealth<br /> +Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,<br /> +Of gold and ivory,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,<br /> +Jasper and chalcedony,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#197sr">197</a></span>And milk-barr'd onyx-stones.°<br /><span class="left">[p.84]</span> +The loaded boat swings groaning<br /> +In the yellow eddies;<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>The Gods behold them.<br /> +They see the Heroes<br /> +Sitting in the dark ship<br /> +On the foamless, long-heaving<br /> +Violet sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>At sunset nearing<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#206sr">206</a></span>The Happy Islands.°<br /><br /> + + These things, Ulysses,<br /> +The wise bards also<br /> +Behold and sing.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>But oh, what labour!<br /> +O prince, what pain!<br /><br /> + +They too can see<br /> +Tiresias;—but the Gods,<br /> +Who give them vision,<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>Added this law:<br /> +That they should bear too<br /> +His groping blindness,<br /> +His dark foreboding,<br /> +His scorn'd white hairs;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#220sr">220</a></span>Bear Hera's anger°<br /> +Through a life lengthen'd<br /> +To seven ages.<br /><br /> + +They see the Centaurs<br /> +On Pelion;—then they feel,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>They too, the maddening wine<br /> +Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain<br /> +They feel the biting spears<br /><span class="left">[p.85]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#228sr">228</a></span>Of the grim Lapithæ,° and Theseus,° drive,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#228sr">229</a></span>Drive crashing through their bones°; they feel<br /> +<span class="right"> 230</span>High on a jutting rock in the red stream<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#231sr">231</a></span>Alcmena's dreadful son°<br /> +Ply his bow;—such a price<br /> +The Gods exact for song:<br /> +To become what we sing.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 235</span>They see the Indian<br /> +On his mountain lake; but squalls<br /> +Make their skiff reel, and worms<br /> +In the unkind spring have gnawn<br /> +Their melon-harvest to the heart.—They see<br /> +<span class="right"> 240</span>The Scythian; but long frosts<br /> +Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp,<br /> +Till they too fade like grass; they crawl<br /> +Like shadows forth in spring.<br /><br /> + +They see the merchants<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#245sr">245</a></span>On the Oxus stream°;—but care<br /> +Must visit first them too, and make them pale.<br /> +Whether, through whirling sand,<br /> +A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst<br /> +Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>In the wall'd cities the way passes through,<br /> +Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,<br /> +On some great river's marge,<br /> +Mown them down, far from home.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#254sr">254</a></span>They see the Heroes°<br /> +<span class="right"> 255</span>Near harbour;—but they share<br /> +Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257sr">257</a></span>Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy°;<br /><span class="left">[p.86]</span> +Or where the echoing oars<br /> +Of Argo first<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257sr">260</a></span>Startled the unknown sea.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#261sr">261</a></span>The old Silenus°<br /> +Came, lolling in the sunshine,<br /> +From the dewy forest-coverts,<br /> +This way, at noon.<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>Sitting by me, while his Fauns<br /> +Down at the water-side<br /> +Sprinkled and smoothed<br /> +His drooping garland,<br /> +He told me these things.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 270</span>But I, Ulysses,<br /> +Sitting on the warm steps,<br /> +Looking over the valley,<br /> +All day long, have seen,<br /> +Without pain, without labour,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#275sr">275</a></span>Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad°—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#276sr">276</a></span>Sometimes a Faun with torches°—<br /> +And sometimes, for a moment,<br /> +Passing through the dark stems<br /> +Flowing-robed, the beloved,<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>The desired, the divine,<br /> +Beloved Iacchus.<br /><br /> + +Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!<br /> +Ah, glimmering water,<br /> +Fitful earth-murmur,<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>Dreaming woods!<br /> +Ah, golden-hair'd, strangely smiling Goddess,<br /> +And thou, proved, much enduring,<br /><span class="left">[p.87]</span> +Wave-toss'd Wanderer!<br /> +Who can stand still?<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me—<br /> +The cup again!<br /><br /> + +Faster, faster,<br /> +O Circe, Goddess,<br /> +Let the wild, thronging train,<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>The bright procession<br /> +Of eddying forms,<br /> +Sweep through my soul!</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a name="MOR">MORALITY</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +We cannot kindle when we will<br /> +The fire which in the heart resides,<br /> +The spirit bloweth and is still,<br /> +In mystery our soul abides.<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span> But tasks in hours of insight will'd<br /> + Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.<br /><br /> + +With aching hands and bleeding feet<br /> +We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;<br /> +We bear the burden and the heat<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.<br /> + Not till the hours of light return,<br /> + All we have built do we discern.<br /><br /> + +Then, when the clouds are off the soul,<br /> +When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,<br /><span class="left">[p.88]</span> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Ask, how <i class="indent4">she</i> view'd thy self-control,<br /> +Thy struggling, task'd morality—<br /> + Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air.<br /> + Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.<br /><br /> + +And she, whose censure thou dost dread,<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,<br /> +See, on her face a glow is spread,<br /> +A strong emotion on her cheek!<br /> + "Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine,<br /> + Whence was it, for it is not mine?<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 25</span>"There is no effort on <i class="indent4">my</i> brow—<br /> +I do not strive, I do not weep;<br /> +I rush with the swift spheres and glow<br /> +In joy, and when I will, I sleep.<br /> + Yet that severe, that earnest air,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> I saw, I felt it once—but where?<br /><br /> + +"I knew not yet the gauge of time,<br /> +Nor wore the manacles of space;<br /> +I felt it in some other clime,<br /> +I saw it in some other place.<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span> 'Twas when the heavenly house I trod,<br /> + And lay upon the breast of God."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#DOVER">DOVER BEACH</a><a name="BEACH">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +The sea is calm to-night.<br /> +The tide is full, the moon lies fair<br /><span class="left">[p.89]</span> +Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light<br /> +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.<br /> +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!<br /> +Only, from the long line of spray<br /> +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,<br /> +Listen! you hear the grating roar<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,<br /> +At their return, up the high strand,<br /> +Begin, and cease, and then again begin,<br /> +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring<br /> +The eternal note of sadness in.<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> °<a href="#15db">15</a></span>Sophocles° long ago<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#16db">16</a></span>Heard it on the Ægæan,° and it brought<br /> +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow<br /> +Of human misery; we<br /> +Find also in the sound a thought,<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>Hearing it by this distant northern sea.<br /><br /> + +The Sea of Faith<br /> +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore<br /> +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.<br /> +But now I only hear<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,<br /> +Retreating, to the breath<br /> +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear<br /> +And naked shingles of the world.<br /> +Ah, love, let us be true<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span>To one another! for the world, which seems<br /> +To lie before us like a land of dreams,<br /> +So various, so beautiful, so new,<br /> +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,<br /><span class="left">[p.90]</span> +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span>And we are here as on a darkling plain<br /> +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,<br /> +Where ignorant armies clash by night.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#PHILOMELA">PHILOMELA</a><a name="PHI">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Hark! ah, the nightingale—<br /> +The tawny-throated!<br /> +Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#4ph">4</a></span>What triumph! hark!—what pain°!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> °<a href="#5ph">5</a></span>O wanderer from a Grecian shore,°<br /> +Still, after many years, in distant lands,<br /> +Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#8ph">8</a></span>That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain°—<br /> +Say, will it never heal?<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>And can this fragrant lawn<br /> +With its cool trees, and night,<br /> +And the sweet, tranquil Thames,<br /> +And moonshine, and the dew,<br /> +To thy rack'd heart and brain<br /> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Afford no balm?<br /><br /> + +Dost thou to-night behold,<br /> +Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#18ph">18</a></span>The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild°?<br /> +Dost thou again peruse<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#21ph">21</a></span>The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame°?<br /> +Dost thou once more assay<br /><span class="left">[p.91]</span> +Thy flight, and feel come over thee,<br /> +Poor fugitive, the feathery change<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Once more, and once more seem to make resound<br /> +With love and hate, triumph and agony,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#27ph">27</a></span>Lone Daulis,° and the high Cephissian vale°?<br /> +Listen, Eugenia—<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#29ph">29</a></span>How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves°!<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span>Again—thou hearest? <br /> +Eternal passion!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#32ph">32</a></span>Eternal pain°! +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#HUMAN">HUMAN LIFE</a><a name="HUMANLIFE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +What mortal, when he saw,<br /> +Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,<br /> +Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4hl">4</a></span>"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law°; <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5hl">5</a></span>The inly-written chart° thou gavest me,<br /> +To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"?<br /><br /> + +Ah! let us make no claim,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#8hl">8</a></span>On life's incognisable° sea,<br /> +To too exact a steering of our way;<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,<br /> +If some fair coast have lured us to make stay,<br /> +Or some friend hail'd us to keep company.<br /><br /> + +Ay! we would each fain drive<br /> +At random, and not steer by rule.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain<br /> +Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,<br /> +We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;<br /> +Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.92]</span> +No! as the foaming swath<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Of torn-up water, on the main,<br /> +Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar<br /> +On either side the black deep-furrow'd path<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23hl">23</a></span>Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,° <br /> +And never touches the ship-side again;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Even so we leave behind,<br /> +As, charter'd by some unknown Powers<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#27hl">27</a></span>We stem° across the sea of life by night,<br /> +The joys which were not for our use design'd;—<br /> +The friends to whom we had no natural right,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>The homes that were not destined to be ours.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#ISOLATION">ISOLATION</a><a name="ISOL">°</a></h2> + +<h2>TO MARGUERITE</h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1i">1</a></span>Yes°! in the sea of life enisled,<br /> +With echoing straits between us thrown,<br /> +Dotting the shoreless watery wild,<br /> +We mortal millions live <i class="indent4">alone</i>.<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>The islands feel the enclasping flow,<br /> +And then their endless bounds they know.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7i">7</a></span>But when the moon° their hollows lights,<br /> +And they are swept by balms of spring,<br /> +And in their glens, on starry nights,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>The nightingales divinely sing;<br /> +And lovely notes, from shore to shore,<br /> +Across the sounds and channels pour—<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.93]</span> +Oh! then a longing like despair<br /> +Is to their farthest caverns sent;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>For surely once, they feel, we were<br /> +Parts of a single continent!<br /> +Now round us spreads the watery plain—<br /> +Oh might our marges meet again!<br /><br /> + +Who order'd, that their longing's fire<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?<br /> +Who renders vain their deep desire?—<br /> +A God, a God their severance ruled!<br /> +And bade betwixt their shores to be<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#24i">24</a></span>The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.°<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#KAISER">KAISER DEAD</a><a name="DEAD">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">April</i> 6, 1887</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2k">2</a></span>Post-haste to Cobham° calls the Muse,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3k">3</a></span>From where in Farringford° she brews <br /> + The ode sublime,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5k">5</a></span>Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard° pursues<br /> + A rival rhyme.<br /> + +Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet,<br /> +Were known to all the village-street.<br /> +"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> "A loss indeed!" <br /> +O for the croon pathetic, sweet,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#12k">12</a></span> Of Robin's reed°!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.94]</span> +Six years ago I brought him down,<br /> +A baby dog, from London town;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Round his small throat of black and brown<br /> + A ribbon blue,<br /> +And vouch'd by glorious renown<br /> + A dachshound true.<br /><br /> + +His mother, most majestic dame,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#20k">20</a></span>Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam° came;<br /> +And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same—<br /> + No lineage higher.<br /> +And so he bore the imperial name.<br /> + But ah, his sire!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Soon, soon the days conviction bring.<br /> +The collie hair, the collie swing,<br /> +The tail's indomitable ring,<br /> + The eye's unrest—<br /> +The case was clear; a mongrel thing<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> Kai stood confest.<br /><br /> + +But all those virtues, which commend<br /> +The humbler sort who serve and tend,<br /> +Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.<br /> + What sense, what cheer!<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>To us, declining tow'rds our end,<br /> + A mate how dear!<br /><br /> + +For Max, thy brother-dog, began<br /> +To flag, and feel his narrowing span.<br /> +And cold, besides, his blue blood ran,<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> Since, 'gainst the classes,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#41k">41</a></span>He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man°<br /> + Incite the masses.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.95]</span> +Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad;<br /> +But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Teeming with plans, alert, and glad<br /> + In work or play,<br /> +Like sunshine went and came, and bade<br /> + Live out the day!<br /><br /> + +Still, still I see the figure smart—<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50k">50</a></span>Trophy in mouth, agog° to start,<br /> +Then, home return'd, once more depart;<br /> + Or prest together<br /> +Against thy mistress, loving heart,<br /> + In winter weather.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 55</span>I see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd,<br /> +In moments of disgrace uncurl'd,<br /> +Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd,<br /> + A conquering sign;<br /> +Crying, "Come on, and range the world,<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> And never pine."<br /><br /> + +Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;<br /> +Thou hast thine errands, off and on;<br /> +In joy thy last morn flew; anon,<br /> + A fit! All's over;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#65k">65</a></span>And thou art gone where Geist° hath gone,<br /> + And Toss, and Rover.<br /><br /> + +Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head,<br /> +Regards his brother's form outspread;<br /> +Full well Max knows the friend is dead<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> Whose cordial talk,<br /> +And jokes in doggish language said,<br /> + Beguiled his walk.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.96]</span> +And Glory, stretch'd at Burwood gate,<br /> +Thy passing by doth vainly wait;<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And jealous Jock, thy only hate,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#76k">76</a></span> The chiel° from Skye,°<br /> +Lets from his shaggy Highland pate<br /> + Thy memory die.<br /><br /> + +Well, fetch his graven collar fine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>And rub the steel, and make it shine,<br /> +And leave it round thy neck to twine,<br /> + Kai, in thy grave.<br /> +There of thy master keep that sign,<br /> + And this plain stave.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#LAST">THE LAST WORD</a><a name="WORD">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Creep into thy narrow bed,<br /> +Creep, and let no more be said!<br /> +Vain thy onset! all stands fast.<br /> +Thou thyself must break at last.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Let the long contention cease!<br /> +Geese are swans, and swans are geese.<br /> +Let them have it how they will!<br /> +Thou art tired; best be still.<br /><br /> + +They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee?<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Better men fared thus before thee;<br /> +Fired their ringing shot and pass'd,<br /> +Hotly charged—and sank at last.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.97]</span> +Charge once more, then, and be dumb!<br /> +Let the victors, when they come,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>When the forts of folly fall,<br /> +Find thy body by the wall!</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#PALLADIUM">PALLADIUM</a><a name="PAL">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1p">1</a></span>Set where the upper streams of Simois° flow<br /> +Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3p">3</a></span>And Hector° was in Ilium° far below,<br /> +And fought, and saw it not—but there it stood!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light<br /> +On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.<br /> +Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight<br /> +Round Troy—but while this stood, Troy could not fall.<br /><br /> + +So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;<br /> +Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;<br /> +We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!<br /><br /> + +We shall renew the battle in the plain<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14p">14</a></span>To-morrow;—red with blood will Xanthus° be;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15p">15</a></span>Hector and Ajax° will be there again,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16p">16</a></span>Helen° will come upon the wall to see.<br /><br /> + +Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,<br /> +And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,<br /> +And fancy that we put forth all our life,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>And never know how with the soul it fares.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.98]</span> +Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,<br /> +Upon our life a ruling effluence send.<br /> +And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;<br /> +And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a name="REVOLUTIONS">REVOLUTIONS</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Before man parted for this earthly strand,<br /> +While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood,<br /> +God put a heap of letters in his hand,<br /> +And bade him make with them what word he could.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece,<br /> +Rome, England, France;—yes, nor in vain essay'd<br /> +Way after way, changes that never cease!<br /> +The letters have combined, something was made.<br /><br /> + +But ah! an inextinguishable sense<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Haunts him that he has not made what he should;<br /> +That he has still, though old, to recommence,<br /> +Since he has not yet found the word God would.<br /><br /> + +And empire after empire, at their height<br /> +Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Have felt their huge frames not constructed right,<br /> +And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne.<br /><br /> + +One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear<br /> +The word, the order, which God meant should be.<br /> +Ah! we shall know <i class="indent4">that</i> well when it comes near;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The band will quit man's heart, he will breathe free.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.99]</span> +<h2><a href="#SELF">SELF-DEPENDENCE</a><a name="DEPENDENCE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Weary of myself, and sick of asking<br /> +What I am, and what I ought to be,<br /> +At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me<br /> +Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>And a look of passionate desire<br /> +O'er the sea and to the stars I send:<br /> +"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,<br /> +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!<br /><br /> + +"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>On my heart your mighty charm renew;<br /> +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,<br /> +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"<br /><br /> + +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,<br /> +Over the lit sea's unquiet way,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>In the rustling night-air came the answer:<br /> +"Wouldst thou <i class="indent4">be</i> as these are? <i class="indent4">Live</i> as they.<br /><br /> + +"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,<br /> +Undistracted by the sights they see,<br /> +These demand not that the things without them<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.<br /><br /> + +"And with joy the stars perform their shining,<br /> +And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;<br /> +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting<br /> +All the fever of some differing soul.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.100]</span> +<span class="right"> 25</span>"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful<br /> +In what state God's other works may be,<br /> +In their own tasks all their powers pouring,<br /> +These attain the mighty life you see."<br /><br /> + +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:<br /> +"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,<br /> +Who finds himself, loses his misery!"<br /><br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2>A SUMMER <a name="NIGHT">NIGHT</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +In the deserted, moon-blanch'd street,<br /> +How lonely rings the echo of my feet!<br /> +Those windows, which I gaze at, frown,<br /> +Silent and white, unopening down,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Repellent as the world;—but see,<br /> +A break between the housetops shows<br /> +The moon! and, lost behind her, fading dim<br /> +Into the dewy dark obscurity<br /> +Down at the far horizon's rim,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose!<br /><br /> + +And to my mind the thought<br /> +Is on a sudden brought<br /> +Of a past night, and a far different scene.<br /> +Headlands stood out into the moonlit deep<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>As clearly as at noon;<br /> +The spring-tide's brimming flow<br /> +Heaved dazzlingly between;<br /> +Houses, with long white sweep,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.101]</span> +Girdled the glistening bay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Behind, through the soft air,<br /> +The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away,<br /> +The night was far more fair—<br /> +But the same restless pacings to and fro,<br /> +And the same vainly throbbing heart was there,<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>And the same bright, calm moon.<br /><br /> + +And the calm moonlight seems to say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,<br /> +Which neither deadens into rest,<br /> +Nor ever feels the fiery glow</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span><i class="indent4">That whirls the spirit from itself away,<br /> +But fluctuates to and fro,<br /> +Never by passion quite possess'd<br /> +And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?—</i><br /> +And I, I know not if to pray<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Still to be what I am, or yield and be<br /> +Like all the other men I see.<br /><br /> + +For most men in a brazen prison live,<br /> +Where, in the sun's hot eye,<br /> +With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give,<br /> +Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.<br /> +And as, year after year,<br /> +Fresh products of their barren labour fall<br /> +From their tired hands, and rest<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Never yet comes more near,<br /> +Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;<br /> +A while they try to stem<br /> +The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,<br /><span class="left">[p.102]</span> +And the rest, a few,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Escape their prison and <br /> +On the wide ocean of life anew.<br /> +There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart<br /> +Listeth, will sail;<br /> +Nor doth he know how these prevail,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Despotic on that sea,<br /> +Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.<br /> +Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd<br /> +By thwarting signs, and braves<br /> +The freshening wind and blackening waves<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>And then the tempest strikes him; and between<br /> +The lightning-bursts is seen<br /> +Only a driving wreck.<br /> +And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck<br /> +With anguished face and flying hair,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Grasping the rudder hard,<br /> +Still bent to make some port he knows not where,<br /> +Still standing for some false, impossible shore.<br /> +And sterner comes the roar<br /> +Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom<br /> +And he, too, disappears and comes no more.<br /><br /> + +Is there no life, but there alone?<br /> +Madman or slave, must man be one?<br /> +Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Clearness divine.<br /> +Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign<br /> +Of languor, though so calm, and though so great<br /> +Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;<br /> +Who though so noble, share in the world's toil.<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.103]</span> +I will not say that your mild deeps retain<br /> +A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain<br /> +Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain—<br /> +But I will rather say that you remain<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>A world above man's head, to let him see<br /> +How boundless might his soul's horizon be,<br /> +How vast, yet of which clear transparency!<br /> +How it were good to live there, and breathe free!<br /> +How fair a lot to fill<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Is left to each man still!<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#GEIST">GEIST'S GRAVE</a><a name="GRAVE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Four years!—and didst thou stay above<br /> +The ground, which hides thee now, but four?<br /> +And all that life, and all that love,<br /> +Were crowded, Geist! into no more?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Only four years those winning ways,<br /> +Which make me for thy presence yearn,<br /> +Call'd us to pet thee or to praise,<br /> +Dear little friend! at every turn?<br /><br /> + +That loving heart, that patient soul,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Had they indeed no longer span,<br /> +To run their course, and reach their goal,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12gg">12</a></span>And read their homily° to man?<br /><br /> + +That liquid, melancholy eye,<br /> +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs<br /><span class="left">[p.104]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15gg">15</a></span>Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,°<br /> +The sense of tears in mortal things—<br /><br /> + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled<br /> +By spirits gloriously gay,<br /> +And temper of heroic mould—<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>What, was four years their whole short day?<br /><br /> + +Yes, only four!—and not the course<br /> +Of all the centuries yet to come,<br /> +And not the infinite resource<br /> +Of Nature, with her countless sum<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Of figures, with her fulness vast<br /> +Of new creation evermore,<br /> +Can ever quite repeat the past,<br /> +Or just thy little self restore.<br /><br /> + +Stern law of every mortal lot!<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,<br /> +And builds himself I know not what<br /> +Of second life I know not where.<br /><br /> + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go,<br /> +On us, who stood despondent by,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>A meek last glance of love didst throw,<br /> +And humbly lay thee down to die.<br /><br /> + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart—<br /> +Would fix our favourite on the scene,<br /> +Nor let thee utterly depart<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>And be as if thou ne'er hadst been.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.105]</span> +And so there rise these lines of verse<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42gg">42</a></span>On lips that rarely form them now°;<br /> +While to each other we rehearse:<br /> +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 45</span>We stroke thy broad brown paws again,<br /> +We bid thee to thy vacant chair,<br /> +We greet thee by the window-pane,<br /> +We hear thy scuffle on the stair.<br /><br /> + +We see the flaps of thy large ears<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Quick raised to ask which way we go;<br /> +Crossing the frozen lake, appears<br /> +Thy small black figure on the snow!<br /><br /> + +Nor to us only art thou dear<br /> +Who mourn thee in thine English home;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#55gg">55</a></span>Thou hast thine absent master's° tear,<br /> +Dropt by the far Australian foam.<br /><br /> + +Thy memory lasts both here and there,<br /> +And thou shalt live as long as we.<br /> +And after that—thou dost not care!<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>In us was all the world to thee.<br /><br /> + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,<br /> +Even to a date beyond our own<br /> +We strive to carry down thy name,<br /> +By mounded turf, and graven stone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>We lay thee, close within our reach,<br /> +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,<br /> +Between the holly and the beech,<br /> +Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.106]</span> +Asleep, yet lending half an ear<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>To travellers on the Portsmouth road;—<br /> +There build we thee, O guardian dear,<br /> +Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode!<br /><br /> + +Then some, who through this garden pass,<br /> +When we too, like thyself, are clay,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Shall see thy grave upon the grass,<br /> +And stop before the stone, and say:<br /><br /> + +<i class="indent4">People who lived here long ago<br /> +Did by this stone, it seems, intend<br /> +To name for future times to know</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span><i class="indent4">The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.</i></p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#EPILOGUE">EPILOGUE</a></h2> + +<h2><a href="#EPILOGUE">TO LESSING'S LAOCOON</a><a name="LAOCOON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1el">1</a></span>One morn as through Hyde Park° we walk'd,<br /> +My friend and I, by chance we talk'd<br /> +Of Lessing's famed LAOCOON;<br /> +And after we awhile had gone<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>In Lessing's track, and tried to see<br /> +What painting is, what poetry—<br /> +Diverging to another thought,<br /> +"Ah," cries my friend, "but who hath taught<br /> +Why music and the other arts<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Oftener perform aright their parts<br /> +Than poetry? why she, than they,<br /> +Fewer fine successes can display?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.107]</span> +"For 'tis so, surely! Even in Greece,<br /> +Where best the poet framed his piece,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15el">15</a></span>Even in that Phœbus-guarded ground°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16el">16</a></span>Pausanias° on his travels found<br /> +Good poems, if he look'd, more rare<br /> +(Though many) than good statues were—<br /> +For these, in truth, were everywhere.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Of bards full many a stroke divine<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21el">21</a></span>In Dante's,° Petrarch's,° Tasso's° line,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21el">22</a></span>The land of Ariosto° show'd;<br /> +And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd<br /> +With triumphs, a yet ampler brood,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#25el">25</a></span>Of Raphael° and his brotherhood.<br /> +And nobly perfect, in our day<br /> +Of haste, half-work, and disarray,<br /> +Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#29el">29</a></span>Hath risen Goethe's,° Wordsworth's° song;<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Yet even I (and none will bow <br /> +Deeper to these) must needs allow,<br /> +They yield us not, to soothe our pains,<br /> +Such multitude of heavenly strains<br /> +As from the kings of sound are blown,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#35el">35</a></span>Mozart,° Beethoven,° Mendelssohn.°"<br /><br /> + +While thus my friend discoursed, we pass<br /> +Out of the path, and take the grass.<br /> +The grass had still the green of May,<br /> +And still the unblackan'd elms were gay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>The kine were resting in the shade,<br /> +The flies a summer-murmur made.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42el">42</a></span>Bright was the morn and south° the air;<br /> +The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair<br /> +As those which pastured by the sea,<br /> +<span class="left">[p.108]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>That old-world morn, in Sicily,<br /> +When on the beach the Cyclops lay,<br /> +And Galatea from the bay<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48el">48</a></span>Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay.°<br /> +"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere!<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>The limits of his art appear.<br /> +The passing group, the summer-morn,<br /> +The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn—<br /> +Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise,<br /> +Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes—<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>These, or much greater things, but caught<br /> +Like these, and in one aspect brought!<br /> +In outward semblance he must give<br /> +A moment's life of things that live;<br /> +Then let him choose his moment well,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>With power divine its story tell."<br /><br /> + +Still we walk'd on, in thoughtful mood,<br /> +And now upon the bridge we stood.<br /> +Full of sweet breathings was the air,<br /> +Of sudden stirs and pauses fair.<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze<br /> +Came rustling from the garden-trees<br /> +And on the sparkling waters play'd;<br /> +Light-plashing waves an answer made,<br /> +And mimic boats their haven near'd.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70el">70</a></span>Beyond, the Abbey-towers° appear'd, <br /> +By mist and chimneys unconfined,<br /> +Free to the sweep of light and wind;<br /> +While through their earth-moor'd nave below<br /> +Another breath of wind doth blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Sound as of wandering breeze—but sound<br /> +In laws by human artists bound.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.109]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70el">77</a></span>"The world of music°!" I exclaimed:— <br /> +"This breeze that rustles by, that famed<br /> +Abbey recall it! what a sphere<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Large and profound, hath genius here!<br /> +The inspired musician what a range,<br /> +What power of passion, wealth of change<br /> +Some source of feeling he must choose<br /> +And its lock'd fount of beauty use,<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>And through the stream of music tell<br /> +Its else unutterable spell;<br /> +To choose it rightly is his part,<br /> +And press into its inmost heart.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#89el">89</a></span>"<i class="indent4">Miserere Domine°!</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>The words are utter'd, and they flee.<br /> +Deep is their penitential moan,<br /> +Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone.<br /> +They have declared the spirit's sore<br /> +Sore load, and words can do no more.<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Beethoven takes them then—those two<br /> +Poor, bounded words—and makes them new;<br /> +Infinite makes them, makes them young;<br /> +Transplants them to another tongue,<br /> +Where they can now, without constraint,<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>Pour all the soul of their complaint,<br /> +And roll adown a channel large<br /> +The wealth divine they have in charge.<br /> +Page after page of music turn,<br /> +And still they live and still they burn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Eternal, passion-fraught, and free—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#89el">106</a></span><i class="indent4">Miserere Domine°!"</i><br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#107el">107</a></span>Onward we moved, and reach'd the Ride°<br /> +Where gaily flows the human tide.<br /><span class="left">[p.110]</span> +Afar, in rest the cattle lay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>We heard, afar, faint music play;<br /> +But agitated, brisk, and near,<br /> +Men, with their stream of life, were here.<br /> +Some hang upon the rails, and some<br /> +On foot behind them go and come.<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>This through the Ride upon his steed<br /> +Goes slowly by, and this at speed.<br /> +The young, the happy, and the fair,<br /> +The old, the sad, the worn, were there;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#119el">119</a></span>Some vacant,° and some musing went,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And some in talk and merriment.<br /> +Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!<br /> +And now and then, perhaps, there swells<br /> +A sigh, a tear—but in the throng<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#124el">124</a></span>All changes fast, and hies° along.<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Hies, ah, from whence, what native ground?<br /> +And to what goal, what ending, bound?<br /> +"Behold, at last the poet's sphere!<br /> +But who," I said, "suffices here?<br /><br /> + +"For, ah! so much he has to do;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#130el">130</a></span>Be painter and musician too°!<br /> +The aspect of the moment show,<br /> +The feeling of the moment know!<br /> +The aspect not, I grant, express<br /> +Clear as the painter's art can dress;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>The feeling not, I grant, explore<br /> +So deep as the musician's lore—<br /> +But clear as words can make revealing,<br /> +And deep as words can follow feeling.<br /> +But, ah! then comes his sorest spell<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#140el">140</a></span>Of toil—he must life's <i class="indent4">movement</i>° tell!<br /> +<span class="left">[p.111]</span> +The thread which binds it all in one,<br /> +And not its separate parts alone.<br /> +The <i class="indent4">movement</i> he must tell of life,<br /> +Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife;<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>His eye must travel down, at full,<br /> +The long, unpausing spectacle;<br /> +With faithful unrelaxing force<br /> +Attend it from its primal source,<br /> +From change to change and year to year<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Attend it of its mid career,<br /> +Attend it to the last repose<br /> +And solemn silence of its close.<br /><br /> + +"The cattle rising from the grass<br /> +His thought must follow where they pass;<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>The penitent with anguish bow'd<br /> +His thought must follow through the crowd.<br /> +Yes! all this eddying, motley throng<br /> +That sparkles in the sun along,<br /> +Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Master and servant, young and old,<br /> +Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife,<br /> +He follows home, and lives their life.<br /><br /> + +And many, many are the souls<br /> +Life's movement fascinates, controls;<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>It draws them on, they cannot save <br /> +Their feet from its alluring wave;<br /> +They cannot leave it, they must go<br /> +With its unconquerable flow.<br /> +But ah! how few, of all that try<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>This mighty march, do aught but die! <br /> <span class="left">[p.112]</span> +For ill-endow'd for such a way,<br /> +Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they.<br /> +They faint, they stagger to and fro,<br /> +And wandering from the stream they go;<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>In pain, in terror, in distress,<br /> +They see, all round, a wilderness.<br /> +Sometimes a momentary gleam<br /> +They catch of the mysterious stream;<br /> +Sometimes, a second's space, their ear<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>The murmur of its waves doth hear.<br /> +That transient glimpse in song they say,<br /> +But not of painter can pourtray—<br /> +That transient sound in song they tell,<br /> +But not, as the musician, well.<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>And when at last their snatches cease,<br /> +And they are silent and at peace,<br /> +The stream of life's majestic whole<br /> +Hath ne'er been mirror'd on their soul.<br /><br /> + +"Only a few the life-stream's shore<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>With safe unwandering feet explore;<br /> +Untired its movement bright attend,<br /> +Follow its windings to the end.<br /> +Then from its brimming waves their eye<br /> +Drinks up delighted ecstasy,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>And its deep-toned, melodious voice<br /> +For ever makes their ear rejoice.<br /> +They speak! the happiness divine<br /> +They feel, runs o'er in every line;<br /> +Its spell is round them like a shower—<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>It gives them pathos, gives them power.<br /> +No painter yet hath such a way,<br /> +Nor no musician made, as they,<br /><span class="left">[p.113]</span> +And gather'd on immortal knolls<br /> +Such lovely flowers for cheering souls.<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach <br /> +The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach.<br /> +To these, to these, their thankful race<br /> +Gives, then, the first, the fairest place;<br /> +And brightest is their glory's sheen,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#163el">210</a></span>For greatest hath their labour been.°" +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.116]</span> +<h1>SONNETS</h1> +<br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#QUIET">QUIET WORK</a><a name="WORK">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1q">1</a></span>One lesson,° Nature, let me learn of thee,<br /> +One lesson which in every wind is blown,<br /> +One lesson of two duties kept at one<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4q">4</a></span>Though the loud° world proclaim their enmity—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!<br /> +Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4q">7</a></span>Far noisier° schemes, accomplish'd in repose,<br /> +Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!<br /><br /> + +Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, <br /> +Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,<br /><br /> + +Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;<br /> +Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,<br /> +Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#SHAKES">SHAKESPEARE</a><a name="SHAKESPEARE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Others abide our question. Thou art free.<br /> +We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,<br /> +Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,<br /> +Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.116]</span> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,<br /> +Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,<br /> +Spares but the cloudy border of his base<br /> +To the foil'd searching of mortality;<br /><br /> + +And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, <br /> +Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.—Better so!<br /><br /> + +All pains the immortal spirit must endure,<br /> +All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow<br /> +Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#YOUTH">YOUTH'S AGITATIONS</a><a name="AGITATIONS">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,<br /> +From this poor present self which I am now;<br /> +When youth has done its tedious vain expense<br /> +Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5y">5</a></span>Shall I not joy° youth's heats° are left behind,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6y">6</a></span>And breathe more happy in an even clime°?—<br /> +Ah no, for then I shall begin to find<br /> +A thousand virtues in this hated time!<br /><br /> + +Then I shall wish its agitations back,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And all its thwarting currents of desire;<br /> +Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12y">12</a></span>And call this hurrying fever,° generous fire;<br /><br /> + +And sigh that one thing only has been lent<br /> +To youth and age in common—discontent.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.117]</span> +<h2><a href="#AUSTERITY">AUSTERITY OF POETRY</a><a name="POETRY">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1a">1</a></span>That son of Italy° who tried to blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2a">2</a></span>Ere Dante° came, the trump of sacred song,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3a">3</a></span>In his light youth° amid a festal throng<br /> +Sate with his bride to see a public show.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow<br /> +Youth like a star; and what to youth belong—<br /> +Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.<br /> +A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,<br /><br /> + +'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay!<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Shuddering, they drew her garments off—and found <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11a">11</a></span>A robe of sackcloth° next the smooth, white skin.<br /> + +Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,<br /> +Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground<br /> +Of thought and of austerity within.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#WORLDLY">WORLDLY PLACE</a><a name="PLACE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<i class="indent4">Even in a palace, life may be led well!</i><br /> +So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3w">3</a></span>Marcus Aurelius.° But the stifling den <br /> +Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Our freedom for a little bread we sell,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6w">6</a></span>And drudge under some foolish° master's ken.°<br /><span class="left">[p.118]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7w">7</a></span>Who rates° us if we peer outside our pen— <br /> +Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?<br /><br /> + +<i class="indent4">Even in a palace!</i> On his truth sincere,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;<br /> +And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame<br /><br /> + +Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,<br /> +I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!<br /> +The aids to noble life are all within."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#EASTLONDON">EAST LONDON</a><a name="EASTLON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2ea">2</a></span>Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,°<br /> +And the pale weaver, through his windows seen<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4ea">4</a></span>In Spitalfields,° look'd thrice dispirited.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>I met a preacher there I knew, and said:<br /> +"Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"—<br /> +"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been,<br /> +Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, <i class="indent4">the living bread."</i><br /><br /> + +O human soul! as long as thou canst so<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Set up a mark of everlasting light,<br /> +Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,<br /><br /> + +To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam—<br /> +Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!<br /> +Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.119]</span> +<h2><a href="#WESTLONDON">WEST LONDON</a><a name="WESTLON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1we">1</a></span>Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square,°<br /> +A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied.<br /> +A babe was in her arms, and at her side<br /> +A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there,<br /> +Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied<br /> +Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied.<br /> +The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.<br /><br /> + +Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers;<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>She will not ask of aliens but of friends, <br /> +Of sharers in a common human fate.<br /><br /> + +"She turns from that cold succour, which attends<br /> +The unknown little from the unknowing great,<br /> +And points us to a better time than ours."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> + + <span class="left">[p.121]</span> +<h1>ELEGIAC POEMS</h1> +<br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#MEMORIAL">MEMORIAL VERSES</a><a name="VERSES">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">April</i>, 1850</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1m">1</a></span>Goethe in Weimar sleeps,° and Greece,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2m">2</a></span>Long since, saw Byron's° struggle cease.<br /> +But one such death remain'd to come;<br /> +The last poetic voice is dumb—<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.<br /><br /> + +When Byron's eyes were shut in death,<br /> +We bow'd our head and held our breath.<br /> +He taught us little; but our soul<br /> +Had <i class="indent4">felt</i> him like the thunder's roll.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>With shivering heart the strife we saw<br /> +Of passion with eternal law;<br /> +And yet with reverential awe<br /> +We watch'd the fount of fiery life<br /> +Which served for that Titanic strife.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 15</span>When Goethe's death was told, we said:<br /> +Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17m">17</a></span>Physician of the iron age,°<br /> +Goethe has done his pilgrimage.<br /> +He took the suffering human race,<br /><span class="left">[p.122]</span> +<span class="right"> 20</span>He read each wound, each weakness clear;<br /> +And struck his finger on the place,<br /> +And said: <i class="indent4">Thou ailest here, and here!</i><br /> +He look'd on Europe's dying hour<br /> +Of fitful dream and feverish power;<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>His eye plunged down the weltering strife,<br /> +The turmoil of expiring life—<br /> +He said: <i class="indent4">The end is everywhere,<br /> +Art still has truth, take refuge there!</i><br /> +And he was happy, if to know<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Causes of things, and far below<br /> +His feet to see the lurid flow<br /> +Of terror, and insane distress,<br /> +And headlong fate, be happiness.<br /><br /> + +And Wordsworth!—Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>For never has such soothing voice<br /> +Been to your shadowy world convey'd,<br /> +Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38m">38</a></span>Heard the clear song of Orpheus° come<br /> +Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye,<br /> +Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!<br /> +He too upon a wintry clime<br /> +Had fallen—on this iron time<br /> +Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>He found us when the age had bound<br /> +Our souls in its benumbing round;<br /> +He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.<br /> +He laid us as we lay at birth<br /> +On the cool flowery lap of earth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Smiles broke from us and we had ease;<br /> +The hills were round us, and the breeze<br /><span class="left">[p.123]</span> +Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;<br /> +Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.<br /> +Our youth returned; for there was shed<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>On spirits that had long been dead,<br /> +Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,<br /> +The freshness of the early world.<br /><br /> + +Ah! since dark days still bring to light<br /> +Man's prudence and man's fiery might,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Time may restore us in his course<br /> +Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;<br /> +But where will Europe's latter hour<br /> +Again find Wordsworth's healing power?<br /> +Others will teach us how to dare,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>And against fear our breast to steel;<br /> +Others will strengthen us to bear—<br /> +But who, ah! who, will make us feel<br /> +The cloud of mortal destiny?<br /> +Others will front it fearlessly—<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>But who, like him, will put it by?<br /><br /> + +Keep fresh the grass upon his grave<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#72m">72</a></span>O Rotha,° with thy living wave!<br /> +Sing him thy best! for few or none<br /> +Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#SCHOLAR">THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY</a><a name="GIPSY">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#2sg">2</a></span>Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes°!<br /> + No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,<br /><span class="left">[p.124]</span> +Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.<br /> + But when the fields are still,<br /> +And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,<br /> + And only the white sheep are sometimes seen;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#9sg">9</a></span>Cross and recross° the strips of moon-blanch'd green,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!<br /><br /> + +Here, where the reaper was at work of late—<br /> + In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#13sg">13</a></span>His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,°<br /> + And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,<br /> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—<br /> + Here will I sit and wait,<br /> + While to my ear from uplands far away<br /> + The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#19sg">19</a></span>With distant cries of reapers in the corn°—<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>All the live murmur of a summer's day.<br /><br /> + +Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,<br /> + And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.<br /> + Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,<br /> + And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;<br /> + And air-swept lindens yield<br /> + Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers<br /> + Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,<br /> + And bower me from the August sun with shade;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#30sg">30</a></span>And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31sg">31</a></span>And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book°—<br /> + Come, let me read the oft-read tale again!<br /> + The story of the Oxford scholar poor,<br /><span class="left">[p.125]</span> + Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span>Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door,<br /> + One summer-morn forsook<br /> + His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,<br /> + And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood,<br /> + And came, as most men deem'd, to little good,<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span>But came to Oxford and his friends no more.<br /><br /> + +But once, years after, in the country-lanes,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#42sg">42</a></span>Two scholars, whom at college erst° he knew,<br /> + Met him, and of his way of life enquired;<br /> + Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew,<br /> + <span class="right"> 45</span>His mates, had arts to rule as they desired<br /> + The workings of men's brains,<br /> +And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.<br /> + "And I," he said, "the secret of their art,<br /> + When fully learn'd, will to the world impart;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50sg">50</a></span>But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.°"<br /><br /> + +This said, he left them, and return'd no more.—<br /> + But rumours hung about the country-side,<br /> + That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,<br /> + Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,<br /> + <span class="right"> 55</span>In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,<br /> + The same the gipsies wore.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#57sg">57</a></span>Shepherds had met him on the Hurst° in spring;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#58sg">58</a></span>At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,°<br /> + On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span>Had found him seated at their entering.<br /><br /> + +But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.<br /> + And I myself seem half to know, thy looks,<br /> + And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace;<br /><span class="left">[p.126]</span> + And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks<br /> + <span class="right"> 65</span>I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place;<br /> + Or in my boat I lie<br /> + Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats,<br /> + 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#69sg">69</a></span>And watch the warm, green-muffled° Cumner hills,<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span>And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.<br /><br /> + +For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!<br /> + Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,<br /> + Returning home on summer-nights, have met<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#74sg">74</a></span>Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,°<br /> + <span class="right"> 75</span>Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,<br /> + As the punt's rope chops round;<br /> + And leaning backward in a pensive dream,<br /> + And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers<br /> + Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span>And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.<br /><br /> + +And then they land, and thou art seen no more!—<br /> + Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#83sg">83</a></span>To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,°<br /> + Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam<br /> + Or cross a stile into the public way.<br /> + <span class="right"> 85</span>Oft thou hast given them store<br /> + Of flowers—the frail-leaf'd, white anemony,<br /> + Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves<br /> + And purple orchises with spotted leaves—<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span>But none hath words she can report of thee.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#91sg">91</a></span>And, above Godstow Bridge,° when hay-time's here<br /> + In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,<br /> + Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass<br /><span class="left">[p.127]</span> + Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#95sg">95</a></span>To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass,°<br /> + Have often pass'd thee near<br /> + Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#98sg">98</a></span>Mark'd thine outlandish° garb, thy figure spare,<br /> + Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air—<br /> + <span class="right"> 100</span>But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!<br /><br /> + +At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,<br /> + Where at her open door the housewife darns,<br /> + Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate<br /> + To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.<br /> + <span class="right"> 105</span>Children, who early range these slopes and late<br /> + For cresses from the rills,<br /> + Have known thee eying, all an April-day,<br /> + The springing pastures and the feeding kine;<br /> + And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine,<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span>Through the long dewy grass move slow away.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#111sg">111</a></span>In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood°—<br /> + Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way<br /> + Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#114sg">114</a></span>With scarlet patches tagg'd° and shreds of grey,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#115sg">115</a></span> Above the forest-ground called Thessaly°—<br /> + The blackbird, picking food,<br /> + Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;<br /> + So often has he known thee past him stray<br /> + Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray,<br /> + <span class="right"> 120</span>And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.<br /><br /> + +And once, in winter, on the causeway chill<br /> + Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,<br /><span class="left">[p.128]</span> + Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge,<br /> + Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#125sg">125</a></span>Thy face tow'rd Hinksey° and its wintry ridge?<br /> + And thou hast climb'd the hill,<br /> + And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range;<br /> + Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#129sg">129</a></span>The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall°—<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#130sg">130</a></span>Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange.<br /><br /> + +But what—-I dream! Two hundred years are flown<br /> + Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#133sg">133</a></span>And the grave Glanvil° did the tale inscribe<br /> + That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls<br /> + <span class="right"> 135</span>To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe;<br /> + And thou from earth art gone<br /> + Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid—<br /> + Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave<br /> + Tall grasses and white-flowering nettles wave<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#140sg">140</a></span>Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's° shade.<br /><br /> + +—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours!<br /> + For what wears out the life of mortal men?<br /> + 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls<br /> + 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,<br /> + <span class="right"> 145</span>Exhaust the energy of strongest souls<br /> + And numb the elastic powers.<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#147sg">147</a></span>Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,°<br /> + And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#149sg">149</a></span>To the just-pausing Genius° we remit<br /> + <span class="right"> 150</span>Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#151sg">151</a></span>Thou hast not lived,° why should'st thou perish, so?<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#152sg">152</a></span>Thou hadst <i class="indent4">one</i> aim, + <i class="indent4">one</i> business, <i class="indent4">one</i> desire°;<br /><span class="left">[p.129]</span> + Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead!<br /> + Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire!<br /> + <span class="right"> 155</span>The generations of thy peers are fled,<br /> + And we ourselves shall go;<br /> + But thou possessest an immortal lot,<br /> + And we imagine thee exempt from age<br /> + And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#160sg">160</a></span>Because thou hadst—what we, alas! have not.°<br /><br /> + +For early didst thou leave the world, with powers<br /> + Fresh, undiverted to the world without,<br /> + Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;<br /> + Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#165sg">165</a></span> Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.°<br /> + O life unlike to ours!<br /> + Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,<br /> + Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,<br /> + And each half lives a hundred different lives;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#170sg">170</a></span>Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.°<br /><br /> + +Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,<br /> + Light half-believers of our casual creeds,<br /> + Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd,<br /> + Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,<br /> + <span class="right"> 175</span>Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd;<br /> + For whom each year we see<br /> + Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;<br /> + Who hesitate and falter life away,<br /> + And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#180sg">180</a></span>Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too°<br /><br /> + +Yes, we await it!—but it still delays,<br /> + And then we suffer! and amongst us one,<br /><span class="left">[p.130]</span> + Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly<br /> + His seat upon the intellectual throne;<br /> + <span class="right"> 185</span>And all his store of sad experience he <br /> + Lays bare of wretched days;<br /> + Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs,<br /> + And how the dying spark of hope was fed,<br /> + And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#190sg">190</a></span>And all his hourly varied anodynes.°<br /><br /> + +This for our wisest! and we others pine,<br /> + And wish the long unhappy dream would end,<br /> + And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;<br /> + With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend,<br /> + <span class="right"> 195</span>Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair—<br /> + But none has hope like thine!<br /> + Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,<br /> + Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,<br /> + Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,<br /> + <span class="right"> 200</span>And every doubt long blown by time away.<br /><br /> + +O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,<br /> + And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;<br /> + Before this strange disease of modern life,<br /> + With its sick hurry, its divided aims,<br /> + <span class="right"> 205</span>Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife—<br /> + Fly hence, our contact fear!<br /> + Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#208sg">208</a></span>Averse, as Dido° did with gesture stern°<br /> + From her false friend's approach in Hades turn,<br /> + <span class="right"> 210</span>Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!<br /><br /> + +Still nursing the unconquerable hope,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#212sg">212</a></span>Still clutching the inviolable shade,°<br /><span class="left">[p.131]</span> + With a free, onward impulse brushing through,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#214sg">214</a></span>By night, the silver'd branches° of the glade—<br /> + <span class="right"> 215</span>Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,<br /> + On some mild pastoral slope<br /> + Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales<br /> + Freshen thy flowers as in former years<br /> + With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#220sg">220</a></span>From the dark dingles,° to the nightingales!<br /><br /> + +But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!<br /> + For strong the infection of our mental strife,<br /> + Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;<br /> + And we should win thee from thy own fair life,<br /> + <span class="right"> 225</span>Like us distracted, and like us unblest.<br /> + Soon, soon thy cheer would die,<br /> + Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers,<br /> + And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;<br /> + And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,<br /> + <span class="right"> 230</span>Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.<br /><br /> + +Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#232sg">232</a></span>—As some grave Tyrian° trader, from the sea,<br /> + Descried at sunrise an emerging prow<br /> + Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily,<br /> + <span class="right"> 235</span>The fringes of a southward-facing brow <br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#236sg">236</a></span>Among the Ægæan isles°;<br /> + And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#238sg">238</a></span>Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,°<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#239sg">239</a></span>Green, bursting figs, and tunnies° steep'd in brine—<br /> + <span class="right"> 240</span> And knew the intruders on his ancient home,<br /><br /> + +The young light-hearted masters of the waves—<br /> + And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail;<br /><span class="left">[p.132]</span> + And day and night held on indignantly<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#244sg">244</a></span>O'er the blue Midland waters° with the gale,<br /> + <span class="right"> 245</span>Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,<br /> + To where the Atlantic raves<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#247sg">247</a></span>Outside the western straits°; and unbent sails<br /> + There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#231sg">249</a></span>Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come°;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#250sg">250</a></span>And on the beach undid his corded bales.°</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#THYRSIS">THYRSIS</a><a name="THYR">°</a></h2> + +<h5>A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND<br /> +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861</h5> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1th">1</a></span>How changed is here each spot man makes or fills°!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#2th">2</a></span>In the two Hinkseys° nothing keeps the same;<br /> + The village street its haunted mansion lacks,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#4th">4</a></span>And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,°<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks—<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#6th">6</a></span>Are ye too changed, ye hills°?<br /> + See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men<br /> + To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!<br /> + Here came I often, often, in old days—<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.<br /><br /> + +Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,<br /> + Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns<br /> + The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#14th">14</a></span>The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs°?<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#15th">15</a></span>The Vale,° the three lone weirs,° the youthful Thames?—,<br /> + This winter-eve is warm,<br /> + Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,<br /> + The tender purple spray on copse and briers!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#19th">19</a></span>And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#20th">20</a></span>She needs not June for beauty's heightening,°<br /><br /> + +Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!—<br /> + Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#23th">23</a></span>Befalls me wandering through this upland dim,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#24th">24</a></span>Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour°;<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Now seldom come I, since I came with him.<br /> + That single elm-tree bright<br /> + Against the west—I miss it! is it gone?<br /> + We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,<br /> + Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#30th">30</a></span>While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.°<br /><br /> + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,<br /> + But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;<br /> + And with the country-folk acquaintance made<br /> + By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#40th">35</a></span>Here, too, our shepherd-pipes° we first assay'd.<br /> + Ah me! this many a year<br /> + My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday!<br /> + Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart<br /> + Into the world and wave of men depart;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#40th">40</a></span>But Thyrsis of his own will went away.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">41</a></span>It irk'd° him to be here, he could not rest.<br /> + He loved each simple joy the country yields,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">43</a></span>He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,°<br /> +For that a shadow lour'd on the fields,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">45</a></span>Here with the shepherds and the silly° sheep.<br /> + Some life of men unblest<br /> +He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.<br /> + He went; his piping took a troubled sound<br /> + Of storms° that rage outside our happy ground;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50th">50</a></span>He could not wait their passing, he is dead.°<br /><br /> + +So, some tempestuous morn in early June,<br /> + When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,<br /> + Before the roses and the longest day—<br /> + When garden-walks and all the grassy floor<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#60th">55</a></span>With blossoms red and white of fallen May°<br /> + And chestnut-flowers are strewn—<br /> + So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,<br /> + From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,<br /> + Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#60th">60</a></span><i class="indent4">The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I°!</i><br /><br /> + +Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#62th">62</a></span>Soon will the high Midsummer pomps° come on,<br /> + Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,<br /> + Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,<br /> + <span class="right"> 65</span>Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,<br /> + And stocks in fragrant blow;<br /> + Roses that down the alleys shine afar,<br /> + And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,<br /> + And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>And the full moon, and the white evening-star.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71th">71</a></span>He hearkens not! light comer,° he is flown!<br /> + What matters it? next year he will return,<br /> + And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days.<br /> +With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,<br /> +And scent of hay new-mown.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#77th">77</a></span>But Thyrsis never more we swains° shall see;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#78th">78</a></span>See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#79th">79</a></span>And blow a strain the world at last shall heed°—<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#80th">80</a></span>For Time, not Corydon,° hath conquer'd thee!<br /><br /> + +Alack, for Corydon no rival now!—<br /> +But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,<br /> +Some good survivor with his flute would go,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#84th">84</a></span>Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#85th">85</a></span>And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,°<br /> +And relax Pluto's brow,<br /> +And make leap up with joy the beauteous head<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88th">88</a></span>Of Proserpine,° among whose crowned hair<br /> +Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#90th">90</a></span>And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.°<br /><br /> + +O easy access to the hearer's grace<br /> +When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!<br /> +For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#94th">94</a></span>She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>She knew each lily white which Enna yields,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#96th">96</a></span>Each rose with blushing face°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#97th">97</a></span>She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.°<br /> +But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!<br /> +Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And we should tease her with our plaint in vain!<br /><br /> + +Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,<br /> +Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour<br /> +In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill!<br /> + Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?<br /> + <span class="right"> 105</span>I know the wood which hides the daffodil,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#106th">106</a></span>I know the Fyfield tree,°<br /> + I know what white, what purple fritillaries<br /> + The grassy harvest of the river-fields,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#109th">109</a></span>Above by Ensham,° down by Sandford,° yields,<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span>And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;<br /><br /> + +I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?—<br /> + But many a dingle on the loved hill-side,<br /> + With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees<br /> + Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried<br /> + <span class="right"> 115</span>High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises,<br /> + Hath since our day put by<br /> + The coronals of that forgotten time;<br /> + Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team,<br /> + And only in the hidden brookside gleam<br /> + <span class="right"> 120</span>Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.<br /><br /> + +Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door,<br /> + Above the locks, above the boating throng,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#123th">123</a></span>Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,°<br /> + Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among<br /> + <span class="right"> 125</span>And darting swallows and light water-gnats,<br /> + We track'd the shy Thames shore?<br /> + Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell<br /> + Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,<br /> + Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?—<br /> + <span class="right"> 130</span>They all are gone, and thou art gone as well!<br /><br /> + +Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night<br /> + In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.<br /> + I see her veil draw soft across the day,<br /> +I feel her slowly chilling breath invade<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135th">135</a></span>The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent° with grey; <br /> +I feel her finger light<br /> +Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;—<br /> +The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,<br /> +The heart less bounding at emotion new,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.<br /><br /> + +And long the way appears, which seem'd so short<br /> +To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;<br /> +And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,<br /> +The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!<br /> +Unbreachable the fort<br /> +Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;<br /> +And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,<br /> +And near and real the charm of thy repose,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150th">150</a></span>And night as welcome as a friend would fall.°<br /><br /> + +But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss<br /> +Of quiet!—Look, adown the dusk hill-side,<br /> +A troop of Oxford hunters going home,<br /> +As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#155th">155</a></span>From hunting with the Berkshire° hounds they come.<br /> +Quick! let me fly, and cross<br /> +Into yon farther field!—'Tis done; and see,<br /> +Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify<br /> +The orange and pale violet evening-sky,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!<br /><br /> + +I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,<br /> +The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,<br /> +The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,<br /> +And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out.<br /> + <span class="right"> 165</span>I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night,<br /> + Yet, happy omen, hail!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#167th">167</a></span>Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale°<br /> + (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep<br /> + The morningless and unawakening sleep<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Under the flowery oleanders pale),<br /><br /> + +Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!—<br /> + Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,<br /> + These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,<br /> + That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#175th">175</a></span>To a boon southern country he is fled,°<br /> + And now in happier air,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#177th">177</a></span>Wandering with the great Mother's° train divine<br /> + (And purer or more subtle soul than thee,<br /> + I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)<br /> + <span class="right"> 180</span>Within a folding of the Apennine,<br /><br /> + +Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!—<br /> + Putting his sickle to the perilous grain<br /> + In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,<br /> + For thee the Lityerses-song again<br /> + <span class="right"> 185</span>Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;<br /> + Sings his Sicilian fold,<br /> + His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes—<br /> + And how a call celestial round him rang,<br /> + And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#190th">190</a></span>And all the marvel of the golden skies.°<br /><br /> + +There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">192</a></span>Sole° in these fields! yet will I not despair.<br /> + Despair I will not, while I yet descry<br /> + 'Neath the mild canopy of English air<br /> + <span class="right"> 195</span>That lonely tree against the western sky.<br /> + Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,<br /> + Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">198</a></span>Fields where soft sheep° from cages pull the hay,<br /> + Woods with anemonies in flower till May,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">200</a></span>Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?°<br /><br /> + +A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#202th">202</a></span>Shy to illumin; and I seek it too.°<br /> + This does not come with houses or with gold,<br /> + With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;<br /> + <span class="right"> 205</span>'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold—<br /> + But the smooth-slipping weeks<br /> + Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;<br /> + Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,<br /> + He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone;<br /> + <span class="right"> 210</span>Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.<br /><br /> + +Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest was bound;<br /> + Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!<br /> + Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,<br /> + If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power,<br /> + <span class="right"> 215</span>If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.<br /> + And this rude Cumner ground,<br /> + Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,<br /> + Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time,<br /> + Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!<br /> + <span class="right"> 220</span>And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.<br /><br /> + +What though the music of thy rustic flute<br /> + Kept not for long its happy, country tone;<br /> + Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note<br /> + Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,<br /> + <span class="right"> 225</span>Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat—<br /> + It fail'd, and thou wast mute!<br /> + Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light,<br /> + And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,<br /> + And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,<br /> + <span class="right"> 230</span>Left human haunt, and on alone till night.<br /><br /> + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!<br /> + 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,<br /> + Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.<br /> + Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar,<br /> + <span class="right"> 235</span>Let in thy voice a whisper often come,<br /> + To chase fatigue and fear:<br /> + <i class="indent4">Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died.<br /> + Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.<br /> + Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill,</i><br /> + <span class="right"> 240</span><i class="indent4">Our scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.</i> </p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#RUGBY">RUGBY CHAPEL</a><a name="CHAPEL">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">November 1857</i></h3> +<p class="indent4"> +Coldly, sadly descends<br /> +The autumn-evening. The field<br /> +Strewn with its dank yellow drifts<br /> +Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Fade into dimness apace,<br /> +Silent;—hardly a shout<br /> +From a few boys late at their play!<br /> +The lights come out in the street,<br /> +In the school-room windows;—but cold,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Solemn, unlighted, austere,<br /> +Through the gathering darkness, arise<br /> +The chapel-walls, in whose bound<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13rc">13</a></span>Thou, my father! art laid.°<br /><br /> + +There thou dost lie, in the gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Of the autumn evening. But ah!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16rc">16</a></span>That word, <i class="indent4">gloom,°</i> to my mind<br /> +Brings thee back, in the light<br /> +Of thy radiant vigour, again;<br /> +In the gloom of November we pass'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Days not dark at thy side;<br /> +Seasons impair'd not the ray<br /> +Of thy buoyant cheerfulness, clear.<br /> +Such thou wast! and I stand<br /> +In the autumn evening, and think<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Of bygone autumns with thee.<br /><br /> + +Fifteen years have gone round<br /> +Since thou arosest to tread,<br /> +In the summer-morning, the road<br /> +Of death, at a call unforeseen,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Sudden. For fifteen years,<br /> +We who till then in thy shade<br /> +Rested as under the boughs<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#33rc">33</a></span>Of a mighty oak,° have endured<br /> +Sunshine and rain as we might,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Bare, unshaded, alone,<br /> +Lacking the shelter of thee.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37rc">37</a></span>O strong soul, by what shore°<br /> +Tarriest thou now? For that force,<br /> +Surely, has not been left vain!<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Somewhere, surely, afar,<br /> +In the sounding labour-house vast<br /> +Of being, is practised that strength,<br /> +Zealous, beneficent, firm!<br /><br /> + +Yes, in some far-shining sphere,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Conscious or not of the past,<br /> +Still thou performest the word<br /> +Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live—<br /> +Prompt, unwearied, as here!<br /> +Still thou upraisest with zeal<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>The humble good from the ground,<br /> +Sternly repressest the bad!<br /> +Still, like a trumpet, doth rouse<br /> +Those who with half-open eyes<br /> +Tread the border-land dim<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,<br /> +Succourest!—this was thy work,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#57rc">57</a></span>This was thy life upon earth.°<br /><br /> + +What is the course of the life<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#59rc">59</a></span>Of mortal men on the earth°?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Most men eddy about<br /> +Here and there—eat and drink,<br /> +Chatter and love and hate,<br /> +Gather and squander, are raised<br /> +Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Striving blindly, achieving<br /> +Nothing; and then they die—<br /> +Perish;—and no one asks<br /> +Who or what they have been,<br /> +More than he asks what waves,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>In the moonlit solitudes mild<br /> +Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,<br /> +Foam'd for a moment, and gone.<br /><br /> + +And there are some, whom a thirst<br /> +Ardent, unquenchable, fires,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Not with the crowd to be spent,<br /> +Not without aim to go round<br /> +In an eddy of purposeless dust,<br /> +Effort unmeaning and vain.<br /> +Ah yes! some of us strive<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Not without action to die <br /> +Fruitless, but something to snatch<br /> +From dull oblivion, nor all<br /> +Glut the devouring grave!<br /> +We, we have chosen our path—<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Path to a clear-purposed goal,<br /> +Path of advance!—but it leads<br /> +A long, steep journey, through sunk<br /> +Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.<br /> +Cheerful, with friends, we set forth—<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Then, on the height, comes the storm.<br /> +Thunder crashes from rock<br /> +To rock, the cataracts reply,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#93rc">93</a></span>Lightnings dazzle our eyes.°<br /> +Roaring torrents have breach'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>The track, the stream-bed descends<br /> +In the place where the wayfarer once<br /> +Planted his footstep—the spray<br /> +Boils o'er its borders! aloft<br /> +The unseen snow-beds dislodge<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#100rc">100</a></span>Their hanging ruin°; alas,<br /> +Havoc is made in our train!<br /><br /> + +Friends, who set forth at our side,<br /> +Falter, are lost in the storm.<br /> +We, we only are left!<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>ith frowning foreheads, with lips<br /> +Sternly compress'd, we strain on,<br /> +On—and at nightfall at last<br /> +Come to the end of our way,<br /> +To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>Where the gaunt and taciturn host<br /> +Stands on the threshold, the wind<br /> +Shaking his thin white hairs—<br /> +Holds his lantern to scan<br /> +Our storm-beat figures, and asks:<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>Whom in our party we bring?<br /> +Whom we have left in the snow?<br /><br /> + +Sadly we answer: We bring<br /> +Only ourselves! we lost<br /> +Sight of the rest in the storm.<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>Hardly ourselves we fought through,<br /> +Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.<br /> +Friends, companions, and train,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#123rc">123</a></span>The avalanche swept from our side.°<br /><br /> + +But thou would'st not <i class="indent4">alone</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Be saved, my father! <i class="indent4">alone</i> <br /> +Conquer and come to thy goal,<br /> +Leaving the rest in the wild.<br /> +We were weary, and we<br /> +Fearful, and we in our march<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Fain to drop down and to die.<br /> +Still thou turnedst, and still<br /> +Beckonedst the trembler, and still<br /> +Gavest the weary thy hand.<br /><br /> + +If, in the paths of the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>Stones might have wounded thy feet,<br /> +Toil or dejection have tried<br /> +Thy spirit, of that we saw<br /> +Nothing—to us thou wast still<br /> +Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Therefore to thee it was given<br /> +Many to save with thyself;<br /> +And, at the end of thy day,<br /> +O faithful shepherd! to come,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#144rc">144</a></span>Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 145</span>And through thee I believe<br /> +In the noble and great who are gone;<br /> +Pure souls honour'd and blest<br /> +By former ages, who else—<br /> +Such, so soulless, so poor,<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Is the race of men whom I see—<br /> +Seem'd but a dream of the heart,<br /> +Seem'd but a cry of desire.<br /> +Yes! I believe that there lived<br /> +Others like thee in the past,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>Not like the men of the crowd<br /> +Who all round me to-day<br /> +Bluster or cringe, and make life<br /> +Hideous, and arid, and vile;<br /> +But souls temper'd with fire,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Fervent, heroic, and good,<br /> +Helpers and friends of mankind.<br /><br /> + +Servants of God!—or sons<br /> +Shall I not call you? becaus<br /> +Not as servants ye knew<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Your Father's innermost mind,<br /> +His, who unwillingly sees<br /> +One of his little ones lost—<br /> +Yours is the praise, if mankind<br /> +Hath not as yet in its march<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Fainted, and fallen, and died!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#171rc">171</a></span>See! In the rocks° of the world<br /> +Marches the host of mankind,<br /> +A feeble, wavering line.<br /> +Where are they tending?—A God<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>Marshall'd them, gave them their goal.<br /> +Ah, but the way is so long!<br /> +Years they have been in the wild!<br /> +Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,<br /> +Rising all round, overawe;<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>Factions divide them, their host<br /> +Threatens to break, to dissolve.<br /> +—Ah, keep, keep them combined!<br /> +Else, of the myriads who fill<br /> +That army, not one shall arrive;<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>Sole they shall stray: in the rocks<br /> +Stagger for ever in vain,<br /> +Die one by one in the waste.<br /><br /> + +Then, in such hour of need<br /> +Of your fainting, dispirited race,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#190rc">190</a></span>Ye,° like angels, appear,<br /> +Radiant with ardour divine!<br /> +Beacons of hope, ye appear!<br /> +Languor is not in your heart,<br /> +Weakness is not in your word,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Weariness not on your brow.<br /> +Ye alight in our van! at your voice,<br /> +Panic, despair, flee away.<br /> +Ye move through the ranks, recall<br /> +The stragglers, refresh the outworn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>Praise, re-inspire the brave!<br /> +Order, courage, return.<br /> +Eyes rekindling, and prayers,<br /> +Follow your steps as ye go.<br /> +Ye fill up the gaps in our files,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Strengthen the wavering line,<br /> +Stablish, continue our march,<br /> +On, to the bound of the waste,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#208rc">208</a></span>On, to the City of God.°</p> + + <br /><br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /> +<h2><a name="NOTES">NOTES</a></h2><span class="left">[p.149]</span> + + <br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#SOHRAB">SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</a>°</h3> +<p> +"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than +anything I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I +shall not ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments +instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a +letter to Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.)</p> +<p> +"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just +finished and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, +and I think it will be generally liked; though one can never be +sure of this. I have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a +rare thing with me, and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure +what you write is likely to afford to others. But the story is a +very noble and excellent one." (Arnold, in a letter to his mother, +May, 1853.)</p> +<p> +The following synopsis of the story of Sohrab and Rustum the +"tale replete with tears," is gathered from several sources, chiefly +Benjamin's <i>Persia</i>, in <i>The Story of the Nations</i>, Sir John Malcolm's +<i>History of Persia</i>, and the great Persian epic poem, <i>Shah Nameh</i>. +The <i>Shah Nameh</i> the original source of the story, and which purports +to narrate the exploits of Persia's kings and champions over +a space of thirty-six centuries, bears the same relation to Persian +literature as the <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i> to the Greek, and the <i>Aeneid</i> to +the Latin, though in structure it more nearly resembles <i>Morte d'Arthur</i>, <span class="left">[p.150]</span> +which records in order the achievements of various heroes. +In it the native poet Mansur ibn Ahmad, afterwards known to +literature as Firdausi, the Paradisaical, has set down the early +tales and traditions of his people with all the vividness and color +common to oriental writers. The principal hero of the poem is the +mighty Rustum, who, mounted on his famous horse Ruksh, performed +prodigies of valor in defence of the Persian throne. Of all +his adventures his encounter with Sohrab is the most dramatic. +The poem was probably written in the latter half of the tenth +century. As will be seen, the incidents narrated in Arnold's poem +form but an episode in the complete story of the two champions.</p> +<p> +Rustum (or Rustem), having killed a wild ass while hunting on +the Turanian frontier, and having feasted on its flesh, composed +himself to sleep, leaving his faithful steed, Ruksh (or Raksh), to +graze untethered. On awakening, he found his horse had disappeared, +and believing it had been stolen, the warrior proceeded +towards Semenjan, a near-by city, in hopes of recovering his property. +On the way, he learned that Ruksh had been found by the +servants of the king and was stabled at Semenjan, as he had surmised. +Upon Rustum's demand, the steed was promptly restored +to him, and he was about to depart when he was prevailed upon to +accept the king's invitation to tarry awhile and rest himself in +feasting and idleness.</p> +<p> +Now the king of Semenjan had a fair daughter named Tahmineh, +who had become enamoured of Rustum because of his mighty +exploits. Susceptible as she was beautiful, she made her attachment +so evident that the young hero, who was as ardent as he was +brave, readily yielded to the power of her fascination. The consent +of the king having been obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were +married with all the rites prescribed by the laws of the country. +A peculiar feature of this alliance lay in the fact that the king of +Semenjan was feudatory to Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, +while Rustum was her greatest champion. At this time, however, <span class="left"><a name="p.151">[p.151]</a></span> +the two countries were at peace.</p> +<p> +For a time all went happily, then Rustum found it necessary to +leave his bride, as he thought, for only a short time. At parting +he gave her an onyx, which he wore on his arm, bidding her, if a +daughter should be born to their union, to twine the gem in her hair +under a fortunate star; but if a son, to bind it on his arm, and he +would be insured a glorious career. Rustum then mounted Ruksh +and rode away—as time proved, never to return.</p> +<p> +The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous +son, whom, because of his comely features, she named +Sohrab. Fearing Rustum would send for the boy when he grew +older, and thus rob her of her treasure, Tahmineh sent word to +him that the child was a girl—"no son," and Rustum took no +further interest in it.</p> +<p> +While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble +lineage. He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of +ten years, according to the tradition, was large and handsome and +highly accomplished in the use of arms. Realizing at length that +he was of lofty descent, he insisted that his mother, who had concealed +the fact, should inform him of the name of his father. Being +told that it was the renowned Rustum, he exclaimed, "Since he is +my father, I shall go to his aid; he shall become king of Persia +and together we shall rule the world." After this the youth caused +a horse worthy of him to be found, and with the aid of his grandfather, +the king of Semenjan, he prepared to go on the quest, +attended by a mighty host.</p> +<p> +When Afrasiab, the Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was +going to war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after +counselling with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his +enterprises, with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab +would fall in battle and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly +sent an army of auxiliaries to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute <span class="left">[p.152]</span> +courtiers, Houman and Barman, who, under the guise of friendship, +were to act as counsellors to the young leader. These he +ordered to keep the knowledge of their relationship from father +and son and to seek to bring about an encounter between them, +in the hope that Sohrab would slay Rustum, Afrasiab's most +dreaded foeman, after which the unsuspecting youth might easily +be disposed of by treachery.</p> +<p> +Sohrab, with his army and that of Afrasiab, set out, intending to +fight his way until Rustum should be sent against him, when he +would reveal himself to his father and form an alliance with him +that would place the line of Seistan on the throne. On the way +southward, Sohrab overthrew and captured the Persian champion, +Hujir, and the same day conquered the warrior maiden Gurdafrid, +whose beauty and tears, however, prevailed upon him to release +her. Guzdehern, father of Gurdafrid, recognizing Sohrab's prowess, +and alarmed for the safety of the Persian throne, secretly despatched +a courier to the king Kai Kaoos to warn him of the young +Tartar's approach. Kaoos, in great terror, sent for Rustum to +hurry to his aid. Regardless of the king's request, Rustum spent +eight days in feasting, then presented himself at the court. Kaoos, +angered at the delay, ordered both the champion and the messenger +to be executed forthwith; but Rustum effected his escape on +Ruksh, and returned to Seistan, leaving Persia to her fate. The +king's wrath, however, soon gave place to fear; and recognizing +the danger of his throne unsupported by Rustum's valor, he despatched +messengers to him with humble petitions and apologies. +After much protesting, Rustum finally yielded and accompanied +the Persian army, under the king Kai Kaoos, which at once set +forth to encounter Sohrab.</p> +<p> +The morning before the opening of hostilities, Sohrab, taking the +Persian Hujir, whom he still held a prisoner, to the top of a rocky +eminence, ordered him to point out the tents of the chief warriors <span class="left">[p.153]</span> +of the Persian army, particularly Rustum's. But Hujir, fearing +lest Sohrab should attack Rustum unexpectedly and so overcome +him, declared that the great chieftain's tent was not among those +on the plain below. Disappointed at his failure to find his father, +Sohrab led his army in a fierce onslaught on the Persians, driving +them in confusion before him. In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos +sent for Rustum, who was somewhat apart from the main troop. +Exclaiming that the king never sent for him except when he had +got himself into trouble, the warrior armed, mounted Ruksh, and +rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the two champions withdrew +to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they might fight out +their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each other, +Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried to +dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. +Sohrab, filled with sudden hope,—an instinctive feeling that the +father whom he was seeking stood before him,—eagerly demanded +whether this were Rustum. But Rustum, fearing treachery, said +he was only an ordinary man, having neither palace nor princely +kingdom—not Rustum.</p> +<p> +They marked off the lists, and, mounted on their powerful horses, +fought first with javelins, then with swords, clubs, and bows and +arrows. After several hours of fighting both were exhausted, and +by tacit consent they retired to opposite sides of the lists for rest. +When the combat was renewed, Sohrab gained a slight advantage. +A truce was then made for the night, and the warriors returned to +their tents to prepare for the morrow.</p> +<p> +With daybreak the struggle was renewed. To prevent the +armies from intervening or engaging in battle, they were removed +to a distance of several miles. Midway between, Sohrab and Rustum +met in the midst of a lonely, treeless waste. More convinced +than before that his adversary was Rustum, Sohrab sought to bring +about a reconciliation, but Rustum refused. This time they fought <span class="left">[p.154]</span> +on foot. From morning till afternoon they fought, neither gaining +any decided advantage. At last Sohrab succeeded in felling Rustum +to the earth, and was about to slay him, when the Persian +called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous warfare to +slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. Sohrab, +generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again father and +son parted.</p> +<p> +Rustum, scarcely believing himself alive after such an escape, +purified himself with water, and prayed that his wounds might be +healed and his accustomed strength restored to him. Never before +had he been so beset in battle.</p> +<p> +With morning came the renewal of the combat, both champions +determining to end it that day. Late in the evening Rustum, by a +supreme effort, seized Sohrab around the waist and hurled him to +the ground. Then, fearing lest the youth prove too strong for him +in the end, he drew his blade and plunged it into Sohrab's bosom.</p> +<p> +Sohrab forgave Rustum, but warned him to beware the vengeance +of his father, the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that +he had slain his son Sohrab. "I went out to seek my father," +cried the dying youth, "for my mother had told me by what tokens +I should know him, and I perish for longing after him.... Yet +I say unto thee, if thou shouldst become a fish that swimmeth in +the depths of the ocean, if thou shouldst change into a star that is +concealed in the farthest heaven, my father would draw thee forth +from thy hiding-place, and avenge my death upon thee, when he +shall learn that the earth is become my bed. For my father is +Rustum the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him, how that Sohrab +his son perished in the quest after his face." These words were as +death to the aged hero, who fell senseless at the side of his wounded +son. When he had recovered he called in despair for proofs of +what Sohrab had said. The now dying youth tore open his mail +and showed his father the onyx which his mother had bound on his <span class="left">[p.155]</span> +arm as directed.</p> +<p> +The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he +cursed himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for +the efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his +tents and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and +buried it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, +was permitted to return home unmolested. When the tidings +of Sohrab's death reached his mother, she was inconsolable, +and died in less than a year.</p> +<p> +In the main the story as told by Arnold follows the original narrative. +A careful investigation of the alterations made, and the +effect thus produced, will lend added interest to the study of the +poem and give ample theme for composition work.</p> +<br /><br /> +<p> +<b><a name="1">1</a> And the first grey of morning fill'd the east.</b> Note the +abrupt opening. What is gained by its use? At what point in +the story as told in the introductory note does the poem take up +the narrative? Be sure to get a clear mental picture of the initiative +scene. <i>And</i> is here used in a manner common in the Scriptures. +Cf. "And the Lord spake unto Moses," etc.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2">2</a> Oxus.</b> The chief river of Central Asia, which separated Turan +from Iran or the Persian Empire, called Oxus by the Greeks and +Romans, and the Jihun or Amu by the Arabs and Persians. It +takes its source in Lake Sir-i-Kol, in the Pamir table-land, at a +height of 15,600 feet, flows northwest, and empties into the Aral +Sea on the south. Its length is about 1300 miles.</p> +<p> +"The introduction of the tranquil pictures of the Oxus, both at +the beginning and close of the poem (ll. 875-892), flowing steadily +on, unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, +forms one of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3">3</a> Tartar camp.</b> The Tartars were nomadic tribes of Central +Asia and southern Russia. The so-called Black Tartars, identified +with the Scythians of the Greek historians, inhabited the basin of <span class="left">[p.156]</span> +the Aral and Caspian Seas, and are the tribe referred to in the +poem. They are a fierce, warlike people; hence our expression, +"caught a Tartar."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11">11.</a> Peran-Wisa.</b> A celebrated Turanian chief, here in command +of Afrasiab's army, which was composed of representatives +of many Tartar tribes, as indicated in ll. 119-134.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15">15.</a> Pamere</b>, or Pamir. An extensive plateau region of Central +Asia, called by the natives the "roof of the world." Among the +rivers having their source in this plateau are the Oxus, l. 2, and the +Jaxartes, l. 129.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38">38.</a> Afrasiab.</b> The king of the Tartars, and one of the principal +heroes of the <i>Shah Nameh</i>, the Persian "Book of Kings." He is +reputed to have been strong as a lion and to have had few equals +as a warrior.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40">40.</a> Samarcand.</b> A city in the district of Serafshan, Turkestan, +to the east of Bokhara; now a considerable commercial and manufacturing +centre, and a centre of Mohammedan learning.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42">42.</a> Ader-baijan.</b> The northwest province of Persia, on the +Turanian frontier.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="45">45.</a> At my boy's years.</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="60">60.</a> common fight.</b> In the sense of a general engagement. Be +sure to catch the reason why Sohrab makes his request.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="61">61.</a> sunk.</b> That is, lost sight of.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="67">67.</a> common chance.</b> See note, l. 60. Which would be the +more dangerous, a "single" or "common" combat? Why?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="70">70.</a> To find a father thou hast never seen.</b> See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="82">82.</a> Seistan.</b> A province of southwest Afghanistan bordering +on the Persian province of Yezd. It is intersected by the Helmund +River (l. 751), which flows into the Hamoon Lake, now scarcely +more than a morass. On an island in this lake are ruins of fortifications +called Fort Rustum. This territory was long held by Rustum's <span class="left">[p.157]</span> +family, feudatory to the Persian kings. <br /> +<b>Zal.</b> Rustum's +father, ruler of Seistan. See note, l. <a href="#232">232</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="83">83-85.</a> Whether that ... or in some quarrel</b>, etc. Either +because his mighty strength ... or because of some quarrel, etc.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="85">85.</a> Persian King.</b> That is, Kai Kaoos (or Kai Khosroo). See +introductory note to poem; also note, l. <a href="#223">223</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="86">86-91.</a> There go!</b> etc. The touching solicitation of these lines +is wholly Arnold's.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="99">99.</a> Why ruler's staff, no sword?</b></p> +<p> +<b><a name="101">101.</a> Kara Kul.</b> A district some thirty miles southwest of +Bokhara, noted for the excellence of its pasturage, and for its fleeces.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107">107.</a> Haman.</b> Next to Peran-Wisa in command of Tartar army. +See Houman, in introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="113"></a><a name="114"></a>113-114. Casbin.</b> A fortified city in the province of +Irak-Ajemi, +Persia, situated on the main route from Persia to Europe, +and at one time the capital of the Iranian empire. Just to the +north of the city rise the <br /> +<b>Elburz Mountains</b> (l. 114), which separate +the Persian Plateau from the depression containing the +Caspian and Aral Seas.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="115">115.</a> frore.</b> Frozen, from the Anglo-Saxon <i>froren</i>.</p> +<p class="indent"> + "... the parching air<br /> +Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ll. 594-595, Book II.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="119">119.</a> Bokhara.</b> Here the state of Bokhara, an extensive region +of Central Asia, touching the Aral Sea to the north, the Oxus to +the south, and Khiva to the west. It has an estimated area of +235,000 square miles, and contains nineteen cities of considerable +size, of which the capital, Bokhara, is most important.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="120">120.</a> Khiva.</b> A khanate situated in the valley of the lower +Oxus, bordering Bokhara on the southeast. <b>ferment the milk +of mares.</b> An intoxicating drink, <i>Koumiss</i>, made of camel's or <span class="left">[p.158]</span> +mare's milk, is in wide use among the steppe tribes.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="121">121.</a> Toorkmuns.</b> A branch of the Turkish race found chiefly +in northern Persia and Afghanistan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="122">122.</a> Tukas.</b> From the province of Azer-baijan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123">123.</a> Attruck.</b> A river of Khorassan, near the frontier of +Khiva; it has a west course, and enters the Caspian Sea on the +east side.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="128">128.</a> Ferghana.</b> A khanate of Turkestan, north of Bokhara, in +the upper valley of the Sir Daria.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129">129.</a> Jaxartes.</b> The ancient name of the Sir Daria River. It +takes its source in the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the Pamir +Plateau ranges, and flows with a general direction north, emptying +into the Aral Sea on the east side.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="131">131.</a> Kipchak.</b> A khanate some seventy miles below Khiva on +the Oxus.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="132">132.</a> Kalmucks.</b> A nomadic branch of the Mongolian race, +dwelling in western Siberia. <br /> +<b>Kuzzaks.</b> Now commonly called +Cossacks; a warlike people inhabiting the steppes of southern +Russia and extensive portions of Asia. Their origin is uncertain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="133">133.</a> Kirghizzes.</b> A rude nomadic people of Mongolian-Tartar +race found in northern Turkestan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="138">138. </a>Khorassan.</b> (That is, the region of the sun.) A province +of northeastern Persia, largely desert. The origin of the name is +prettily suggested by Moore in the opening poem of <i>Lalla Rookh</i>:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"In the delightful province of the sun<br /> +The first of Persian lands he shines upon," etc. +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="147">147.</a> fix'd.</b> Stopped suddenly, halted.</p> +<p> +<b>154-169.</b> Note the effect the challenge has on the two armies.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="156">156. </a>corn.</b> Here used with its European sense of "grain." It +is only in America that the word signifies Indian corn or "maize."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160">160.</a> Cabool.</b> Capital of northern Afghanistan, and an important <span class="left">[p.159]</span> +commercial city.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161">161.</a> Indian Caucasus.</b> A lofty mountain range north of Cabool, +which forms the boundary between Turkestan and Afghanistan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="173">173.</a> King.</b> See note, l. <a href="#85">85</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="177">177.</a> lion's heart.</b> Explain the line. Why are the terms here +used so forcible in the mouth of Gudurz?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="178">178-183.</a> Aloof he sits, etc.</b> One is reminded by Rustum's deportment +here, of Achilles sulking in his tent and nursing his wrath +against Agamemnon.—<i>Iliad</i>, Book I.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="199">199.</a> sate.</b> Old form of "sat," common in poetry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200">200.</a> falcon.</b> A kind of hawk trained to catch game birds.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="217">217.</a> Iran.</b> The official name of Persia.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="221">221.</a> Go to!</b> Hebraic expression. Frequently found in Shakespeare.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="223">223.</a> Kai Khosroo.</b> According to the <i>Shah Nameh</i>, the thirteenth +Turanian king. He reigned in the sixth century B.C., and has +been identified with Cyrus the Great.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="230">230.</a> Not that one slight helpless girl, etc.</b> See ll. 609-611, also +<a href="#p.151">introduction</a> to the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="232">232.</a> snow-haired Zal.</b> According to tradition, Zal was born +with snow-white hair. His father Lahm, believing this an ill +omen, doomed the unfortunate babe to be exposed on the loftiest +summit of the Elburz Mountains. The Simurgh, a great bird or +griffin, found him and cared for him till grown, then restored him +to his repentant parent. He subsequently married the Princess +Rudabeh of Seistan, by whom he became father of Rustum.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="248">243-248.</a> He spoke ... men.</b> Note carefully Gudurz's argument. +Why so effective with Rustum?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="257">257.</a> But I will fight unknown and in plain arms.</b> The shields +and arms of the champions were emblazoned with mottoes and +devices. Why does Rustum determine to lay aside his accustomed +arms and fight incognito? What effect does this determination <span class="left">[p.160]</span> +have upon the ultimate outcome of the situation? Read the story +of the arming of Achilles (Book XIX., Homer's <i>Iliad</i>), and compare +with Rustum's preparation for battle.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="266">266.</a> device.</b> See note, l. 257.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="277">277.</a> Dight.</b> Adorned, dressed.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"The clouds in thousand liveries dight."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>L'Allegro,</i> l. 62.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="286">286.</a> Bahrein</b> or Aval. A group of islands in the Persian Gulf, +celebrated for its pearl fisheries.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="288">288. </a>tale.</b> Beckoning, number.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"And every shepherd tells his <i>tale</i>,<br /> +Under the hawthorn in the dale."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>L'Allegro,</i> ll. 67-68.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="306">306.</a> flowers.</b> Decorates, beautifies with floral designs.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="311">311.</a> perused.</b> Studied, observed closely.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="318">318.</a></b> In a letter dated November, 1852, Mr. Arnold speaks of the +figures in his poem as follows: "I can only say that I took a great +deal of trouble to orientalize them, because I thought they looked +strange, and jarred, if western." What is gained by their use?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="325">325.</a> vast.</b> Large, mighty.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="326">326.</a> tried.</b> Proved, experienced.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="328">328.</a> Never was that field lost or that foe saved.</b> Note the +power gained in this line by the use of the alliteration.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="330">330.</a> Be govern'd.</b> Be influenced, persuaded.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="343">343.</a> by thy father's head!</b> Such oaths are common to the +extravagant speech of the oriental peoples.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="344">344.</a> Art thou not Rustum?</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="367">367.</a> vaunt.</b> Boast implied in the challenge.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="380">380.</a> Thou wilt not fright me so!</b> That is, by such talk.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="401">401. </a>tower'd.</b> Remained stationary, poised.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="406">406.</a> full struck.</b> Struck squarely.</p> <span class="left">[p.161]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="412">412.</a> Hyphasis, Hydaspes.</b> Two of the rivers of the Punjab in +northern India, now known as the Beas and Jhylum. In 326 B.C. +Alexander defeated Porus on the banks of the latter stream.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="414">414.</a> wrack.</b> Ruin, havoc. (Poetical.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="418">418.</a> glancing.</b> In the sense of darting aside.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="435">435.</a> hollow.</b> Unnatural in tone.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="452">452.</a> like that autumn-star.</b> Probably Sirius, the Dog Star, +under whose ascendency, according to ancient beliefs, epidemic +diseases prevailed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="454">454.</a> crest.</b> That is, helmet and plume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="466">466.</a> Remember all thy valour.</b> That is, summon up all your +courage.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="469">469.</a> girl's wiles.</b> Explain the line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="470">470.</a> kindled.</b> Roused, angered.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="481">481.</a> unnatural.</b> because of the kinship of the combatants.</p> +<p> +<b>481-486. for a cloud</b>, etc. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. +the cloud that enveloped Paris—Book III., ll. 465-469, of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="489">489.</a> And the sun sparkled</b>, etc. Why this reference to the clear +Oxus stream at this moment of intense tragedy?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="495">495.</a> helm.</b> Helmet; defensive armor for the head.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="497">497.</a> shore.</b> Past tense of <i>shear</i>, to cut.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="499">499.</a> bow'd his head:</b> because of the force of the blow.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="508">508. </a>curdled.</b> Thickened as with fear.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="516">516.</a> Rustum!</b> Why did this word so affect Sohrab? Note the +author's skill in working up to this climax in the narrative.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="527">527-539.</a> Then with a bitter smile</b>, etc. Compare these words +of the victor, Rustum, with the words of Sohrab, ll. 427-447, when +the advantage was with him.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="536">536.</a> glad.</b> Make happy.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"That which <i>gladded</i> all the warrior train."<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="538">538.</a> Dearer to the red jackals</b>, etc. <span class="left">[p.162]</span> +Cf. I. Sam. xvii. 44: "Come +to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the +beasts of the field." Careful investigation will show the poem to +abound with Biblical as well as classical parallelisms.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="556">556-575.</a> As when some hunter, etc.</b> One of the truly great +similes in the English language.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="563">563.</a> sole.</b> Alone, solitary. From the Latin <i>solus</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="570">570.</a> glass.</b> Reflect as in a mirror.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="596">596.</a> bruited up.</b> Noised abroad.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="613">613.</a> the style.</b> The name or title.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="625">625. </a>that old king.</b> The king of Semenjan. See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="632">632.</a> Of age and looks</b>, etc. That is, of such age as he (Sohrab) +would be, if born of his (Rustum's) union with Tahmineh.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="658">658-660.</a> I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm</b>, etc. This is Arnold's +conception. In the original story Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an +amulet. The onyx was supposed to incite the wearer to deeds of +valor.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="664">664.</a> corselet.</b> Protective armor for the body.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="672">672.</a> cunning.</b> Skilful, deft.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="679">679.</a> griffin.</b> In the natural history of the ancients, an imaginary +animal, half lion and half eagle. Here the Simurgh. See +note, l. <a href="#232">232</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="710">708-710.</a> unconscious hand.</b> Note how the dying Sohrab seeks +to console the grief-stricken Rustum.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune.<br /> +It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father."<br /> + + + + +—<i>Shah Nameh</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="717">717.</a> have found</b> (him). Note the ellipsis.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="724">723-724.</a> I came ... passing wind.</b> The <i>Shah Nameh</i> has—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="736">736.</a> caked the sand.</b> Hardened into cakes.</p> <span class="left">[p.163]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="751">751.</a> Helmund.</b> See note, l. <a href="#82">82</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="752">752.</a> Zirrah.</b> Another lake in Seistan, southeast of Hamoon, +now almost dry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="765">763-765.</a><a name="763"></a> Moorghab, Tejend and Kohik.</b> Rivers of Turkestan +which lose themselves in the deserts to the south of Bokhara. The +northern Sir is the Sir Daria, or Jaxartes. See note, l. <a href="#129">129</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="788">788.</a> And heap a stately mound</b>, etc. Persian tradition says that +a large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed +over the spot where Sohrab was buried.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="830">830.</a> on that day.</b> Shortly after the death of Afrasiab, the Persian +monarch Kai Khosroo, accompanied by a large number of +his nobles, went to a spring far to the north, the location fixed +upon as a place for their repose. Here the king died, and those +who went with him afterward perished in a tempest. Sohrab +predicted Rustum would be one of those lost, but tradition does +not have it so.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="861">861.</a> Persepolis.</b> An ancient capital of Persia, the ruins of which +are known as "the throne of Jemshid," after a mythical king.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="878">878.</a> Chorasma.</b> A region of Turkestan, the seat of a powerful +empire in the twelfth century, but now greatly reduced. Its +present limits are about the same as those of Khiva. See note, +l. <a href="#120">120</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="880">880. </a>Right for the polar star.</b> That is, due north. <b>Orgunje.</b> +A village on the Oxus some seventy miles below Khiva, and near +the head of its delta.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="890">890.</a> luminous home.</b> The Aral Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="891">891.</a> new bathed stars.</b> As the stars appear on the horizon, +they seem to have come up out of the sea.</p> +<p> +<b>875-892.</b> Discuss the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these closing lines of the poem. See also note, +ll. <a href="#231sg">231-250</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#BRANDAN">SAINT BRANDAN</a><a name="SAINT">°</a></h3><span class="left">[p.164]</span> +<p> +In this poem Arnold has vividly presented a quaint legend of +Judas Iscariot, popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Brandan (490-577) +was a celebrated Irish monk, famous for his voyages. "According +to the legendary accounts of his travels, he set sail with +others to seek the terrestrial paradise which was supposed to exist +in an island of the Atlantic. Various miracles are related of the +voyage, but they are always connected with the great island where +the monks are said to have landed. The legend was current in +the time of Columbus and long after, and many connected St. +Brandan's island with the newly discovered America. He is commemorated +on May 16."—<i>The Century Cyclopedia of Names</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7b">7.</a> Hebrides.</b> A group of islands off the northwestern coast of +Scotland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11b">11.</a> hurtling Polar lights.</b> A reference to the rapid, changing +movements of the Aurora Borealis.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18b">18.</a> Of hair that red.</b> According to tradition, Judas Iscariot's +hair was red.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21b">21.</a> sate.</b> See note, l. <a href="#199">199</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. +(Old form of "sat," common in poetry.) +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31b">31.</a> self-murder.</b> After betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself. +See Matt, xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38b">38.</a> The Leper recollect.</b> There is no scriptural authority for +this incident.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40b">40.</a> Joppa</b>, or Jaffa. A small maritime town of Palestine—the +ancient port of Jerusalem. There is also a small village called +Jaffa in Galilee, some two miles southwest of Nazareth, which +may have been the place the poet had in mind.</p> + + <br /><hr /><br /> +<p> +Image the situation as presented in the first several stanzas. +Why locate in the sea without a "human shore," l. 12? Is there +any especial reason for having the time Christmas night? Note +the dramatic introduction of Judas. What effect did his appearance <span class="left">[p.165]</span> +have on the saint? How was the latter reassured? Give +reasons why Judas felt impelled to tell his story. Tell the story. +Does he praise or belittle his act of charity? Why does he say +"that <i>chance</i> act of good"? How was it rewarded? Explain +his last expression. Was he about to say more? If so, what? +What effect did Judas's story have on Saint Brandan? Why? +What is the underlying thought in the poem? Discuss the form +of verse used and its appropriateness to the theme.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#FORSAKEN">THE FORSAKEN MERMAN</a><a name="MERMAN">°</a></h3> +<p> +"The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's +two poems, <i>The Merman</i> and <i>The Mermaid</i>. A comparison will +show that, in this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched +his subject not less melodiously and with finer and deeper +feeling.—Margaret will not listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with +pain';—dearer to her is the selfish desire to save her own soul +than is the light in the eyes of her little Mermaiden, dearer than +the love of the king of the sea, who yearns for her with sorrow-laden +heart. Here is there an infinite tenderness and an infinite +tragedy."</p> +<p> +—L. DUPONT SYLE, <i>From Milton to Tennyson</i>.</p> +<p> +Legends of this kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and +Cymric people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more +pleasing and touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note +carefully the dramatic manner in which the pathos of the story is +presented and developed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6m">6.</a> wild white horses.</b> Breakers, whitecaps.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13m"></a>13. Margaret.</b> A favorite name with Arnold. See <i>Isolation</i> +and <i>A Dream</i> in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="39m">39.</a> ranged.</b> See note, l. <a href="#73sr">73</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>. +(wander aimlessly about.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42m">42.</a> mail.</b> Protective covering.</p> <span class="left">[p.166]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="54m">54.</a></b> Why "down swung the sound of a far-off bell"?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81m">81.</a> seal'd.</b> Fastened; fixed intently upon, as though spellbound.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="93m">89-93.</a> Hark ... sun.</b> In her song Margaret shows she is still +keenly alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The +priest, bell, and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here +Roman Catholic. The bell is used in the Roman Church to call +especial attention to the more important portions of the service; +the well is the holy-water font.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129m">129.</a> heaths starr'd with broom.</b> The flower of the broom plant, +common in England, is yellow; hence, <i>starr'd</i>.</p> +<p> +In his work on Matthew Arnold, George Saintsbury speaks of +this poem as follows: "It is, I believe, not so 'correct' as it +once was to admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to +correctness, at least the correctness which varies with fashion. <i>The +Forsaken Merman</i> is not a perfect poem—it has <i>tongueurs</i>, though +it is not long; it has its inadequacies, those incompetences of +expression which are so oddly characteristic of its author; and his +elaborate simplicity, though more at home here than in some other +places, occasionally gives a dissonance. But it is a great poem,—one +by itself,—one which finds and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained +gallery or museum, with which every true lover of poetry +is provided, though he inherits it by degrees. None, I suppose, +will deny its pathos; I should be sorry for any one who fails to +perceive its beauty. The brief picture of the land, and the fuller +one of the sea, and that (more elaborate still) of the occupations +of the fugitive, all have their charm. But the triumph of the +piece is in one of those metrical coups, which give the triumph +of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden change from the slower +movements of the earlier stanzas, or strophes, to the quicker sweep +of the famous conclusions."</p> +<p> +What is the opening situation in the poem? Have the merman <span class="left">[p.167]</span> +and his children just reached the shore, or have they been there +some time? Why so? Why does the merman still linger, when +he is convinced that further delay will count for nothing? Why +does he urge the children to call? What is shown by his repeated +question—"was it yesterday"? Tell the story of Margaret's +departure for the upper world, and discuss the validity of her +reason for going. Do you think she intended to return? What +is the significance of her smile just before departing? Give a +word picture of what the sea-folk saw as they lingered in the +churchyard. Will Margaret ever grieve for the past? If so, +when? Why? Who has your sympathy most, Margaret, the +forsaken merman, or the children? Why? Do you condemn +Margaret for the way she has done, or do you feel she was justified +in her actions? Discuss the versification, giving special attention +to its effect on the movement of the poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#ISEULT">TRISTRAM AND ISEULT</a><a name="TRISTRAM">°</a></h3> +<p> +The story of Tristram and Iseult is one of the most vivid and +passionate of the Arthurian cycle of legends, and is a favorite with +the poets. The following version is abridged from Dunlop's <i>History +of Fiction</i>.</p> +<p> +"In the court of his uncle, King Marc, the king of Cornwall, +who at this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became +expert in all knightly exercises.... The king of Ireland, at Tristram's +solicitation, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage +on King Marc.... The mother of Iseult gave to her +daughter's confidante a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered +on the night of her nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult +unfortunately partook. Its influence, during the remainder of their +lives, regulated the affections and destiny of the lovers.</p> +<p> +"After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the <span class="left">[p.168]</span> +nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance +is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews +... Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the +displeasure of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult +with the White Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude +than love. Afterwards he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur +which became the theatre of unnumbered exploits.</p> +<p> +"Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany and +to his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was +soon reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation he despatched a +confidant to the queen of Cornwall to try if he could induce her to +follow him to Brittany.</p> +<p> +"Meanwhile Tristram awaited the arrival of the queen with such +impatience that he employed one of his wife's damsels to watch at +the harbor. Through her, Iseult learned Tristram's secret, and +filled with jealousy, flew to her husband as the vessel which bore +the queen of Cornwall was wafted toward the harbor, and reported +that the sails were black (the signal that Iseult, Marc's queen, had +refused Tristram's request to come to him). Tristram, penetrated +with inexpressible grief, died. The account of Tristram's death +was the first intelligence which the queen of Cornwall heard on +landing. She was conducted to his chamber, and expired holding +him in her arms."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1t">1.</a> Is she not come?</b> That is, Iseult of Ireland. Arnold's poem +takes up the story at the point where Tristram, now on his death-bed, +is watching eagerly for the coming of Iseult, Marc's queen, for +whom he had sent his confidant to Cornwall. Evidently he has +just awakened and is still somewhat confused; see l. 7. Surely +none will fail to appreciate so dramatic a situation.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5t">5.</a> What ... be?</b> That is, what lights are those to the northward, +the direction from which Iseult would come?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8t">8.</a> Iseult.</b> Here Iseult of the White Hands, <span class="left">[p.169]</span> +daughter of King Hoel of Brittany and wife of Tristram.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="20t">20.</a> Arthur's court.</b> Arthur, the half-mythical king of the Britons, +set up his court at Camelot, which Caxton locates in Wales +and Malory near Winchester. Here was gathered the famous +company of champions known as the "Knights of the Round +Table," whose feats have been extensively celebrated in song and +story. Among these knights Tristram held high rank, both as a +warrior and a harpist. See ll. 17-19.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23t">23.</a> Lyoness.</b> A mythical region near Cornwall, the home country +of Arthur and Tristram.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31t">30-31.</a></b> Hence the name, Iseult of the White Hands.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="68t">56-68.</a></b> See introductory note to poem for explanation.<br /> +<b>Tyntagel.</b> A village in Cornwall near the sea. Near it is the ruined +Tyntagel Castle, the reputed birthplace of Arthur. In the romance +of Sir Tristram it is the castle of King Marc, the cowardly and +treacherous king of Cornwall, the southwest county of England.<br /> +<b>teen</b>. See note, l. <a href="#147sg">147</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.<br /> +(Grief, sorrow; from the old English <i>teona</i>, meaning +injury.)</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="88t">88.</a> wanders</b>, in fancy. Note how the wounded knight's mind +flits from scene to scene, always centring around Iseult of Ireland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="91t">91.</a> O'er ... sea.</b> The Irish Sea. He is dreaming of his return +trip from Ireland with Iseult, "under the cloudless sky of May" +(l. 96).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="130t">129-132.</a></b> See introductory note to poem. The green isle, Ireland +is noted for its green fields; hence the name, Emerald (green) +Isle.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134t">134.</a> on loud Tyntagel's hill.</b> A high headland on the coast of +Wales. Discuss the force of the adjective "loud" in this connection.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160t">137-160.</a> And that ... more.</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161t">161.</a> pleasaunce-walks.</b> A pleasure garden, screened by trees, +shrubs, and close hedges—here a trysting-place. <span class="left">[p.170]</span> +After the marriage of Iseult to King Marc, she and Tristram contrived to continue +their relationship in secret.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="164t">164.</a> fay.</b> Faith. (Obsolete except in poetry.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180t">180.</a></b> Tristram, having been discovered by King Marc in his +intrigues with Iseult, was forced to leave Cornwall; hence his visit +to Brittany and subsequent marriage to Iseult of the White Hands. +See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="192t">192.</a> lovely orphan child.</b> Iseult of Brittany.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="194t">194.</a> chatelaine.</b> From the French, meaning the mistress of a +château—a castle or fortress.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200t">200.</a> stranger-knight, ill-starr'd.</b> That is, Tristram, whose many +mishaps argued his being born under an unlucky star. See also the +account of his birth, note, ll. <a href="#88t2">81-88</a>, Part II.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="203t">203.</a> Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard.</b> Prior to his visit to +Brittany, Tristram had imprisoned his uncle, King Marc, and +eloped with Iseult to the domains of King Arthur. While there +he resided at Joyous Gard, the favorite castle of Launcelot, which +that knight assigned to the lovers as their abode.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="204t">204.</a> Welcomed here.</b> That is, in Brittany, where he was nursed +back to health by Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="226t">215-226.</a> His long rambles ... ground.</b> Account for Tristram's +discontent, as indicated in these lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="237t">234-237.</a> All red ... bathed in foam.</b> The kings of Britain +agreed with Arthur to make war upon Rome. Arthur, leaving +Modred in charge of his kingdom, made war upon the Romans, and, +after a number of encounters, Lucius Tiberius was killed and the +Britons were victorious.—GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Book IV, +Chapter XV; Book X, Chapters I-XIII. According to Malory, +Arthur captured many French and Italian cities (see ll. 250-251); +during this continental invasion, and was finally crowned king at +Rome. It seems that he afterward despatched a considerable number <span class="left">[p.171]</span> +of his knights to carry the Christian faith among the heathen +German tribes. See ll. 252-253.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="238t">238.</a> moonstruck knight.</b> A reference to the mystical influence +the ancients supposed the moon to exert over men's minds and +actions.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="239t">239.</a> What foul fiend rides thee?</b> What evil spirit possesses you +and keeps you from the fight?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="240t">240.</a> her.</b> That is, Iseult of Ireland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="243t">243.</a> wanders forth again</b>, in fancy.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245t">245.</a> secret in his breast.</b> What secret?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="252t">250-253.</a></b> See note, ll. <a href="#237t">234-237</a>. +<b>blessed sign.</b> The cross.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="255t">255.</a> Roman Emperor.</b> That is, Lucius Tiberius. See note, +ll. <a href="#237t">234-237</a></p> +<p> +<b><a name="258t">258.</a> leaguer.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="261t">261.</a> what boots it?</b> That is, what difference will it make?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="303t">303.</a> recks not.</b> Has no thought of (archaic).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="314t">308-314.</a> My princess ... good night.</b> Are Tristram's words +sincere, or has he a motive in thus dismissing Iseult?</p> +<p> +<b>373-374.</b> From a dramatic standpoint, what is the purpose of +these two lines?</p> +<br /><br /> + +<h4><a href="#IRELAND">PART II</a><a name="II">°</a></h4> +<p> +With the opening of Part II the lovers are restored to each +other. The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with +long waiting, unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having +come to him with greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, +quickly dispel his doubts as to her loyalty to her former +vows. A complete reconciliation takes place, and they die in each +other's embrace. The picture of the Huntsman on the arras is one +of the most notable in English poetry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="47t2">47.</a> honied nothings</b>. Explain. Compare with</p> <span class="left">[p.172]</span> + <p class="indent"> + "his tongue<br /> + Dropt manna."<br /> + + —<i>Paradise Lost</i>, ll. 112-113, Book II.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="88t2">81-88</a></b>. Tristram was born in the forest, where his mother Isabella, +sister to King Marc, had gone in search of her recreant +husband.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="100t2">97-100</a></b>. Tennyson, in <i>The Last Tournament</i>, follows Malory in +the story of Tristram's and Iseult's death. "That traitor, King +Mark, slew the noble knight, Sir Tristram, as he sat harping before +his lady, La Beale Isoud, with a trenchant glaive, for whose death +was much bewailing of every knight that ever was in Arthur's +days ... and La Beale Isoud died swooning upon the cross of Sir +Tristram, whereof was great pity."—Malory's <i>Morte d' Arthur.</i></p> +<p> + <b><a name="113t2">113.</a> sconce</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="122t2">116-122</a></b>. Why this restlessness on the part of Iseult? Why her +frequent glances toward the door?</p> +<p> + <b><a name="132t2">132.</a> dogg'd</b>. Worried, pursued. Coleridge uses the epithet +"star-dogged moon," l. 212, Part III, <i>The Ancient Mariner.</i></p> +<p> + <b><a name="193t2">147-193</a></b>. For the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these lines, see notes on the Tyrian trader, ll. <a href="#231sg">231-250</a>, 232, +<i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i> +</p> + +<br /><br /> + +<h4><a href="#BRITTANY">PART III</a><a name="IB">°</a></h4> + +<p> +After the death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland, our thoughts +inevitably turn to Iseult of the White Hands. The infinite pathos +of her life has aroused our deepest sympathy, and we naturally +want to know further concerning her and Tristram's children.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="13t3">13.</a> cirque</b>. A circle (obsolete or poetical). See l. 7, Part III.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="18t3">18.</a> holly-trees and juniper</b>. Evergreen trees common in Europe +and America.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="22t3">22.</a> fell-fare</b> (or field-fare). <span class="left">[p.173]</span> +A small thrush found in Northern Europe.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="26t3">26.</a> stagshorn.</b> A common club-moss.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37t3">37.</a> old-world Breton history.</b> That is, the story of Merlin and +Vivian, ll. 153-224, Part III.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81t3">79-81</a></b>. Compare with the following lines from Wordsworth's +<i>Michael</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"This light was famous in its neighborhood.<br /> +... For, as it chanced,<br /> +Their cottage on a plot of rising ground<br /> +Stood single....<br /> +And from this constant light so regular<br /> +And so far seen, the House itself, by all<br /> +Who dwelt within the limits of the vale<br /> +... was named <i>The Evening Star</i>."</p> + +<p> +<b> iron coast.</b> This line inevitably calls to mind a stanza from +Tennyson's <i>Palace of Art</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.<br /> +You seemed to hear them climb and fall<br /> +And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves,<br /> +Beneath the windy wall."</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="92t3">92.</a> prie-dieu.</b> Praying-desk. From the French <i>prier</i>, pray; +<i>dieu</i>, God.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="97t3">97.</a> seneschal.</b> A majordomo; a steward. Originally meant +<i>old</i> (that is, <i>chief) servant</i>; from the Gothic <i>sins</i>, old, and <i>salks</i>, +a servant.—SKEAT.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134t3">134.</a> gulls.</b> Deceives, tricks.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"The vulgar, <i>gulled</i> into rebellion, armed,"<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140t3">140.</a></b> posting here and there. That is, restlessly changing from +place to place and from occupation to occupation.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="143t3">143-145.</a> Like that bold Cæsar</b>, etc. Julius Cæsar (100?-44 +B.C.). The incident here alluded to Is mentioned in Suetonius' <span class="left">[p.174]</span> +<i>Life of the Deified Julius</i>, Chapter VII. "Farther Spain fell to +the lot of Cæsar as questor. When, at the command of the Roman +people, he was holding court and had come to Cadiz, he noticed in +the temple of Hercules a statue of Alexander the Great. At sight +of this statue he sighed, as if disgusted at his own lack of achievement, +because he had done nothing of note by the time in life +(Cæsar was then thirty-two) that Alexander had conquered the +world." (Free translation.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="150t3">146-150.</a> Prince Alexander, etc.</b> Alexander III., surnamed +"The Great" (356-323 B.C.), was the most famous of Macedonian +generals and conquerors, and the first in order of time of the +four most celebrated commanders of whom history makes mention. +In less than fifteen years he extended his domain over the known +world and established himself as the universal emperor. He died +at Babylon, his capital city, at the age of thirty-three, having +lamented that there were no more worlds for him to conquer. +(For the boundaries of his empire, see any map of his time.) Pope +spoke of him as "The youth who all things but himself subdued."<br /> +<b>Soudan</b> (l. 149). An obsolete term for Sultan, the Turkish ruler.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="224t3">153-224</a></b>. The story of Merlin, King Arthur's court magician, +and the enchantress Vivian is one of the most familiar of the +Arthurian cycle of legends. <br /> +<b>Broce-liande</b> (l. 156). In Cornwall. +See l. 61, Part I. <br /> +<b>fay</b> (l. 159). Fairy, <br /> +<b>empire</b> (l. 184). That is, +power; here supernatural power. <br /> +<b>wimple</b> (l. 220). A covering +for the head. <br /> +<b>Is Merlin prisoner</b>, etc. (l. 223). Merlin, the magician, +is thus entrapped by means of a charm he had himself communicated +to his mistress, the enchantress Vivian. Malory has +Merlin imprisoned under a rock; Tennyson, in an oak:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"And in the hollow oak he lay as dead<br /> +And lost to life and use and name and fame."<br /> + + +—<i>Merlin and Vivian</i>. +</p> + +<b><a name="224-2t3">224</a></b>. For she was passing weary, etc. <span class="left">[p.175]</span> + +<p class="indent"> +"And she was ever passing weary of him."<br /> + + + +—MALORY. +</p> +<br /><br /> +<p> +<b>PART I</b>. What is the opening situation in the poem? Why have +it a stormy night? What does Tristram's question (l. 7) reveal +of his condition physically and mentally? What is the office of +the parts of the poem coming between the intervals of conversation? +How is the wounded knight identified? How the lady? +Follow the wanderings of the sleeping Tristram's mind. Are +the incidents he speaks of in the order of their occurrence? +Explain ll. 102-103; ll. 161-169. Tell the story of Tristram and +Iseult of the White Hands. What is shown by the fact that +Tristram's mind dwells on Iseult of Ireland even at the time of +battle? How account for his wanderings? For his morose frame +of mind? What change has come over nature when Tristram +awakes? Why this change? What is his mood now? Account +for his addressing Iseult of Brittany as he does. Why his order for +her to retire? What is her attitude toward him? Note the manner +in which the children are introduced into the story (ll. 324-325)<br /> +<b>PART II</b>. Give the opening situation. Discuss the meeting +of Tristram and Iseult. What is revealed by their conversation? +What is the purpose in introducing the Huntsman on the arras?<br /> +<b>PART III</b>. What is the purpose of ll. 1-4? Give the opening situation +in Part III. How is Iseult trying to entertain her children? +What kind of a life does she lead? Discuss ll. 112-150 as to meaning +and connection with the theme of the poem. Tell the story of +Merlin and Vivian. Why introduced? Compare Arnold's version +of the story of Tristram and Iseult with the version given in the +introductory note to the poem. + +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#CHURCH">THE CHURCH OF BROU</a><a name="BROU">°</a></h3> + <br /> <span class="left">[p.176]</span> + +<h4>I. THE CASTLE</h4> +<p> +The church of Brou is actually located in a treeless Burgundian +plain, and not in the mountains, as stated by the poet.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1cb">1.</a> Savoy</b>. A mountainous district in eastern France; formerly +one of the divisions of the Sardinian States.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3cb">3.</a> mountain-chalets</b>. Properly, herdsmen's huts in the mountains +of Switzerland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17cb">17.</a> prickers</b>. Men sent into the thickets to start the game.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="35cb">35.</a> dais</b>. Here, a canopy or covering.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="69cb">69.</a> erst</b>. See note, l. <a href="#42sg">42</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>. +( Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.))</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71cb">71.</a> chancel</b>. The part of a church in which the altar is placed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72cb">72.</a> nave</b>. See note, ll. <a href="#70el">70-76</a>, <i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="77cb">77.</a> palmers</b>. Wandering religious votaries, especially those +who bore branches of palm as a token that they had visited the +Holy Land and its sacred places.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="109cb">109.</a> fretwork</b>. Representing open woodwork.</p> +<br /><br /> +<h4>II. THE CHURCH</h4> +<p> +<b><a name="17cb2">17.</a> matin-chime</b>. Bells for morning worship.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21cb2">21.</a> Chambery</b>. Capital of the department of Savoy Proper, on +the Leysse.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="22cb2">22.</a> Dight</b>. See l. <a href="#Dight">277</a>, and <a href="#277">note</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. +(Adorned, dressed.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37cb2">37.</a> chisell'd broideries</b>. The carved draperies of the tombs.</p> +<br /><br /> +<h4>III. THE TOMB</h4> +<p> +<b><a name="6cb3">6.</a> transept</b>. The transversal part of a church edifice, which +crosses at right angles between the nave and the choir (the upper +portion), thus giving to the building the form of a cross.</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="39cb3">39.</a> foliaged marble forest</b>. Note the epithet.</p> <span class="left">[p.177]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="45cb3">45.</a> leads</b>. That is, the leaden roof. See l. 1, Part II. +(Upon the glistening leaden roof). +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#REQ">REQUIESCAT</a><a name="REQUIESCAT">°</a></h3> +<p> +This poem, one of Arnold's best-known shorter lyrics, combines +with perfect taste, simplicity and elegance, with the truest pathos. +It has been said there is not a false note in it.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13r">13.</a> cabin'd</b>. Used in the sense of being cramped for space.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16r">16.</a> vasty</b>. Spacious, boundless.</p> +<p> +What is the significance of strewing on the roses? Why "never +a spray of yew"? (See note, l.<a href="#140sg">140</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.)</i> What +seems to be the author's attitude toward death? (Read his poem, +<i>A Wish</i>.) Discuss the poem as to its lyrical qualities.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#CON">CONSOLATION</a><a name="CONSOLATION">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="14c">14.</a> Holy Lassa</b> (that is, Land of the Divine Intelligence), the +capital city of Thibet and residence of the Dalai, or Grand Lama, +the pontifical sovereign of Thibet and East Asia. Here is located +the great temple of Buddha, a vast square edifice, surmounted by a +gilded dome, the temple, together with its precincts, covering an +area of many acres. Contiguous to it, on its four sides, are four +celebrated monasteries, occupied by four thousand recluses, and +resorted to as schools of the Buddhic religion and philosophy. +There is, perhaps, no other one place in the world where so much +gold is accumulated for superstitious purposes.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17c">17.</a> Muses.</b> See note, l. <a href="#120sr">120</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18c">18.</a> In their cool gallery</b>. That is, in the Vatican art gallery at +Rome.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="19c">19.</a> yellow Tiber.</b> So called by the ancients because of the +yellowish, muddy appearance of its waters.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21c">21.</a> Strange unloved uproar.</b> At the time this poem was <span class="left">[p.178]</span> +written,—1849,—the French army was besieging Rome.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23c">23.</a> Helicon.</b> A high mountain in Boeotia, the legendary home of the Muses.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="32c">32.</a> Erst.</b> See note, l. <a href="#42sg">42</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48c">48.</a> Destiny.</b> That is, Fate, the goddess of human destiny.</p> +<p> +In what mood is the author at the opening of the poem? How +does he seek consolation? How does the calm of the Muses affect +him? Can you see how he might find help in dwelling on the +pictures of the blind beggar and happy lovers? What is the final +thought of the poem? Can you think of any other poem that has +this as its central thought? What do you think of the author's +philosophy of life as set forth in this poem? Discuss the verse +form used.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a name="LINES">LINES</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#KENSINGTON">WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS</a>°</h3> +<p> +The Kensington Gardens form one of the many beautiful public +parks of London. They are located in the Kensington parish, a +western suburb of the city, lying north of the Thames and four +miles west-southwest of St. Paul's. In his poem Arnold contrasts +the serenity of nature with the restlessness of modern life. +"Not Lucan, not Vergil, only Wordsworth, has more beautifully +expressed the spirit of Pantheism."—HERBERT W. PAUL.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4l">4.</a></b> The pine trees here mentioned are since dead.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="14l">14.</a> What endless active life!</b> Compare with Arnold's sonnet +of this volume, entitled <i>Quiet Work</i>, ll. 4-7 and 11-12.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21l">21.</a> the huge world.</b> London.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24l">24.</a> Was breathed on by rural Pan.</b> Note Arnold's classic way +of accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature +god. See note, l. <a href="#67sr">67</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42l">37-42.</a></b> Compare the thought here presented with the + <span class="left">[p.179]</span> +following lines from Wordsworth:—</p> +<p class="indent"> + +"These beauteous forms,<br /> +... have not been to me<br /> +As is a landscape to a blind man's eye.<br /> +But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din<br /> +Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,<br /> +... sensations sweet<br /> +Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;<br /> +And passing even into my purer mind,<br /> +With tranquil restoration."</p> + +<p> +Read also Wordsworth's <i>Lines to the Daffodil</i>.</p> +<p> +What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently +brought it to the author's mind? How does he show his interest +in nature? In human beings? What inspiration does the author +seek from nature, ll. 37-42? Explain the meaning of the last two +lines.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#REVELLER">THE STRAYED REVELLER</a><a name="STRAYED">°</a></h3> +<p> +"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, +that perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, +which saves me from being entirely <i>ennuyx</i>, professorial and pedantic." +(Matthew Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, +1858.)</p> +<p> +<a name="CIRCE"><b>Circe</b></a>, according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who +dwelt in the island of Ææa, and who possessed the power to transform +men into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' +wanderings.) In Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic +potion, by which this transformation is accomplished, affects not +the body, but the mind of the youth.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12sr">12.</a> ivy-cinctured.</b> That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, +the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned <span class="left">[p.180]</span> +with ivy. See also l. 33.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="36sr">36.</a> rout.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38sr">38.</a> Iacchus.</b> In the Eleusinian mysteries, Bacchus bore the +name of Iacchus. <b>fane.</b> A temple. From the Latin <i>fanum</i>, a +place of worship dedicated to any deity.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48sr">48.</a> The lions sleeping.</b> As Ulysses' companions approached +Circe's palace, following their landing on her island, they found +themselves "surrounded by lions, tigers, and wolves, not fierce +but tamed by Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="67sr">67.</a> Pan's flute music!</b> Pan, the god of pastures and woodlands, +was the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's flute, with which he +accompanied himself and his followers in the dance.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71sr">71.</a> Ulysses.</b> The celebrated hero of the Trojan war; also +famous for his wanderings. One of his chief adventures, on his +return voyage from Troy, was with the enchantress Circe, with +whom he tarried a year, forgetful of his faithful wife, Penelope, at +home.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72sr">72.</a> Art.</b> That is, are you. (Now used only in solemn or poetic +style.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="73sr">73.</a> range.</b> Wander aimlessly about.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="74sr">74.</a> See what the day brings.</b> That is, the youth. See ll. 24-52</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81sr">81.</a> Nymphs.</b> Goddesses of the mountains, forests, meadows, or +waters, belonging to the lower rank of deities.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107sr">102-107.</a></b> Compare in thought with Tennyson's poem, <i>Ulysses</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="110sr">110.</a> The favour'd guest of Circe.</b> Ulysses. See note, l. 71.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="120sr">120.</a> Muses.</b> Daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne, nine in +number. According to the earliest writers the Muses were only +the inspiring goddesses of song; but later they were looked to as +the divinities presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and +over the arts and sciences.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134sr">130-135.</a></b> Note the poet's device for presenting a <span class="left">[p.181]</span> +series of mental pictures. Compare with Tennyson's plan in his <i>Palace of Art</i>. +Does Arnold's plan seem more or less mechanical than Tennyson's?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="135sr">135-142.</a> Tiresias.</b> The blind prophet of <b>Thebes</b> (l. 142), the +chief city in Boeotia, near the river <b>Asopus</b> (l. 138). In his youth, +Tiresias unwittingly came upon Athene while she was bathing, and +was punished by the loss of sight. As a recompense for this misfortune, +the goddess afterward gave him knowledge of future +events. The inhabitants of Thebes looked to Tiresias for direction +in times of war.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="143sr">143.</a> Centaurs.</b> Monsters, half man, half horse.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="145sr">145.</a> Pelion.</b> A mountain in eastern Thessaly, famous in Greek +mythology. In the war between the giants and the gods, the former, +in their efforts to scale the heavens, piled Ossa upon Olympus and +Pelion upon Ossa.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161sr">151-161.</a></b> What in these lines enables you to determine the people +and country alluded to?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="167sr">162-167.</a> Scythian ... embers.</b> The ancient Greek term for +the nomadic tribes inhabiting the whole north and northeast +Europe and Asia. As a distinct people they built no cities, and +formed no general government, but wandered from place to place +by tribes, in their rude, covered carts (see l. 164), living upon the +coarsest kind of food (ll. 166-167).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180sr">177-180.</a> Clusters of lonely mounds, etc.</b> That is, ruins of +ancient cities.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="183sr">183.</a> Chorasmian stream.</b> See note, l. <a href="#878">878</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="197sr">197.</a> milk-barr'd onyx-stones.</b> A reference to the white streaks, +or bars, common to the onyx.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="206sr">206.</a> Happy Islands.</b> Mythical islands lying far to the west, the +abode of the heroes after death.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="220sr">220.</a> Hera's anger.</b> Hera (or Juno), wife to Jupiter, was noted +for her violent temper and jealousy. She is here represented as +visiting punishment upon the bard, perhaps out of jealousy of the <span class="left">[p.182]</span> +gods who had endowed him with poetic power, and his life, thus +afflicted, seems lengthened to seven ages.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="228sr">228-229.</a> Lapithæ.</b> In Greek legends, a fierce Thessalian race, +governed by Pirothous, a half-brother to the Centaurs. <b>Theseus.</b> +The chief hero of Attica, who, according to tradition, united the +several tribes of Attica into one state, with Athens as the capital. +His life was filled with adventure. The reference here is to the +time of the marriage of Pirothous and Hippodamia, on which +occasion the Centaurs, who were among the guests, became intoxicated, +and offered indignities to the bride. In the fight that followed, +Theseus joined with the Lapithæ, and many of the Centaurs +were slain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="231sr">231.</a> Alcmena's dreadful son.</b> Hercules. On his expedition to +capture the Arcadian boar, his third labor, Hercules became involved +in a broil with the Centaurs, and in self-defence slew several +of them with his arrows.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245sr">245.</a> Oxus stream.</b> See note, l. <a href="#2">2</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="254sr">254.</a> Heroes.</b> The demigods of mythology.</p> +<p> +<b>257. Troy.</b> The capital of Troas, Asia Minor; the seat of the +Trojan war.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="257sr">254-260.</a></b> Shortly after the close of the Trojan war, a party of +heroes from all parts of Greece, many of whom had participated in +the expeditions against <b>Thebes</b> and <b>Troy</b>, set out under the leadership +of Jason to capture the Golden Fleece. Leaving the shores +of Thessaly, the adventurers sailed eastward and finally came to +the entrance of the <b>Euxine Sea</b> (the <b>unknown sea</b>, l. 260), which +was guarded by the Clashing Islands. Following the instructions +of the sage Phineus, Jason let fly a dove between the islands, and +at the moment of rebound the expedition passed safely through. +The ship in which the adventurers sailed was called the Argo, after +its builder, Argus; hence our term Argonauts.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="261sr">261.</a> Silenus.</b> A divinity of Asiatic origin; <span class="left">[p.183]</span> +foster-father to Bacchus and leader of the <b>Fauns</b> (l. 265), satyr-like +divinities, half man, half goat, sometimes represented in art as bearing torches +(l. 274).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="275sr">275.</a> Mænad.</b> A bacchante,—a priestess or votary of Bacchus.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="276sr">276.</a> Faun with torches.</b> See note, l. 261.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +What is the situation at the beginning of the poem? What +effect does the "liquor" have upon the youth? Why is the presence +of Ulysses so much in harmony with the situation? How does +he greet Circe; how the youth? What does his presence suggest +to the latter? Why? Note the vividness of the pictures he describes; +also the swiftness with which he changes from one to another. +What power is ascribed to the poet? Why his "pain"? +What effect is gained by closing the poem with the same words with +which it is opened? Why the irregular verse used?</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#BEACH">DOVER BEACH</a><a name="DOVER">°</a></h3> +<p> +In this poem is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, +at once religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is +one of his most passionate interpretations of life.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15db">15.</a> Sophocles</b> (495-406 B.C.). One of the three great tragic +poets of Greece. His rivals were Æschylus (526-456 B.C.) and +Euripides (486-406 B.C.).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16db">16.</a> Ægean Sea.</b> See note, l. <a href="#236sg">236</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +Image the scene in the opening stanzas. What is the author's +mood? Why does he call some one to look on the scene with him? +What is the "eternal note of sadness"? Why connect it in +thought with the sea? Why does this thought suggest Sophocles? +What thought next presents itself to the author's mind? From <span class="left">[p.184]</span> +what source must one's help and comfort then be drawn? Why so? +Why the irregular versification? State the theme of the poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h3><a href="#PHI">PHILOMELA</a><a name="PHILOMELA">°</a></h3> +<p> +"Philomela unites the sensibilities and intellectual experience +of modern Englishmen with the luminousness and simplicity of +Greek poetry."—SAINTSBURY.</p> +<p> +The myth of the nightingale has long been a favorite with the +poets, who have variously interpreted the bird's song. See Coleridge's, +Keats's, and Wordsworth's poems on the subject. The +most common version of the myth, the one followed by Arnold, +is as follows:—</p> +<p> +"Pandion (son of Erichthonius, special ward to Minerva) had two +daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in +marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). +This ruler, after his wife had borne him a son, Itys (or Itylus), +wearied of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to insure her +silence, and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the +other sister, Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which +she wove her story, informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In +revenge upon Tereus, the sisters killed Itylus, and served up the +child as food to the father; but the gods, in indignation, transformed +Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, forever +bemoaning the murdered Itylus, and Tereus into a hawk, forever +pursuing the sisters."—GAYLEY'S <i>Classic Myths</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4ph">4.</a></b> Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5ph">5.</a> O wanderer from a Grecian shore.</b> See note, l. <a href="#27ph">27</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8ph">8.</a></b> Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not +one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18ph">18.</a> Thracian wild.</b> Thrace was the name used by the early +Greeks for the entire region north of Greece.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21ph">21.</a> The too clear web</b>, etc. <span class="left">[p.185]</span> +See introductory note to poem for +explanation of this and the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="27ph">27.</a> Daulis.</b> A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of +Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. <b>Cephessian vale.</b> +The valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through +Doris, Phocis, and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="29ph">29.</a> How thick the bursts</b>, etc. Compare with the following +lines from Coleridge:—</p> +<p class="indent"> + + +"'Tis the merry nightingale<br /> +That crowds and hurries and precipitates<br /> +With fast, thick warble his delicious notes,<br /> +As he were fearful that an April night<br /> +Would be too short for him to utter forth<br /> +His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul<br /> +Of all its music!"<br /> + + +—<i>The Nightingale</i>.</p> +<p> +Also</p> +<p class="indent"> +"O Nightingale! thou surely art<br /> +A creature of a 'fiery heart':—<br /> +These notes of thine—they pierce and pierce;<br /> +Tumultuous harmony and fierce!<br /> +Thou sing'st as if the god of wine<br /> +Had helped thee to a Valentine."<br /> + + +—WORDSWORTH.</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="32ph">31-32.</a> Eternal passion!<br /> + Eternal pain!</b> Compare:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains."<br /> + + +—COLERIDGE, <i>To a Nightingale</i>.</p> +<p> +and</p> +<p class="indent"> + + "Sweet bird ...<br /> +Most musical, most melancholy!"<br /> + + +—MILTON, <i>Il Penseroso</i>.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +Image the scene in the poem. How does the author secure the +proper atmosphere for the theme of the poem? Account for the +note of triumph in the nightingale's song; note of pain. What <span class="left">[p.186]</span> +is shown by the poet's question, ll. 10-15? What new qualities +are added to the nightingale's song, l. 25? Account for them. +Why <i>eternal</i> passion, <i>eternal</i> pain? Do you feel the form of +verse used (Pindaric blank) to be adapted to the theme?</p> + + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#HUMANLIFE">HUMAN LIFE</a><a name="HUMAN">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="4hl">4.</a> kept uninfringed my nature's law.</b> That is, have lived a +perfect life.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5hl">5.</a> inly-written chart.</b> The conscience.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8hl">8.</a> incognisable.</b> Not to be comprehended by finite mind.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23hl">23.</a> prore.</b> Poetical word for <i>prow</i>, the fore part of a ship.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="27hl">27.</a> stem.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +What important incident in the destiny of the soul is alluded to +in stanza 1? Interpret ll. 13-14, and apply to your own experience. +Why cannot we live "chance's fool"? Is there any hint +of fatalism in the poem, or are we held accountable for our own +destiny?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#ISOL">ISOLATION</a><a name="ISOLATION">°</a></h3> + +<h3>TO MARGUERITE, ON RETURNING A VOLUME OF THE +LETTERS OF ORTIS</h3> + +<p> +This poem, the fifth in a loosely connected group of lyrics, +under the general name <i>Switzerland</i>, is a continuation of the +preceding poem, <i>Isolation—to Marguerite</i>, and is properly entitled, +<i>To Marguerite—Continued</i>. When printed separately, the +above title is used.</p> +<p> +Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. +His <i>Ultime Lettere di Ortis</i> was translated into the English in 1818.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1i">1.</a> Yes!</b> Used in answer to the closing thought of <span class="left">[p.187]</span> +the preceding poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7i">7.</a> moon.</b> Note the frequency with which reference to the +moon, with its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you +give any reason for this?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24i">24.</a></b> Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: +"<i>Isolation</i> winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the +century—one of the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of +English verse—a phrase complete and final, with epithets in +unerring cumulation."</p> +<p> +Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? +Discuss l.2 as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," +l.4? Why "endless bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling +of despair, l.13? Answer the questions asked in the last stanza. +In what frame of mind does the poem leave you?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#DEAD">KAISER DEAD</a><a name="KAISER">°</a></h3> + +<h4>APRIL 6, 1887</h4> +<p> +Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was +most sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in +the minor key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just +lost our dear, dear mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated +from his home in Cobham, Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very +sad." The poem was written the following July, and was published +in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> for that month.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2k">2.</a> Cobham.</b> See note above.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3k">3.</a> Farringford,</b> in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord +Tennyson.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5k">5.</a> Pen-bryn's bold bard.</b> Sir Lewis Morris, author of the <i>Epic +of Hades</i>, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12k">11-12.</a></b> In Burns's poem, <i>Poor Mailie's Elegy</i>, <span class="left">[p.188]</span> +occur the following +lines:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Come, join the melancholious croon +O' Robin's reed."</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="20k">20.</a> Potsdam.</b> The capital of the government district of Potsdam, +in the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's +name, <i>Kaiser</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="41k">41.</a> the Grand Old Man.</b> Gladstone.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50k">50.</a> agog.</b> In a state of eager excitement.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="65k">65.</a> Geist.</b> Also remembered in a poem entitled <i>Geist's Grave</i>, +included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="76k">76.</a> chiel.</b> A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Buirdly <i>chiels</i> an clever hizzies."<br /> + + + +—BURNS, <i>The Twa Dogs</i>.</p> +<p> +<b>Skye.</b> The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. <a href="#7b">7</a>, +<i>Saint Brandan</i>.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#WORD">THE LAST WORD</a><a name="LAST">°</a></h3> +<p> +In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a +hopeless struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too +strong for him.</p> +<p> +State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? +What is the <i>narrow bed</i>, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With +whom has it been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied +in l. 6? What is meant by <i>ringing shot</i>, l. 11? Who are the +victors, l. 14? What would they probably say on finding the body +near the wall? Can you think of any historical characters of +whom the poem might aptly have been written? +</p> +<br /><br /><br /><span class="left">[p.189]</span> + +<h3><a href="#PAL">PALLADIUM</a><a name="PALLADIUM">°</a></h3> +<p> +At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy +a celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was +reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the +belief was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue +remained within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek +champions, succeeded in entering the city in disguise, stole the +Palladium and carried it off to the besiegers' camp at Argos. It +was some time, however, before the city fell.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1p">1.</a> Simois.</b> A small river of the Troad which takes its rise in +the rocky, wooded eminence which, according to Greek tradition, +formed the acropolis of Troy. The Palladium was set up on its +banks near its source, in a temple especially erected for it (l. 6), +and from this lofty position was supposed to watch over the safety +of the city and her defenders on the plains below.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3p">3.</a> Hector.</b> Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy (Ilium), and his +wife, Hecuba, was the leader and champion of the Trojan armies. +He distinguished himself in numerous single combats with the +ablest of the Greek heroes; and to him was principally due the +stubborn defence of the Trojan capital. He was finally slain by +Achilles, aided by Athene, and his body dragged thrice around +the walls of Troy behind the chariot of his conqueror.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="14p">14.</a> Xanthus.</b> The Scamander, the largest and most celebrated +river of the Troad, near which Troy was situated, was presided +over by a deity known to the gods as Xanthus. His contest with +Achilles, whom he so nearly overwhelmed, forms a notable incident +of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15p">15.</a> Ajax, or Aiax.</b> One of the leading Greek heroes in the siege +of Troy, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. In +bravery and feats of valor he was second only to Achilles. Not +being awarded the armor of Achilles after that hero's death, he <span class="left">[p.190]</span> +slew himself.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16p">16.</a></b> Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated +for her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to +her by both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in +the second part of <i>Faust</i>, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that +name, addresses her thus:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air<br /> +Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." +</p> +<p> +Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3), was the +cause of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek +mythology, which forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, +the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +What is the central thought of the poem? Of what is the Palladium +typical? Explain the thought in stanza 3. What is the +force of the references of stanza 4? Discuss the use of the words +"rust" and "shine," l. 17. Just what is meant by "soul" as +the word is used in the poem?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#DEPENDENCE">SELF-DEPENDENCE</a><a name="SELF">°</a></h3> +<p> +<i>Self-Dependence</i> is a poem in every respect characteristic of its +author. In it Arnold exhorts mankind to seek refuge from human +troubles in the example of nature.</p> +<p> +Picture the situation in the poem. What is the poet's mood as +shown in the opening stanzas? From what source does he seek +aid? Why? What answer does he receive? What is the source +of nature's repose? Where and how must the human soul find +its contentment?</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#GRAVE">GEIST'S GRAVE</a><a name="GEIST">°</a></h3><span class="left">[p.191]</span> + +<p> +This poem appeared in the January number of the <i>Fortnightly +Review</i> for 1881.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12gg">12.</a> homily.</b> Sermon.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15gg">15.</a>the Virgilian cry.</b> <i>Sunt lacrimæ rerum!</i> These words are +interpreted in the following line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42gg">42.</a> On lips that rarely form them now.</b> Arnold wrote but little +poetry after 1867.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="55gg">55-56.</a> thine absent master.</b> Richard Penrose Arnold, the +poet's only surviving son.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#LAOCOON">EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOON</a><a name="EPILOGUE">°</a></h3> +<p> +Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a celebrated German +dramatist and critic. For a time he studied theology at Leipsic, +then turned his attention to the stage, and later to criticism. His +greatest critical work (1766) is a treatise on Art, the famous Greek +statuary group, the LAOCOON, which gives the work its name, forming +the basis for a comparative discussion of Sculpture, Poetry, +Painting, and Music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1el">1.</a> Hyde Park.</b> The largest park in London, and the principal +recreation ground of that city.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15el">15.</a> Phœbus-guarded ground.</b> Greece. Phœbus, a name often +given Apollo, the sun god.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16el">16.</a> Pausanias.</b> A noted Greek geographer and writer on art +who lived in the second century. "His work, <i>The Gazetteer of +Hellas</i>, is our best repertory of information for the topography, +local history, religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of +the different states of Greece."—K.O. MÃœLLER, <i>History of the +Literature of Ancient Greece</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21el">21-22.</a> Dante</b> (1265-1321), <b>Petrarch</b> (1304-1374),<span class="left">[p.192]</span> +<b>Tasso</b> (1544-1595), <b>Ariosto</b> (1475-1533). Celebrated Italian poets.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="25el">25.</a> Raphael</b> (1483-1520). The famous Italian painter.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="29el">29.</a> Goethe</b> (1749-1832). The greatest name in German literature. +His works include poetry, dramas, and criticisms. <b>Wordsworth</b> +(1770-1850). See the poem, <i><a href="#VERSES">Memorial Verses</a></i>, of this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="35el">35.</a> Mozart</b> (1766-1791), <b>Beethoven</b> (1770-1827), <b>Mendelssohn</b> +(1809-1847). Noted musicians and composers.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42el">42.</a> south.</b> Warm.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48el">43-48.</a></b> Cyclops Polyphemus, famous in the story of Ulysses, +was a persistent and jealous suitor of Galatea, the fairest of sea +divinities. So ardent was he in his wooings, that he would leave +his flocks to wander at will, while he sang his uncouth lays from +the hilltops to Galatea in the bay below. Her only answers were +words of scorn and mockery. See Andrew Lang's translation of +Theocritus, Idyl VI, for further account.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="70el">70-76.</a> Abbey towers.</b> That is, Westminster Abbey, a mile's +distance to the south and east of Hyde Park. The abbey is built +in the form of a cross, the body or lower part of which is termed +the nave (l. 73). The upper portion is occupied by the choir, +the anthems of which, with their organ accompaniments, are +alluded to in ll. 74-77.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="89el">89-106.</a> Miserere Domine!</b> <i>Lord, have mercy!</i> These words are +from the service of the Church of England. The meaning in +these lines is that Beethoven, in his masterpieces, has transferred +the thoughts and feelings, above inadequately expressed in words, +into another and more emotional tongue; that is, music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107el">107.</a> Ride.</b> A famous driveway in Hyde Park, commonly called +Rotten Row. (Possibly from 'Route du Roi')</p> +<p> +<b><a name="119el">119.</a> vacant.</b> Thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"For oft, when on my couch I lie<br /> +In <i>vacant</i> or in pensive mood."<br /> + + + +—WORDSWORTH'S <i>Lines to the Daffodils</i>, ll. 19-20.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="124el">124.</a> hies.</b> Hastens (poetical).</p> <span class="left">[p.193]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="130el">130.</a> painter and musician too!</b> Arnold held poetry to be equal +to painting and music combined.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140el">140.</a> movement.</b> Activities. Explained in the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="163el">163-210.</a></b> Note carefully the argument used to prove that poetry +interprets life more accurately and effectively than any of the other +arts. <b>Homer</b>, the most renowned of all Greek poets. The time in +which he lived is not definitely known. <b>Shakespeare</b> (1504-1616).</p> +<p> +Give the setting of the story. What was the topic of conversation? +What stand did the poet's friend take regarding poetry? +Why turn to Greece in considering the arts? What limitations of +the painter's art are pointed out by the poet? What is his attitude +toward music? What finally is "the poet's sphere," l. 127? +Wherein then is poetry superior to the other arts? Does the +author prove his point by his poem? Discuss the poem as to +movement, diction, etc.</p> +<br /> +<hr /><br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#WORK">QUIET WORK</a><a name="QUIET">°</a></h3> +<p> +No poet, not even Wordsworth, was more passionately fond of +nature than Arnold. Note his attitude in the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1q">1.</a> One lesson.</b> What lesson?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4q">4.</a></b> Discuss the use of the adjective "loud"; also "noisier," l. 7.</p> + +<p> +Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme +formula, and number of lines. See the introduction to Sharp's +<i>Sonnets of this Century</i>.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h3><a href="#SHAKESPEARE">SHAKESPEARE</a><a name="SHAKES">°</a></h3> +<p> +Despite this tribute, Arnold considered Homer Shakespeare's +equal, if not his superior. +What do Shakespeare's smile and silence imply on his part? <span class="left">[p.194]</span> +Explain in full the figure used. Do you consider it apt? Why +"Better so," l. 10? What is there in the poem that helps you +to see wherein lay Shakespeare's power to interpret life? Select +the lines which most impress you, and tell why.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#AGITATIONS">YOUTH'S AGITATIONS</a><a name="YOUTH">°</a></h3> +<p> +This sonnet was written in 1852, when the poet was in his thirtieth +year.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5y">5.</a> joy.</b> Be glad. <b>heats.</b> Passions.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6y">6.</a> even clime.</b> That is, in the less emotional years of maturity.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12y">12.</a> hurrying fever.</b> See note, l. 6.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#POETRY">AUSTERITY OF POETRY</a><a name="AUSTERITY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="1a">1.</a> That son of Italy.</b> Giacopone di Todi.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2a">2.</a> Dante</b> (1265-1321). Best known as the author of <i>The Divine +Comedy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3a">3.</a> In his light youth.</b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11a">11.</a> sackcloth.</b> Symbolic of mourning or mortification of the +flesh.</p> + + <p> +Tell the story of the poem and make the application. Explain +Arnold's idea of poetry as set forth in ll. 12-14.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#PLACE">WORLDLY PLACE</a><a name="WORLDLY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="3w">3.</a> Marcus Aurelius</b> (121-180 A.D.), commonly called "the +philosopher." A celebrated Roman emperor, prominent among +the ethical teachers of his time. Arnold himself has been aptly +styled by Sharp an "impassioned Marcus Aurelius, wrought by <span class="left">[p.195]</span> +poetic vision and emotion to poetic music."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6w">6.</a> foolish.</b> In the sense of unreasonable. <b>ken.</b> The Scotch +word meaning sight.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7w">7.</a> rates.</b> Berates, reproves.</p> + +<p> +Give the poem's theme. What is implied by the word "even," +l. 1? Does the author agree with the implication? Why so? +Discuss l. 5 as to its meaning. Interpret the expressions "ill-school'd +spirit," l. 11, and "Some nobler, ampler stage of life," +l. 12. Where finally are the aids to a nobler life to be found? +Do you agree with this philosophy of life?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#EASTLON">EAST LONDON</a><a name="EASTLONDON">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="2ea">2.</a> Bethnal Green.</b> An eastern suburb of London.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4ea">4.</a> Spitalfields.</b> A part of northeast London, comprising the +parishes of Bethnal Green and Christchurch.</p> + +<p> +Image the scene. What is the purpose of the first four lines? +Discuss l. 6. What is the import of the preacher's response? +What are the poet's conclusions drawn in ll. 9-14?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#WESTLON">WEST LONDON</a><a name="WESTLONDON">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="1we">1.</a> Belgrave Square.</b> An important square in the western part +of London.</p> + +<p> +Tell the situation and the story of the poem. Why did the +woman solicit aid from the laboring men? Why not from the +wealthy? Explain ll. 9-11. What is the poet's final conclusion? +</p> +<br /> +<hr /><br /><br /><br /><span class="left">[p.196]</span> + +<h3><a href="#VERSES">MEMORIAL VERSES</a><a name="MEMORIAL">°</a></h3> + +<h4>APRIL, 1850</h4> +<p> +Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in the Lake, District, April +23, 1850. These verses, dedicated to his memory, are among +Arnold's best-known lines. For adequacy of meaning and charm +of expression, they are almost unsurpassed; they also contain +some of the poet's soundest poetical criticism. The poem was +first published in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i> for June, 1850, and bore +the date of April 27.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1m">1.</a> Goethe in Weimar sleeps.</b> The tomb of Goethe, the celebrated +German author (see note, l. <a href="#29el">29</a>, <i>Epilogue to Lessing's +LAOCOON</i>), is in Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of +Saxe-Weimar. Weimar is noted as the literary centre of Germany, and +for this reason is styled the German Athens.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2m">2.</a> Byron.</b> George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated English +poet of the French Revolutionary period, died at Missolonghi, +Greece, where he had gone to help the Greeks in their struggle to +throw off the Turkish yoke. He was preëminently a poet of passion, +and, as such, exerted a marked influence on the literature of +his day. His petulant, bitter rebellion against all law has become +proverbial; hence the term "Byronic." The <b>Titans</b> (l. 14) were +a race of giants who warred against the gods. The aptness of +the comparison made here is at once evident. In Arnold's sonnet, +<i>A Picture at Newstead</i>, also occur these lines:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry<br /> + Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17m">17.</a> iron age.</b> In classic mythology, "The last of the four great +ages of the world described by Hesiod. Ovid, etc. It was supposed +to be characterized by abounding oppression, vice, and misery."— +<i>International Dictionary</i>. The preceding ages, in order, were the <span class="left">[p.197]</span> +age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="34m">34-39</a><a name="38m"></a></b>. Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was stung to death by a +serpent, and passed to the realm of the dead—Hades. Thither +Orpheus descended, and, by the charm of his lyre and song, persuaded +Pluto to restore her to life. This he consented to do on +condition that she walk behind her husband, who was not to look +at her until they had arrived in the upper world. Orpheus, however, +looked back, thus violating the conditions, and Eurydice was +caught back into the infernal regions.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "The ferry guard<br /> +Now would not row him o'er the lake again."<br /> + + + +—LANDOR.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72m">72.</a> Rotha</b>. A small stream of the English Lake Region, on +which Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's burial-place, is situated.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#GIPSY">THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY</a><a name="SCHOLAR">°</a></h3> +<p> +"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford who +was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there and at last to +join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these +extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he +quickly got so much of their love and esteem that they discovered +to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised +in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars +who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied +out their old friend among the gipsies, and he gave them an account +of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and +told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as +they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning +among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, +their fancy binding that of others; that himself had learned +much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, <span class="left">[p.198]</span> +he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world +an account of what he had learned."—GLANVIL'S <i>Vanity of +Dogmatizing</i>, 1661.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2sg">2.</a> wattled cotes</b>. Sheepfolds. Probably suggested by Milton's +<i>Comus</i>, l. 344:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"The folded flocks, penned in their <i>wattled cotes</i>." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="9sg">9.</a> Cross and recross</b>. Infinitives depending upon seen, l. 8.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13sg">13.</a> cruse</b>. Commonly associated in thought with the story of +Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, 1 <i>Kings</i>, xvii: 8-16.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="19sg">19.</a> corn</b>. See note, l. <a href="#156">156</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="30sg">30.</a> Oxford towers</b>. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire +and the seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities +in Europe, is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence +of the Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course +the Isis). It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the +tops of which command a fine view of the city with its domes +and towers."—BAEDEKER'S <i>Great Britain</i>, in his <i>Handbooks for +Travellers</i>. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, +surely, has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see +such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime, and +more than one, to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily." See +also note, l. <a href="#19th">19</a>, <i>Thyrsis</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31sg">31.</a> Glanvil's book</b>. See <a href="#SCHOLAR">introductory note</a> to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42sg">42.</a> erst</b>. Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50sg">44-50</a></b>. See <a href="#SCHOLAR">introductory note</a> to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="57sg">57. </a>Hurst</b>. Cumner (or Cumnor) Hurst, one of the Cumnor +range of hills, some two or three miles south and west of Oxford, +is crowned with a clump of cedars; hence the name "Hurst."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="58sg">58.</a> Berkshire moors</b>. Berkshire is the county, or shire, on the +south of Oxford County.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="69sg">69.</a> green-muffled</b>. Explain the epithet.</p><span class="left">[p.199]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="74sg">74.</a> Bablockhithe</b>. A small town some four miles west and a +little south of Oxford, on the Thames, which at that point is a mere +stream crossed by a ferry. This and numerous other points of +interest in the vicinity of Oxford are frequented by Oxford students; +hence Arnold's familiarity with them and his reference to +them in this poem and <i>Thyrsis</i>. See any atlas.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="79sg">79.</a> Wychwood bowers</b>. That is, Wychwood Forest, ten or +twelve miles north and west of Oxford. See note, l. 74.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="83sg">83.</a> To dance around the Fyfield elm in May</b>. Fyfield, a parish +in Berkshire, about six miles southwest of Oxford. The reference +here is to the "May-day" celebrations formerly widely observed +in Europe, but now nearly disappeared. The chief features of the +celebration in Great Britain are the gathering of hawthorn blossoms +and other flowers, the crowning of the May-queen and +dancing around the May-pole—here the Fyfield elm. See note, +l. 74. Read Tennyson's poem, <i>The Queen o' the May</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="91sg">91.</a> Godstow Bridge</b>. Some two miles up the Thames from +Oxford.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="95sg">95.</a> lasher pass</b>. An English term corresponding to our <i>mill +race</i>. The <i>lasher</i> is the dam, or weir.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="98sg">98.</a> outlandish</b>. Analyze the word and determine meaning.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="111sg">111.</a> Bagley Wood</b>. South and west of Oxford, beyond South +Hinksey. See note, l. <a href="#125sg">125</a>; also note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="114sg">114.</a> tagg'd</b>. That is, marked; the leaves being colored by frost.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="115sg">115.</a> Thessaly</b>. The northeastern district of ancient Greece, +celebrated in mythology. Here a forest ground near Bagley +Wood. See note, l. 111; also note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="125sg">125</a>. Hinksey</b>. North and South Hinksey are unimportant +villages a short distance out from Oxford in the Cumnor Hills. +See note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129sg">129</a>. Christ Church hall</b>. The largest and most fashionable college +in Oxford; founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. The chapel <span class="left">[p.200]</span> +of Christ Church is also the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="130sg">130</a>. grange</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="133sg">133</a>. Glanvil</b>. Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. A noted English +divine and philosopher; author of a defence of belief in witchcraft.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140sg">140</a>. red-fruited yew tree</b>. The yew tree is very common in +English burial-grounds. It grows slowly, lives long, has a dark, +thick foliage, and yields a red berry. See Wordsworth's celebrated +poem, <i>The Yew-Tree</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="170sg">141-170</a></b>. "This note of lassitude is struck often—perhaps too +often—in Arnold's poems."—DU PONT SYLE. See also <i>The Stanzas +in Memory of the Author of Obermann</i>. For the author's less +despondent mood, see his <i>Rugby Chapel</i>, included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="147sg">147.</a> teen</b>. Grief, sorrow; from the old English <i>teona</i>, meaning +injury.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="149sg">149.</a> the just-pausing Genius</b>. Does the author here allude to +death?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="151sg">151.</a> Thou hast not lived</b> (so). That is, as described in preceding +stanza.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="152sg">152.</a> Thou hadst one aim</b>, etc. What was the Scholar-Gipsy's +<i>one</i> motive in life?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160sg">157-160.</a> But thou possessest an immortal lot</b>, etc. Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="165sg">165.</a> Which much to have tried</b>, etc. Which many attempts and +many failures bring.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180sg">180.</a> do not we ... await it too</b>? That is, the spark from +heaven. See l. 171.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190sg">182-190</a></b>. Possibly Carlyle, although the author may have had +in mind a type rather than an individual.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="208sg">208-209.</a> Averse, as Dido did</b>, etc. Dido, the mythical queen of +Carthage, being deserted by her lover Æneas, slew herself. She +afterward met him on his journey through Hades, but turned from +him in scorn.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + "In vain he thus attempts her mind to move<br /> <span class="left">[p.201]</span> + With tears and prayers and late repenting love;<br /> + Disdainfully she looked, then turning round<br /> + But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground,<br /> + And what he says and swears regards no more<br /> + Than the deaf rocks when the loud billows roar."<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN'S <i>Translation</i>.</p> +<p> +For entire episode, see <i>Æneid</i>, vi, 450-476.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="212sg">212.</a> inviolable shade</b>. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. +Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this +and the preceding line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="214sg">214</a>.</b> Why "silver'd" branches?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="220sg">220.</a></b> dingles. Wooded dells.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="231sg">231-250</a>.</b> Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained +image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days +of sick unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. +In the course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt +Hutton says of this poem and this closing picture: "That most +beautiful and graceful poem on the <i>Scholar-Gipsy</i> (the Oxford student +who is said to have forsaken academic study in order to learn, +if it might be, those potent secrets of nature, the traditions of +which the gypsies are supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a +digression of the most vivid beauty.... Nothing could illustrate +better than this [closing] passage Arnold's genius and his art.... +His whole drift having been that care and effort and gain +and pressure of the world are sapping human strength, he ends +with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, which exhibits +human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could quote +poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant +digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of +melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is +still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to +say, but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the<span class="left">[p.202]</span> +human spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources +still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to +feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does +not teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="232sg">232.</a> As some grave Tyrian trader, etc</b>. Tyre, the second oldest +and most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a +strong competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="236sg">236.</a> Ægean Isles</b>. The Ægean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean +lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the +north, and Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small +islands, many of which are famous in Greek mythology.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="238sg">238.</a> Chian wine</b>. Chios, or Scio, an island in the Ægean Sea +(see note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="239sg">239.</a> tunnies</b>. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in +the Mediterranean Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="244sg">244.</a> Midland waters</b>. The Mediterranean Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245sg">245.</a> Syrtes</b>. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, +the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, <b>soft Sicily</b>. Sicily +is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="247sg">247.</a> western straits</b>. Strait of Gibraltar.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="250sg">250.</a> Iberians</b>. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by +Portugal and Spain.</p> +<p> +What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What +quest is to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join +himself to the gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, +then, did he continue with them till his death? Why would he +avoid others than members of the gipsy crew? Why his pensive +air? To what truth does the author suddenly awake? How does +the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain fully lines 180-200. +Note carefully the author's contrast between the life led by the<span class="left">[p.203]</span> +Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better? Why? Make +an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it apt? Why +used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted to +the theme of the poem?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#THYR">THYRSIS</a><a name="THYRSIS">°</a></h3> +<p> +A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh +Clough, who died at Florence, 1861.</p> +<p> +Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection, +<i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a +sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English +language.</p> +<p> +Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. +In the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in +the Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has +come to mean any rustic.</p> +<p> +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin +in spirit to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He +studied at both Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately +associated and became fast friends. In 1869 his health +began to fail, and two years later he died in Florence, Italy, where +he had gone in the hope of being benefited by the climate.</p> +<p> +Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his +poem: "Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the +Thyrsis was modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been +much reading during the two years this poem has been forming +itself, and that I meant the diction to be so artless as to be almost +heedless. However, there is a mean which must not be passed, +and before I reprint this I will consider well all objections. The +images are all from actual observation.... The cuckoo in the +wet June morning, I heard in the garden at Woodford, and all<span class="left">[p.204]</span> +those three stanzas, which you like, are reminiscences of Woodford. +Edward has, I think, fixed on the two stanzas I myself like +best: 'O easy access,' and 'And long the way appears.' I also +like 'Where is the girl,' and the stanza before it; but that is because +they bring certain places and moments before me.... It +is probably too quiet a poem for the general taste, but I think it +will stand wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold +wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I +think, solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had +long been in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, +and, when I began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You +say, truly, that there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic +side, in fact) which one cannot deal with in this way.... Still, +Clough had the idyllic side, too; to deal with this suited my desire +to deal again with that Cumner country. Anyway, only so could +I treat the matter this time. <i>Valeat quantum</i>."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1th">1.</a></b> Note how the tone of the poem is struck in the first line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2th">2.</a>In the two Hinkseys.</b> That is, North and South Hinksey. +See note, l. <a href="#125sg">125</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="4th">4.</a> Sibylla's name.</b> In ancient mythology the Sibyls were certain +women reputed to possess special powers of prophecy, or divination, +and who claimed to make special intercession with the gods +in behalf of those who resorted to them. Do you see why their +"name" would be used on signs as here mentioned?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6th">6.</a> ye hills.</b> See note, l. <a href="#30sg">30</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="14th"></a>14. Ilsley Downs.</b> The surface of East and West Ilsley parishes, +in Berkshire, some twelve or fourteen miles south of Oxford, is +broken by ranges of plateau-like hills, known in England as <i>downs</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15th">15.</a> The Vale.</b> White Horse Vale; the upper valley of the +River Ock, westward from Oxford. <b>weirs</b>. See note, l. <a href="#95sg">95</a>, <i>The +Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="19th">19.</a> And that sweet city with her dreaming spires.</b><span class="left">[p.205]</span> +Arnold's intense love for Oxford and the surrounding country appears in +many of his essays and poems. In the introduction to his <i>Essays +on Criticism</i>, Vol. I, occurs the following tribute: "Beautiful +city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual +life of our century, so serene!</p> + +<p class="indent"> +'There are our young barbarians all at play!' +</p> +<p> +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments +to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment +of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable +charm, keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the +ideal, to perfection—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen +from another side?... Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs +and unpopular names and impossible loyalties! what example could +ever so inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what +teacher could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all +prone, that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the +death of Schiller, makes it his friend's highest praise ... to have +left miles out of sight behind him: the bondage of 'was uns alle +bändigt, Das Gemeine'?"</p> +<p> +<b><a name="20th">20.</a></b> Compare with Lowell's lines on June, in <i>The Vision of Sir +Launfal</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23th">22-23.</a></b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24th">24.</a> Once pass'd I blindfold here.</b> That is, at one time I could +have passed here blindfolded, being so familiar with the country. +Can you think of any other possible interpretation?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="30th">26-30.</a></b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40th">31-40.</a></b> Compare the thought here to that of Milton's <i>Lycidas</i>, +ll. 23-38. A comparison of the two poems entire, in thought and +structure, will be found to be both interesting and profitable. +<b>Shepherd-pipe</b> (l. 35). The term <b>pipe</b>, also <b>reed</b> (l. 78), is +continually used in pastoral verse as symbolic of poetry and<span class="left">[p.206]</span> +song. </p> +<p> +<b><a name="45th">38-45.</a> Needs must I lose them</b>, etc. That is, I must lose them, +etc. Arnold's great ambition was to devote his life to literature, +which circumstances largely prevented; while Clough was eager to +take a more active part in life, not being content with the uneventful +career of a poet, <b>irk'd</b> (l. 40). Annoyed; worried. <b>keep</b> +(l. 43). Here used in the sense of remain, <b>silly</b> (l. 45). Harmless; +senseless. The word has an interesting history.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50th">46-50</a></b>. Like Arnold, Clough held lofty ideals of life, and grieved +to see men living so far below their privileges. This, with his loss +of faith in God, tinged his poetry with sadness. The storms (l. 49) +allude to the spiritual, political, and social unrest of the last of the +first half, and first of the last half, of the nineteenth century.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="60th">51-60.</a> So ... So....</b> Just as the cuckoo departs with the +bloom of the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. <b>With blossoms +red and white</b> (l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common +in English gardens.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="62th">62.</a> high Midsummer pomps</b>. Explained in the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71th">71.</a> light comer</b>. That is, the cuckoo. Compare</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"O blithe New-comer."<br /> + +—WORDSWORTH, <i>Lines to the Cuckoo</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="77th">77. </a>swains</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="78th">78.</a> reed</b>. See note, l. <a href="#40th">35</a> of poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="79th">79.</a> And blow a strain the world at last shall heed</b>. On the +whole, Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by +the reviewers.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="80th">80.</a> Corydon</b>. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis, +shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="84th">84.</a> Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate</b>. Bion of Smyrna, Asia +Minor, a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent +the later years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was <span class="left">[p.207]</span> +poisoned. His untimely death was lamented by his follower and +pupil, Moschus of Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and +genuine pathos. <b>ditty</b>. In a general sense, any song; usually +confined, however, to a song narrating some heroic deed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="85th">85.</a> cross the unpermitted ferry's flow</b>. That is, cross the river +of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to +Hades. Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry +being passed by mortals. See note, ll. <a href="#34m">34-39</a>, <i>Memorial Verses</i>; +also ll. 207-210, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, of this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="88th">88-89.</a> Proserpine</b>, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the underworld, +was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as the +goddess of the spring.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="90th">90.</a> And flute his friend like Orpheus</b>, etc. See note, ll. <a href="#34m">34-39</a>, +<i>Memorial Verses</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="94th">94.</a> She knew the Dorian water's gush divine</b>. The river +Alpheus, in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus—the +country of the Dorians—disappears from the surface and flows in +subterranean channels for some considerable part of its course to +the sea. In ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again +to the surface in central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite +haunt of Proserpine, as the fountain of Arethusa.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="96th">95-96.</a> She knew each lily white which Enna yields</b>, etc. +According to Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers +in the vale of Enna when carried off by Pluto.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="97th">97.</a> She loved the Dorian pipe</b>, etc. What reason or reasons +can you give for Proserpine's love of things Dorian?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="106th">106.</a> I know the Fyfield tree</b>. See l. <a href="#83sg">83</a>, <i>The +Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="109th">109.</a> Ensham, Sandford</b>. Small towns on the Thames; the former, +some four miles above Oxford; the latter, a like distance below.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123th">123.</a> Wytham flats</b>. Some three miles above Oxford, along the +Thames.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="135th">135.</a> sprent. Sprinkled</b>. The preterit or <span class="left">[p.208]</span> +past participle of <i>spreng</i> (obsolete or archaic).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="150th">141-150</a></b>. Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="155th">155.</a> Berkshire</b>. See note, l. <a href="#58sg">58</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="167th">167.</a> Arno-vale</b>. The valley of the Arno, a river in Tuscany, +Italy, on which Florence is situated.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="175th">175.</a> To a boon ... country he has fled</b>. That is, to Italy.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="177th">177.</a>the great Mother</b>. Ceres, the earth goddess.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190th">181-190</a></b>. Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral +poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, +who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the +power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make +strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them +to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save +Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping contest with Lityerses, +overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with +this tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early, plaintive +strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by the corn +reapers. Other traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a +nymph, who exacted from him an oath to love no one else. He +fell in love with a princess, and was struck blind by the jealous +nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him to heaven, and +made a fountain spring up in the place from which he ascended. +At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. See Servius, +<i>Comment, in Vergil. Bucol</i>., V, 20, and VIII, 68.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200th">191-200</a></b>. Explain the lines. <b>Sole</b> (l. 192). See l. 563, <i>Sohrab +and Rustum</i>. <b>soft sheep</b> (l. 198). Note the use of the adjective +<i>soft</i>. Cf. <i>soft Sicily</i>, l. 245, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="202th">201-202.</a> A fugitive and gracious light</b>, etc. What is the light +sought by the Scholar-Gipsy and by the poet? Beginning with +l. 201, explain the succeeding stanzas, sentence by sentence, to +the close of the poem. Then sum up the thought in a few words.</p> +<p> +What is the author's mood, as shown by the first stanza? What <span class="left">[p.209]</span> +is his purpose in recalling the haunts once familiar to him about +Oxford? Why the mention of the Scholar-Gipsy? What is +the significance of the "tree" so frequently alluded to in the +poem? Discuss stanzas 4 and 5 as to meaning. To what is +Thyrsis (Clough) likened in stanzas 6, 7, and 8? Where, however, +is there a difference? Apply ll. 81-84 to Clough and +Arnold. How do you explain the "easy access" of the Dorian +shepherds to Proserpine, l. 91? What digression is made in ll. +131-150? What is the poet's attitude toward life? Why will he +not despair so long as the "lonely tree" remains? What comparison +does he make between Clough and the Scholar-Gipsy? +What is the "gracious light," l. 201? Where found? What +voice whispers to him amid the "heart-wearying roar" of the +city? What effect does it have upon him? Does it give him +courage or fortitude? Discuss the verse form and diction of the +poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#CHAPEL">RUGBY CHAPEL</a><a name="RUGBY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<i>Rugby Chapel</i> (1857), one of Arnold's best-known and most characteristic +productions, was written in memory of his father, Dr. +Thomas Arnold, famous as the great head-master at Rugby. Dr. +Arnold was born at East Cowes in the Isle of Wight, June 13, +1795, and as a boy was at school at Warminster and Winchester. +In 1811 he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and having +won recognition as a scholar, was awarded a fellowship of the Oriel +in 1815. Three years later he settled at Laleham, where, in 1820, +he married Mary Penrose, daughter of Justice Penrose, and where, +two years later, was born Matthew, who was destined to win +marked distinction among English men of letters. In 1827 he was +elected head-master at Rugby, and shortly afterward began those +important reforms which have placed him among the greatest<span class="left">[p.210]</span> +educators of his century. Chief among his writings is his <i>History +of Rome</i>, published in several volumes. In 1841 he was appointed +Regius Professor of History at Oxford. He died very suddenly on +Sunday, June 12, 1842, and on the following Friday his remains +were interred in the chancel of Rugby Chapel, immediately under +the communion table.</p> +<p> +In his poem Arnold has drawn a vivid picture of a strong, helpful, +hopeful, unselfish soul, cheering and supporting his weaker +comrades in their upward and onward march—a picture of the +guide and companion of his earlier years; and in so doing he has +preserved his father's memory to posterity in a striking and an +abiding way.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13rc">1-13.</a></b> Note carefully the tone of these introductory lines, and +determine the poet's purpose in opening the poem in this mood. +The picture inevitably calls to mind Bryant's lines, <i>The Death of +Flowers</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16rc">16.</a> gloom.</b> The key-word to the preceding lines. Explain why +it calls to mind the poet's father. Keats makes a similar use of the +word <i>forlorn</i> in his <i>Ode to the Nightingale</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "... forlorn.<br /> +Forlorn! the very word is like a bell<br /> +To toll me back from thee to my sole self." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="33rc">30-33.</a></b> Discuss the figure as to its aptness.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37rc">37.</a> shore</b>. A word common to hymns.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="57rc">38-57.</a></b> Discuss the poet's idea of the future life as set forth in +these lines. Can you think of any other author or authors who have +held a like view?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="59rc">58-59.</a></b> The poet asks this question only to answer it in the lines +following. Compare and contrast the two classes of men spoken +of; their aims in life and their achievements. Why is the path of +those who have chosen a "clear-purposed goal" pictured so difficult?<span class="left">[p.211]</span> +Who are they that start well, but fall out by the wayside?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="93rc">90-93.</a></b> Compare with Byron's description of a storm in the Alps, +Canto III, <i>Childe Harold</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "Far along,<br /> +From peak to peak, the rattling crags among<br /> +Leaps the live thunder." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="100rc">98-101.</a></b> So unstable is the hold of the "snow-beds" on the +mountain sides that travellers passing beneath them are forbidden +by the guides to speak, lest their voices precipitate an avalanche. +See ll. 160-169, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123rc">117-123.</a></b> What human frailties are indicated in the answer to +the host's question? Note the contrast in the succeeding lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="144rc">124-144.</a></b> The imagery of these lines is drawn from Dr. Arnold's +life at Rugby. Under his care frequent excursions were made into +the neighboring Westmoreland Hills. Nothing perhaps gives a +better idea of the man than the description of his "delight in those +long mountain walks, when they would start with their provisions +for the day, himself the guide and life of the party, always on the +lookout how best to break the ascent by gentle stages, comforting +the little ones in their falls and helping forward those who were +tired, himself always keeping with the laggers, that none might +strain their strength by trying to be in front with him; and then, +when his assistance was not wanted, the liveliest of all—his step +so light, his eye so quick in finding flowers to take home to those +who were not of the party."—ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="171rc">171.</a> In the rocks</b>. That is, among the rocks.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190rc">190.</a> Ye</b>. Antecedent?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="208rc">208.</a> City of God</b>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the <i>city of +God</i>."<br /> + + + + + +—<i>Psalms</i>, xlvi: 4.</p> + + + <br /><br /> + <hr /><br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a name="INDEX">INDEX TO NOTES</a></h2><span class="left">[p.213]</span> + + +<table width="100%" summary="Index, A"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#70el">Abbey towers</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#42">Ader-baijan</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#236sg">Ægean Isles</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#38">Afrasiab</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#50k">Agog</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#15p">Ajax</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#231sr">Alcmena's dreadful son</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#237t">All red ... bathed in foam</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#178">Aloof he sits, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#160t">And that ... more</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Ariosto</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#167th">Arno-vale</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#72sr">Art</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#20t">Arthur's court</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#344">Art thou not Rustum?</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Asopus</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#232sg">As some grave Tyrian trader, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#556">As when some hunter, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#45">At my boy's years</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#123">Attruck</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#AUSTERITY"><i>Austerity of Poetry</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#208sg">Averse, as Dido did, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, B"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#74sg">Bablockhithe</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#111sg">Bagley Wood</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#286">Bahrein</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#35el">Beethoven</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#330">Be govern'd</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#1we">Belgrave Square</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#93m">Bell</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#58sg">Berkshire moors</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#2ea">Bethnal Green</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#252t">Blessed sign</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#79th">Blow a strain the world at last shall heed</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#119">Bokhara</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#499">Bow'd his head</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#24l">Breathed on by rural Pan</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Broce-liande</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#596">Bruited up</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#2m">Byron</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#343">By thy father's head</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, C"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#13r">Cabin'd</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#160">Cabool</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#736">Caked the sand</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#113">Casbin</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#143sr">Centaurs</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb2">Chambery</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#71cb">Chancel</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#194t">Chatelaine</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#238sg">Chian wine</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#76k">Chiel</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#37cb2">Chisell'd broideries</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#878">Chorasma</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#183sr">Chorasmian stream</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#129sg">Christ Church hall</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#13t3">Cirque</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#208rc">City of God</a><span class="invisible">, 211</span><br /> +<a href="#180sr">Clusters of lonely mounds</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#2k">Cobham</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#67">Common chance</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /><span class="left">[p.214]</span> +<a href="#60">Common fight</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#CONSOLATION"><i>Consolation</i></a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#18c">Cool gallery</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#156">Corn</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#664">Corselet</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#80th">Corydon</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#454">Crest</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#9sg">Cross and recross</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#85th">Cross the unpermitted ferry's flow</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#13sg">Cruse</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#672">Cunning</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#508">Curdled</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, D"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"><a href="#35cb">Dais</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#83sg">Dance around the Fyfield elm in May</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Dante</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#190th">Daphnis</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#27ph">Daulis</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#538">Dearer to the red jackals, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#48c">Destiny</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#266">Device</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#277">Dight</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#220sg">Dingles</a><span class="invisible">, 201</span><br /> +<a href="#84th">Ditty</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#132t2">Dogg'd</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#180sg">Do not we ... await it too?</a><span class="invisible"> 200</span><br /> +<a href="#DOVER"><i>Dover Beach</i></a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, E"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#EASTLONDON"><i>East London</i></a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Empire</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#109th">Ensham</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#EPILOGUE"><i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i></a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#42sg">Erst</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#32ph">Eternal passion! eternal pain!</a><span class="invisible"> 185</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#34m">Eurydice</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#6y">Even clime</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, F"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#200">Falcon</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#38sr">Fane</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#3k">Farringford</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#276sr">Faun with torches</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#110sr">Favour'd guest of Circe</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#164t">Fay</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Fay</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#22t3">Fell-fare</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#128">Ferghana</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#120">Ferment the milk of mares</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#257">Fight unknown and in plain arms</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#70">Find a father thou hast never seen</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#1">First grey of morning fill'd the east</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#147">Fix'd</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#306">Flowers</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#90th">Flute his friend, like Orpheus, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#39cb3">Foliaged marble forest</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#6w">Foolish</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#481">For a cloud, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#109cb">Fretwork</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#115">Frore</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#202th">Fugitive and gracious light, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#406">Full struck</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, G"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#65k">Geist</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#GEIST"><i>Geist's Grave</i></a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#469">Girl's wiles</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#536">Glad</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#418">Glancing</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#133sg">Glanvil</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#31sg">Glanvil's book</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#570">Glass</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#16rc">Gloom</a><span class="invisible">, 210</span><br /> +<a href="#91sg">Godstow Bridge</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#29el">Goethe</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /><span class="left">[p.215]</span> +<a href="#1m">Goethe in Weimar sleeps</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#221">Go to!</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#41k">Grand Old Man</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#130sg">Grange</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#177th">Great Mother</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#130t">Green isle</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#69sg">Green-muffled</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#679">Griffin</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#134t3">Gulls</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, H"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#18b">Hair that red</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#107">Haman</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#206sr">Happy Islands</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Hark ... sun</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#717">Have found</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#788">Heap a stately mound, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#129m">Heaths starr'd with broom</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#5y">Heats</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#7b">Hebrides</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#3p">Hector</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#16p">Helen</a><span class="invisible">, 190</span><br /> +<a href="#495">Helm</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#751">Helmund</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#220sr">Hera's anger</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#254sr">Heroes</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#248">He spoke ... men</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#124el">Hies</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#62th">High Midsummer pomps</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#125sg">Hinksey</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#226t">His long rambles ... ground</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#435">Hollow</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#18t3">Holly trees and juniper</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#14c">Holy Lassa</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Holy well</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#163el">Homer</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#12gg">Homily</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#47t2">Honied nothings</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#29ph">How thick the bursts, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#21l">Huge world</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#HUMAN"><i>Human Life</i></a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#12y">Hurrying fever</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#57sg">Hurst</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#11b">Hurtling Polar lights</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#412">Hydaspes</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#1el">Hyde Park</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#412">Hyphasis</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, I"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#38sr">Iacchus</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#250sg">Iberians</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#724">I came ... passing wind</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#106th">I know the Fyfield tree</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#14th">Ilsley Downs</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#8hl">Incognisable</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#161">Indian Caucasus</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#3a">In his light youth</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#5hl">Inly-written chart</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#212sg">Inviolable shade</a><span class="invisible">, 201</span><br /> +<a href="#217">Iran</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Irk'd</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#17m">Iron age</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#81t3">Iron coast</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#8t">Iseult</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Is Merlin prisoner, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#ISOLATION"><i>Isolation</i></a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#1t">Is she not come?</a><span class="invisible">, 168</span><br /> +<a href="#12sr">Ivy-cinctured</a><span class="invisible">, 179</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, J"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#129">Jaxartes</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#40b">Joppa</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#5y">Joy</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#149sg">Just-pausing Genius</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, K"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#223">Kai Khosroo</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#KAISER"><i>Kaiser Dead</i></a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#132">Kalmucks</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#101">Kara Kul</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Keep</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#6w">Ken</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /><span class="left">[p.216]</span> +<a href="#4hl">Kept uninfringed my nature's law</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#120">Khiva</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#138">Khorassan</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#470">Kindled</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#68t">King Marc</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#131">Kipchak</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#133">Kirghizzes</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Kohik</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#132">Kuzzaks</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, L"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#228sr">Lapithæ</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#95sg">Lasher pass</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#203t">Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#45cb3">Leads</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#258t">Leaguer</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#38b">Leper recollect</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#71th">Light comer</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#452">Like that autumn star</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#143t3">Like that bold Cæsar</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#LINES"><i>Lines Written in Kensington Gardens</i></a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#177">Lion's heart</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#48sr">Lions sleeping</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#42gg">Lips that rarely form them now</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#190th">Lityerses</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#134t">Loud Tyntagel's hill</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#192t">Lovely orphan child</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#890">Luminous home</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#23t">Lyoness</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, M"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#275sr">Mænad</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#42m">Mail</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#3w">Marcus Aurelius</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#13m">Margaret</a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb2">Matin-chime</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#MEMORIAL"><i>Memorial Verses</i></a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#35el">Mendelssohn</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#244sg">Midland waters</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#197sr">Milk-barr'd onyx-stones</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#89el">Miserere Domine</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#7i">Moon,</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#238t">Moonstruck knight</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#765">Moorghab</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#3cb">Mountain-chalets</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#140el">Movement</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#35el">Mozart</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#120sr">Muses</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#314t">My princess ... good night</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, N"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#45th">Needs must I lose them, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#328">Never was that field lost or that foe saved</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#891">New bathed stars</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Northern Sir</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#81sr">Nymphs</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, O"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#91t">O'er ... sea</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#632">Of age and looks, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#37t3">Old-world Breton history</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#24th">Once pass'd I blindfold here</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#1q">One lesson</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#230">One slight helpless girl</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#830">On that day</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#880">Orgunje</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#34m">Orpheus</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#98sg">Outlandish</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#30sg">Oxford towers</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#2">Oxus</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#5ph">O wanderer from a Grecian shore</a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, P"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#130el">Painter and musician too</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#PALLADIUM"><i>Palladium</i></a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#77cb">Palmers</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#15">Pamere</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /><span class="left">[p.217]</span> +<a href="#67sr">Pan's flute music</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#224-2t3">Passing weary</a><span class="invisible">, 175</span><br /> +<a href="#16el">Pausanias</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#145sr">Pelion</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#5k">Pen-bryn's bold bard</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#11">Peran-Wisa</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#861">Persepolis</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#85">Persian King</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#311">Perused</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Petrarch</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#PHILOMELA"><i>Philomela</i></a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /> +<a href="#15el">Phoebus-guarded ground</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#84th">Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#161t">Pleasaunce-walks</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#140t3">Posting here and there</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#20k">Potsdam</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#658">Prick'd upon this arm, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb">Prickers</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#92t3">Prie-dieu</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Priest</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Prince Alexander</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#23hl">Prore</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#88th">Proserpine</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Q"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#QUIET"><i>Quiet Work</i></a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, R"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#73sr">Range</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#25el">Raphael</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#7w">Rates</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#303t">Recks not</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#140sg">Red-fruited yew tree</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#40th">Reed</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#466">Remember all thy valour</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#REQUIESCAT"><i>Requiescat</i></a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#107el">Ride</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#880">Right for the polar star</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#255t">Roman Emperor</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#72m">Rotha</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#36sr">Rout</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#RUGBY"><i>Rugby Chapel</i></a><span class="invisible">, 209</span><br /> +<a href="#516">Rustum!</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, S"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#11a">Sackcloth</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#SAINT"><i>Saint Brandan</i></a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#40">Samarcand</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#109th">Sandford</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#199">Sate</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#1cb">Savoy</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#113t2">Sconce</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#167sr">Scythian ... embers</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#81m">Seal'd</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#245t">Secret in his breast</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#74sr">See what the day brings</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#82">Seistan</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#SELF"><i>Self-Dependence</i></a><span class="invisible">, 190</span><br /> +<a href="#31b">Self-murder</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#97t3">Seneschal</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#163el">Shakespeare</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#SHAKES"><i>Shakespeare</i></a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#96th">She knew each lily white which Enna yields, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#94th">She knew the Dorian water's gush divine</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#97th">She loved the Dorian pipe, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#40th">Shepherd-pipe</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#497">Shore</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#4th">Sibylla's name</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#261sr">Silenus</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Silly</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#1p">Simois</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#76k">Skye</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#232">Snow-haired Zal</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#200th">Soft sheep</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#245sg">Soft Sicily</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#NOTES"><i>Sohrab and Rustum</i></a><span class="invisible">, 149</span><br /> +<a href="#563">Sole</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#1a">Son of Italy</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><span class="left">[p.218]</span> +<a href="#15db">Sophocles</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#60th">So ... So ...</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Soudan</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#42el">South</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#4ea">Spitalfields</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#135th">Sprent</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#26t3">Stagshorn</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#27hl">Stem</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#200t">Stranger-knight, ill-starr'd</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#21c">Strange unloved uproar</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#613">Style</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#61">Sunk</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#489">Sun sparkled, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#77th">Swains</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#245sg">Syrtes</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, T"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#114sg">Tagg'd</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#288">Tale</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#3">Tartar camp</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Tasso</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#147sg">Teen</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Tejend</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#625">That old king</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#19th">That sweet city with her dreaming spires</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Thebes</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#BROU"><i>The Church of Brou</i></a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#MERMAN"><i>The Forsaken Merman</i></a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#LAST"><i>The Last Word</i></a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#86">There, go! etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#SCHOLAR"><i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i></a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#115sg">Thessaly</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#STRAYED"><i>The Strayed Reveller</i></a><span class="invisible">, 179</span><br /> +<a href="#55gg">Thine absent master</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#152sg">Thou had'st one aim, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#151sg">Thou hast not lived</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#160sg">Thou possessest an immortal lot etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#380">Thou wilt not fright me so</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#18ph">Thracian wild</a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /> +<a href="#THYRSIS"><i>Thyrsis</i></a><span class="invisible">, 203</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Tiresias</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#2m">Titans</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#175th">To a boon ... country he has fled</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#21ph">Too clear web, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#121">Toorkmuns</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#401">Tower'd</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#6cb3">Transept</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#326">Tried</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#TRISTRAM"><i>Tristram and Iseult</i></a><span class="invisible">, 167</span><br /> +<a href="#257sr">Troy</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#122">Tukas</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#239sg">Tunnies</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#68t">Tyntagel</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, U"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#71sr">Ulysses</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#710">Unconscious hand</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#257sr">Unknown sea</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#481">Unnatural</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, V"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#119el">Vacant</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#15th">Vale</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#325">Vast</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#16r">Vasty</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#367">Vaunt</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#15gg">Virgilian cry</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, W"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#88t">Wanders</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#2sg">Wattled cotes</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#15th">Weirs</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#204t">Welcomed here</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#247sg">Western straits</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#WESTLONDON"><i>West London</i></a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#261t">What boots it</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#14l">What endless active life</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#239t">What foul fiend rides thee?</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /><span class="left">[p.219]</span> +<a href="#83">Whether that ... or in some quarrel</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#165sg">Which much to have tried, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#6m">Wild white horses</a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Wimple</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#527">With a bitter smile, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#60th">With blossoms red and white</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#29el">Wordsworth</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#WORLDLY"><i>Worldly Place</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#414">Wrack</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#79sg">Wychwood bowers</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#123th">Wytham flats</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, X"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#14p">Xanthus</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Y"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#19c">Yellow Tiber</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#1i">Yes</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#YOUTH"><i>Youth's Agitations</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Z"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#82">Zal</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#752">Zirrah</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<!-- + <p> + <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer"><img + src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10" + alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" height="31" width="88" /></a> + </p> +--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13364 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + + + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ab6e4b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13364 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13364) diff --git a/old/13364-8.txt b/old/13364-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..17e0656 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13364-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9279 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and +Other Poems, by Matthew Arnold + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems + +Author: Matthew Arnold + +Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD'S + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + + +EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES + +BY + +JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN + +HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION +HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE + + + + +1905 + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE + + INTRODUCTION + A Short Life of Arnold + Arnold the Poet + Arnold the Critic + Chronological List of Arnold's Works + Contemporary Authors + Bibliography + + SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS + + NARRATIVE POEMS + + Sohrab and Rustum + Saint Brandan + The Forsaken Merman + Tristram and Iseult + + + LYRICAL POEMS + + The Church of Brou + Requiescat + Consolation + A Dream + Lines written in Kensington Gardens + The Strayed Reveller + Morality + Dover Beach + Philomela + Human Life + Isolation--To Marguerite + Kaiser Dead + The Last Word + Palladium + Revolutions + Self-Dependence + A Summer Night + Geist's Grave + Epilogue--To Lessing's Laocoön + + + SONNETS + + Quiet Work + Shakespeare + Youth's Agitations + Austerity of Poetry + Worldly Place + East London + West London + + + ELEGIAC POEMS + + Memorial Verses + The Scholar-Gipsy + Thyrsis + Rugby Chapel + + + NOTES + + INDEX + + * * * * * + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD + +Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham, +Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. +Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and +in later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of Mary +Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect. + +Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from the +eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story of Arnold's life +is soon told. As a boy he lived the life of the normal English lad, +with its healthy routine of task and play. He was at school at both +Laleham and Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention +as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was elected to +an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, and the next year +matriculated for his university work. Arnold's career at Oxford was a +memorable one. While here he was associated with such men as John Duke +Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, John Henry Newman, +Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, closest of all, with Arthur Hugh +Clough, whose early death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac +poem--_Thyrsis_. Among this brilliant company Arnold moved with ease, +the recognized favorite. Having taken the Newdigate prize for English +verse, and also having won a scholarship, he was graduated with +honors in 1844, and in March of the following year had the additional +distinction of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning glory of +an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics for a short time at +Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the post of private secretary to the +Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, which position he +occupied until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools +by the Committee on Education. The same year he married Frances Lucy +Wightman, daughter of Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the +Queen's Bench. + +Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the history of +England's public schools. For more than thirty-five years he served as +inspector and commissioner, which offices he filled with efficiency. +As inspector he was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike +by teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his appearance +to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the admission of a ray +of light when a shutter is suddenly opened in a darkened room. +All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing children, and kindly sympathetic +teachers, more than excellence in grade reports. In connection with +the duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently on +the Continent to inquire into foreign methods of primary and secondary +education. Here he found much that was worth while, and often carried +back to London larger suggestions and ideas than the national mind was +ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, the school system of +England was extensively revised and improved. He resigned his position +under the Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years before +his death. + +In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His first volume of +verse, _The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems_, appeared (1848), and +although quietly received, slowly won its way into public favor. The +next year the narrative poem, _The Sick King in Bokhara_, came out, +and was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under the title of +_Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems_. By this time Arnold's reputation +as a poet was established, and in 1857 he was elected Professor of +Poetry at Oxford, where he began his career as a lecturer, in which +capacity he twice visited America. _Merope, a Tragedy_ (1856) and a +volume under the title of _New Poems_ (1869) finish the list of his +poetical works, with the exception of occasional verses. + +Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist wholly of +critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly with the greater +issues of his day. As will be seen by their titles (see page xxxviii +of this volume), the subject-matter of these essays is of very great +scope, embracing in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and +popular religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence on +public thought and stamped himself as one of the ablest critics and +reformers of the last century. Arnold's life was thus one of many +widely diverse activities and was at all times deeply concerned with +practical as well as with literary affairs; and on no side was it +deficient in human sympathies and relations. He won respect and +reputation while he lived, and his works continue to attract men's +minds, although with much unevenness. It has been said of him that, of +all the modern poets, except Goethe, he was the best critic, and of +all the modern critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet. +He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter returning +from America, April 15, 1888. By his death the world lost an acute and +cultured critic, a refined writer, an earnest educational reformer, +and a noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham. + +Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been made the subject +for a biography. By means of his letters, his official reports, +and statements of his friends, however, one is able to trace the +successive stages of his career, as he steadily grew in honor and +public usefulness. Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus +presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The subjoined +appreciations have been selected with a view of giving the student a +glimpse of Arnold as he appeared to unprejudiced minds. + +One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: "His perfect +self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, the humorous turn which +he could give to any subject that he handled, his gaiety, audacity, +and unfailing command of words, made him one of the most popular and +successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known." + +"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams +and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford: there was no +harm in them: they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his +voice and wave of his arm were Jove-like."--PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER. + +"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired +and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was +a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of this world he +indeed was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing what +is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, he set himself to +make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The +'uncrumpling fern, the eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing +at our sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the +vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks, +whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him. + + * * * * * + +"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, he was of the +earth earthy.... His mind was based on the plainest possible things. +What he hated most was the fantastic--the far-fetched, all-elaborated +fancies and strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track of +human experience, and the broader the better. He was a plain-sailing +man. This is his true note."--MR. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. + +"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to +his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof +from all the bustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on; +he bore life's disappointments--and he was disappointed in some +reasonable hopes--with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden +upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily +load to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and +most active interest in the well-being of his country and his +countrymen."--MR. JOHN MORLEY. + +In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks of the poet's +personality as revealed by his letters in the following beautiful +manner: "Few who did not know Arnold could have been prepared for +the revelation of a nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every +relation of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional +constancy and plainness.... Every one must take delight in the mental +association with Arnold in the scenes of his existence ... and in his +family affections. A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, +fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with +it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so +continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy +appreciation and leave the charm of memory. + +"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither resolve nor +effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, and he never failed, +seemingly, in act or word of sympathy, in little or great things; and +when to this one adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where +he habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity of his +home, the gift that these letters bring may be appreciated. That gift +is the man himself, but set in the atmosphere of home, with sonship +and fatherhood, sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years +fully accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood--a sweet and +wholesome English home, with all the cloud and sunshine of the English +world drifting over its roof-trees, and the soil of England beneath +its stones, and English duties for the breath of its being. To add +such a home to the household rights of English Literature is perhaps +something from which Arnold would have shrunk, but it endears his +memory." + + "It may be overmuch + He shunned the common stain and smutch, + From soilure of ignoble touch + Too grandly free, + Too loftily secure in such + Cold purity; + But he preserved from chance control + The fortress of his established soul, + In all things sought to see the whole; + Brooked no disguise, + And set his heart upon the goal, + Not on the prize." + + --MR. WILLIAM WATSON, _In Laleham Churchyard_. + + + +ARNOLD THE POET + +Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. No other author +of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals +so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of +his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is +always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase; +and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse, +however, there is a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual +quality. True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical +courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness of phrase and +manner; and is, in equal degree, the output of a singularly sane and +noble nature; but here the comparison ends; for, while his prose +is often stormy and contentious, his poetry has always about it an +atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference is not far +to seek. His poetry, written in early manhood, reflects his inner +self, the more lovable side of his nature; while his prose presents +the critic and the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and +permitting at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he +endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment with themselves +and their surroundings. + +With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's poetical career +began and ended inside of twenty years. The reason for this can only +be conjectured, and need not be dwelt upon here. But although his +poetic life was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking +well up among the literary productions of the last century. As a +popular poet, however, he will probably never class with Tennyson or +Longfellow. His poems are too coldly classical and too unattractive in +subject to appeal to the casual reader, who is, generally speaking, +inclined toward poetry of the emotions rather than of the +intellect--Arnold's usual kind. That he recognized this himself, +witness the following quiet statements made in letters to his friends: +"My poems are making their way, I think, though slowly, and are +perhaps never to make way very far. There must always be some people, +however, to whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm.... +They represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last +quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day, as +people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind +is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it." Time +has verified the accuracy of this judgment. In short, Arnold has made +a profound rather than a wide impression. To a few, however, of each +generation, he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"--a poet with a +purpose and a message. + +=Arnold's Poetic Culture=.--Obviously, the sources of Arnold's culture +were classical. As one critic has tersely said, "He turned over his +Greek models by day and by night." Here he found his ideal standards, +and here he brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his +thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood +congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles, +"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he +called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and +consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy +appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other +poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets +have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well +satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious +sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of +measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, +and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the +substance of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his +art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic +art, I seem, to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted +in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, +and not hostile criticism." And again: "The radical difference between +the poetic theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them, +the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, +was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the +value of separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of +an action. They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems +which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, +and not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have +critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached +expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself. +I verily believe that the majority of them do not believe that there +is such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a poem at +all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will permit the poet to +select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is, +they permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity." + +Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his ideas of that +unity which gratifies the poetical sense, and has approached very +close to his Greek models in numerous instances; most notably so in +his great epic or narrative poem, _Sohrab and Rustum_, which is dealt +with elsewhere in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do better +than to quote for our consideration at this time, a fine synthesis +of Mr. Arthur Galton. He says: "In Matthew Arnold's style and in his +manner, he seems to me to recall the great masters, and this in a +striking and in an abiding way.... To recall them at all is a rare +gift, but to recall them naturally, and with no strained sense nor +jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly rare that it is +almost enough in itself to place a writer among the great masters; to +proclaim that he is one of them. To recall them at all is a rare gift, +though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets recall them too; +but with these, with every one of them, it is the exception when they +resemble the great masters. They have their own styles, which abide +with them; it is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they +break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal style. +Just the contrary of this is true of Matthew Arnold. It is his own, +his usual, and his most natural style which recalls the great masters; +and only when he does not write like himself, does he cease to +resemble them.... No man who attains to this great style can fail to +have a distinguished function; and Matthew Arnold, like Milton, will +be 'a leaven and a power,' because he, too, has made the great style +current in English. With his desire for culture and for perfection, +there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his nature, his +training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. To convey the message +of those ancients whom he loved so well, in that English tongue which +he was taught by them to use so perfectly;--to serve as an eternal +protest against charlatanism and vulgarity;--is exactly the mission +he would have chosen for himself.... The few writers of our language, +therefore, who give us 'an ideal of excellence, the most high and the +most rare,' have an important function; we should study their works +continually, and it should be a matter of passionate concern with us, +that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect models, should +abide with us forever." The Greeks recognized three kinds of +poetry,--Lyric, Dramatic, and Epic. Arnold tried all three. First, +then, as a lyricist. + +=Arnold as a Lyricist=.--Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of +the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, hence it is subjective. +The action is usually vapid, the verse musical, the time quick. Unlike +the Epic and Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the +poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of +verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in +vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay +or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is +soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental qualities +of the poet's mind and temperament. Though by no means lacking in +emotional sensibility, Arnold was too intellectually self-conscious to +be carried away by the impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With +him the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. With +the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at least, reversed. The poet +throws off intellectual restraint, and "lets his illumined being +o'errun" with music and song. This Arnold could not or would not +do. Then, too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically. +This, combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues a not too +discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked genius in inventing verse +forms, and hence found himself under the necessity of employing or +adapting those already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior +to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly his own. Again, +considerable portions of his lyric verse consist merely of prose, cut +into lines of different length, in imitation of the unrhymed measures +of the Greek poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these +rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick drawn by a +city gamin sharply across the area railings,--a not inapt comparison. +That they were not always successful, witness the following stanza +from _Merope_:-- + + "Thou confessest the prize + In the rushing, blundering, mad, + Cloud-enveloped, obscure, + Unapplauded, unsung + Race of Calamity, mine!" + +Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, Arnold +was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at times, in those same uneven +measures in which are found his most signal failures--the unrhymed +Pindaric. _Philomela_ written in this style is one of the most +exquisite bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put it, +"It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." In urbanity of +phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it is unsurpassed and shows +Arnold at his best. _Rugby Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of +Man_, and _A Dream_ are good examples of his longer efforts in this +verse form. In the more common lyric measures, Arnold was, at times, +equally successful. Saintsbury, commenting on _Requiescat_, says that +the poet has "here achieved the triple union of simplicity, pathos, +and (in the best sense) elegance"; and adds that there is not a +false note in the poem. He also speaks enthusiastically of the +"honey-dropping trochees" of the _New Sirens_, and of the "chiselled +and classic perfection" of the lines of _Resignation_. Herbert W. +Paul, writing of _Mycerinus_, declares that no such verse has been +written in England since Wordsworth's _Laodamia_; and continues, +"The poem abounds in single lines of haunting charm." Among his more +successful longer lyrics are _The Sick King in Bokhara, Switzerland, +Faded Leaves_, and _Tristram and Iseult_, and _Epilogue to Lessing's +Laocoön_, included in this volume. + +=Arnold as a Dramatist=.--The drama is imitated human action, and is +intended to exhibit a picture of human life by means of dialogue, +acting, and stage accessories. In nature, it partakes of both lyric +and epic, thus uniting sentiment and action with narration. Characters +live and act before us, and speak in our presence, the interest being +kept up by constantly shifting situations tending toward some striking +result. As a dramatist, Arnold achieved no great success. Again the +fundamental qualities of his mind stood in the way. An author so +subjective, so absorbed in self-scrutiny and introspection as he, +is seldom able to project himself into the minds of others to any +considerable extent. His dramas are brilliant with beautiful phrases, +his pictures of landscapes and of nature in her various aspects +approach perfection; but in the main, he fails to handle his plots in +a dramatic manner and, as a result, does not secure the totality of +impression so vital to the drama. Frequently, too, his characters are +tedious, and in their dialogue manage to be provokingly unnatural or +insipid. They also lack in individuality and independence in speech +and action. Many of his situations, likewise, are at fault. For +instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters as Ulysses and +Circe playing the subordinate roles assigned to them in _The Strayed +Reveller_. A true dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a +blunder. _Merope_ is written in imitation of the Greek tragedians. It +has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, and a classic brevity +of style; but it is frigid and artificial, and fails in the most +essential function of drama--to stir the reader's emotions. +_Empedocles on Etna_, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some +respects a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, and +contains some of Arnold's best lyric verses and most beautiful nature +pictures; but the dialogue is colorless, the rhymes poor, the plot, +such as it contains, but indifferently handled, and even Empedocles, +the principal character, is frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's +dramas show that his forte was not in character-drawing nor in +dialogue. + +=Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy=.--Epic poetry narrates in grand +style the achievements of heroes--the poet telling the story as if +present. It is simple in construction and uniform in meter, yet it +admits of the dialogue and the episode, and though not enforcing a +moral it may hold one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive in +tone and expresses sorrow or lamentation. Both epic and elegy are +inevitably serious in mood, and slow and stately in action. In these +two forms of verse Arnold was at his best. Stockton pronounced _Sohrab +and Rustum_ the noblest poem in the English language. Another critic +has said that "it is the nearest analogue in English to the rapidity +of action, plainness of thought, plainness of diction, and nobleness +of Homer." Combining, as it does, classic purity of style with +romantic ardor of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of +Arnold's poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume of +1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his idea of unity of +impression; "while the truth of its oriental color, the deep pathos +of the situation, the fire and intensity of the action, the strong +conception of character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make +it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer poems, among +which it is the largest in bulk and also the most ambitious in +scheme." _Balder Dead_, a characteristic Arnoldian production, founded +upon the Norse legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great +as _Sohrab and Rustum_, has much poetic worth and ranks high among its +kind; and _Tristram and Iseult_, with its infinite tragedy, and _The +Sick King in Bokhara_, gorgeous in oriental color, are rare examples +of the lyrical epic. _The Forsaken Merman_ and _Saint Brandan_, which +are dealt with elsewhere in this volume, are good examples of his +shorter narrative poems. In _Thyrsis_, the beautiful threnody in which +he celebrated his dead friend, Clough, Arnold gave to the world one of +its greatest elegies. One finds in this poem and its companion piece, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, the same unity of classic form with romantic +feeling present in _Sohrab and Rustum_. Both are crystal-clear without +coldness, and restrained without loss of a full volume of power. +Mr. Saintsbury, writing of _The Scholar-Gipsy_, says: "It has +everything--a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a +sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages +and phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less praise is due +_Thyrsis_. Other of his elegiac poems are _Heine's Grave, Stanzas from +the Grande Chartreuse, Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," +Obermann Once More, Rugby Chapel_, and _Memorial Verses_, the two last +named being included in this volume. In such measures as are used in +these poems, in the long, stately, swelling measures, whose graver +movements accord with a serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most +at ease. + +=Greek Spirit in Arnold=.--But it is not alone in the fact that he +selects classic subjects, and writes after the manner of the great +masters, that Arnold's affinity with the Greeks is manifested. His +poems in spirit, as in form, reflect the moods common to the ancient +Hellenes, "One feels the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, +"not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, and Shelley +there was Greek influence, but in them the result was modern. In +Arnold the antiquity remains--remains in mood, just as in Landor it +remains in form. The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is +pagan in philosophic spirit, not Attic, but of later and stoical time; +with the patience, endurance, suffering, not in the Christian types, +but as they now seem to a post-Christian imagination, looking back to +the past." Even when his poems treat of modern or romantic subjects, +one is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with the same +quality of imagination as would the Greek masters themselves: and in +the same form. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Nature=.--In his attitude toward Nature +Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A close study, however, +reveals a wide difference, both in the way Nature appealed to them +and in their mood in her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary +refuge from the doubts and distractions of our modern life,--a +soothing, consoling, uplifting power; to Wordsworth she was an +inspiration,--a presence that disturbed him "with the joy of elevated +thoughts." Conscious of the help he found in her association, Arnold +urged all men to follow Nature's example; to possess their souls in +quietude, despite the storm and turmoil without. Pancoast says: "He +delights in leading us to contemplate the infinite calm of Nature, +beside which man's transitory woes are reduced to a mere fretful +insignificance. All the beautiful poem of _Tristram and Iseult_ is +built upon the skilful alternation of two themes. We pass from the +feverish, wasting, and ephemeral struggle of human passions and +desire, into an atmosphere that shames its heat and fume by an +immemorial coolness and repose;" and the same comparison constitutes +the theme for a considerable portion of his poetical work. In his +method of approaching Nature, Arnold also differed widely from +Wordsworth, in that he saw with the outward eye, that is objectively; +while Wordsworth saw rather with the inward eye, or subjectively. +In this Arnold is essentially Greek and more Tennysonian than +Wordsworthian. Many of his poems, in full or in part, are mere nature +pictures, and are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus +stream at the close of _Sohrab and Rustum_; the English garden in +_Thyrsis_; and the hunter on the arras, in _Tristram and Iseult_, are +all notable examples. This pictorial method Wordsworth seldom used. +In spirit, too, the poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, +first of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in the +wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom from the +fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of Nature's God. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Life=.--Arnold's attitude toward life has +been dwelt upon in the appreciations under the biographical sketch in +this volume and need only briefly be summed up here. To him, human +life in its higher developments presented itself as a stern and +strenuous affair; but he never faltered nor sought to escape from his +share of the burden. "On the contrary, the prevailing note of his +poetry is self-reliance; help must come from the soul itself, for + + "The fountains of life are all within." + +He preaches fortitude and courage in the face of the mysterious and +the inevitable--a courage, indeed, forlorn and pathetic in the eyes of +many--and he constantly takes refuge from the choking cares of life, +in a kind of stoical resignation." As a reformer, his function +was especially to stir people up, to make them dissatisfied with +themselves and their institutions, and to force them to think, to +become individual. Everywhere in his works one is confronted by his +unvarying insistence upon the supremacy of conduct and duty. The +modern tendency to drift away from the old, established religious +faith was a matter of serious thought to him and led him to give to +the world a rational creed that would satisfy the sceptics and attract +the indifferent. We cannot do better than quote for our closing +thought the following pregnant lines from the author's sonnet entitled +_The Better Part_:-- + + "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!_" + + * * * * * + + + +ARNOLD THE CRITIC + +The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted from +well-known authorities. + +"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy of his +verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The +classical bent of his mind shows itself here, unmixed with the +inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is +his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of its +definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect which suffuses +it; but the doctrine which he spent his life in preaching is based +upon a classical ideal, the ideal of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he +daringly called it, _perfection_.... Wherever, in religion, politics, +education, or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination +of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word of deliverance, +'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with the best which has been thought +and done in the world, is his panacea for all ills.... In almost all +of his prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' by which +word he characterized the narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction of +the British middle class. + +"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task he had to +perform.... In _Culture and Anarchy_ and many successive works, he +made his plea for the gospel of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, +as befitted the Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into +the dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in _Literature and +Dogma_, where he pleads for a more liberal and literary reading of the +Bible, his manner is quiet, suave, and gently persuasive. At other +times, as in _Friendship's Garland_, he shoots the arrows of his +sarcasm into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate raillery and +scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, because it is veiled by +a mock humility, and is scrupulously polite. + +"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single piece is the +famous essay _On Translating Homer_, which deserves careful study +for the enlightenment it offers concerning many of the fundamental +questions of style. The essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from _Essays +in Criticism_, and that on Emerson, from _Discourses in America_, +furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and weight of matter +in this province. + +"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose may be described +as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. In comparison with Carlyle, +Buskin, and Newman, he is worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic +vision of these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, +the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. He +marks a return to the conventions of life after the storm and stress +of the romantic age. Yet in his own way he also was a prophet and a +preacher, striving whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from +bondage to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry and +balance of character which has seemed to many noble minds the true +goal of human endeavor."--MOODY AND LOVETT, _A History of English +Literature_. + +"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment were pretty +nearly infallible. He combined a loyal and reasonable submission +to literary authority, with a free and even daring use of private +judgment. His admiration for the acknowledged masters of human +utterance--Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe--was genuine +and enthusiastic, and incomparably better informed than that of some +more conventional critics. Yet this cordial submission to recognized +authority, this honest loyalty to established reputation, did not +blind him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating praise; +did not deter him from exposing the tendency to verbiage in Burke and +Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness of much of Wordsworth's blank +verse, the undercurrent of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of +Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in small. Whatever +literary production was brought under Matthew Arnold's notice, his +judgment was clear, sympathetic, and independent. He had the readiest +appreciation of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity and +inflation--of what he called endeavors to render platitude endurable +by making it pompous, and lively horror of affectation and +unreality."--Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL. + +"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a high place +among the foremost prose writers of the time. His style is in marked +contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's +pure and radiant coloring. It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, +discriminating, incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. +Notwithstanding its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is often +a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an opponent by +its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and its calm air of assured +superiority. By his insistence on a high standard of technical +excellence, and by his admirable presentation of certain principles of +literary judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. On +the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the human element, the +comprehensive sympathy that we recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. +Yet Carlyle could not have written the essay _On Translating Homer_, +with all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, any +more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's large-hearted essay on +_Burns_. Arnold's varied energy and highly trained intelligence +have been felt in many different fields. He has won a peculiar and +honorable place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as +literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, and +finally, in his _Culture and Anarchy_, he has set forth his scheme of +social reform, and in certain later books has made His contribution +to contemporary thought."--PANCOAST, _Introduction to English +Literature_. + + * * * * * + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ARNOLD'S WORKS + +1840. Alaric at Rome. (Prize poem at Rugby.) +1843. Cromwell. (Prize poem at Oxford.) +1849. The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems. + Mycerinus. + The Strayed Reveller. + Fragment of an Antigone. + The Sick King in Bokhara. + Religious Isolation. + To my Friends. + A Modern Sappho. + The New Sirens. + The Voice. + To Fausta. + Stagyrus. + To a Gipsy Child. + The Hayswater Boat. + The Forsaken Merman. + The World and the Quietist. + In Utrumque Paratus. + Resignation. + Sonnets. + Quiet Work. + To a Friend. + Shakespeare. + To the Duke of Wellington. + Written in Butler's Sermons. + Written in Emerson's Essays. + To an Independent Preacher. + To George Cruikshank. + To a Republican Friend. + +1852. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems. + Empedocles on Etna. + The River. + Excuse. + Indifference. + Too Late. + On the Rhine. + Longing. + The Lake. + Parting. + Absence. + Destiny. (Not reprinted.) + To Marguerite. + Human Life. + Despondency. + Youth's Agitations--A Sonnet. + Self-Deception. + Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.) + Tristram and Iseult. + Memorial Verses. (Previously published in _Fraser's + Magazine_.) + Courage. (Not reprinted.) + Self-Dependence. + A Summer Night. + The Buried Life. + A Farewell. + Stanzas in Memory of the Author of _Obermann_. + Consolation. + Lines written in Kensington Gardens. + The World's Triumphs--A Sonnet. + The Second Best. + Revolutions. + The Youth of Nature. + The Youth of Man. + Morality. + Progress. + The Future. +1853. Poems. + Sohrab and Rustum. + Cadmus and Harmonia. (A fragment of Empedocles on Etna.) + Philomela. + Thekla's Answer. + The Church of Brou. + The Neckan. + Switzerland. + Richmond Hill. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) + Requiescat. + The Scholar-Gipsy. + Stanzas in Memory of the Late Edward Quillman. + Power of Youth. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) +1854. A Farewell. +1855. Poems. + Balder Dead + Separation. +1858. Merope: A Tragedy. +1867. New Poems. + Persistency of Poetry. + Saint Brandan. _(Fraser's Magazine_, July, 1860.) + Sonnets. + A Picture of Newstead. + Rachel. (Three Sonnets.) + East London. + West London. + Anti-Desperation. + Immorality. + Worldly Place. + The Divinity. + The Good Shepherd with the Kid. + Austerity of Poetry. + East and West. + Monica's Last Prayer. + Calais Sands. + Dover Beach. + The Terrace at Berne. + Stanzas composed at Carnæ. + A Southern Night. (Previously published in the + _Victoria Regia_, 1861.) + Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira." + Palladium. + Early Death and Fame. + Growing Old. + The Progress of Poesy. + A Nameless Epitaph. + The Last Word. + A Wish. + A Caution to Poets. + Pis-Aller. + Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön. + Bacchanalia. + Rugby Chapel. + Heine's Grave. + Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. +1860. The Lord's Messengers. (_Cornhill Magazine_, July.) +1866. Thyrsis. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, April.) +1868. Obermann Once More. +1873. New Rome. (_Cornhill Magazine_, June.) +1877. Haworth Churchyard with Epilogue. (_Fraser's Magazine_, May.) +1881. Geist's Grave. (_Fortnightly Review_, January.) +1882. Westminster Abbey. (_Nineteenth Century Magazine_, + January.) + Poor Matthais. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, December.) +1887. Horatian Echo. (_The Century Guild Hobby Horse_, July.) + Kaiser Dead. (_Fortnightly Review_, July.) + + + +PROSE WORKS + +1859. England and the Italian Question. +1861. Popular Education in France. + On Translating Homer. +1864. A French Eton. +1865. Essays in Criticism. +1867. On Study of Celtic Literature. +1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent. +1869. Culture and Anarchy. +1870. St. Paul and Protestantism. +1871. Friendship's Garland. +1873. Literature and Dogma. +1874. Higher Schools and Universities in Germany. +1875. God and the Bible. +1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion. +1879. Mixed Essays. +1882. Irish Essays. +1885. Discourses in America. +1888. Essays in Criticism, Second Series. + Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad. + Civilization in the United States. + + + +CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS + +Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). +Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859). +Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). +Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). +Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882). +William M. Thackeray (1811-1863). +Robert Browning (1812-1889). +Charles Dickens (1812-1870). +George Eliot (1819-1880). +John Ruskin (1819-1900). +Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). + +William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). +Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). +Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). +John G. Whittier (1807-1892). +Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882). +Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894). +James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +_The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold_ (The Macmillan Company, + one volume). +_The English Poets_, Vol. I, by T.H. Ward. +_Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age_, edited by the English + Club of Sewanee, Tennessee. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Sir J.G. Fitch. +_Tennyson, Ruskin, and Other Literary Estimates_, by Frederic + Harrison. +_Studies in Interpretation_, by W.H. Hudson. +_Corrected Impressions on Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Herbert W. Paul. +_Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Arnold's Letters_, collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell. +_The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, edited by T.B. Smart. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Andrew Lang, in _Century Magazine_, + 1881-1882, p. 849. + +_The Poetry of Matthew Arnold_, by R.H. Hutton, in + _Essays Theological and Literary_, Vol. II. +_Religion and Culture_, by John Shairp. +_Arnold_, in _Victorian Poets_, by Stedman. +_Matthew Arnold, New Poems_, in _Essays and Studies_, by + A.C. Swinburne. +_Arnold_, in _Our Living Poets_, by Forman. + + + + * * * * * + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + * * * * * + + + + +NARRATIVE POEMS + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM° + +AN EPISODE + + +And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,° °1 +And the fog rose out of the Oxus° stream. °2 +But all the Tartar camp° along the stream °3 +Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; +Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long 5 +He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; +But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, +He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, +And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, +And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 10 +Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's° tent. °11 + +Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood +Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand +Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow +When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere° °15 +Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, +And to a hillock came, a little back +From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat, +Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. +The men of former times had crown'd the top 20 +With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now +The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, +A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. +And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood +Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, 25 +And found the old man sleeping on his bed +Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. +And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step +Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep; +And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:-- 30 + +"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. +Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?" + +But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:-- +"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. +The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 35 +Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie +Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. +For so did King Afrasiab° bid me seek °38 +Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, +In Samarcand,° before the army march'd; °40 +And I will tell thee what my heart desires. +Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan° first °42 +I came among the Tartars and bore arms, +I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, +At my boy's years,° the courage of a man. °45 +This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on +The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, +And beat the Persians back on every field, +I seek one man, one man, and one alone-- +Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, 50 +Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, +His not unworthy, not inglorious son. +So I long hoped, but him I never find. +Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. +Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 55 +Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords +To meet me, man to man; if I prevail, +Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-- +Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. +Dim is the rumour of a common fight,° °60 +Where host meets host, and many names are sunk°; °61 +But of a single combat fame speaks clear." + +He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand +Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:-- + +"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! 65 +Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, +And share the battle's common chance° with us °67 +Who love thee, but must press for ever first, +In single fight incurring single risk, +To find a father thou hast never seen°? °70 +That were far best, my son, to stay with us +Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, +And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. +But, if this one desire indeed rules all, +To seek out Rustum--seek him not through fight! 75 +Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, +O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! +But far hence seek him, for he is not here. +For now it is not as when I was young, +When Rustum was in front of every fray; 80 +But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, +In Seistan,° with Zal, his father old. °82 +Whether that his own mighty strength at last +Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, +Or in some quarrel° with the Persian King.° °85 +There go°!--Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes °86 +Danger or death awaits thee on this field. +Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost +To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace +To seek thy father, not seek single fights 90 +In vain;--but who can keep the lion's cub +From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son? +Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." + +So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left +His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 95 +And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat +He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, +And threw a white cloak round him, and he took +In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword°; °99 +And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 100 +Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul°; °101 +And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd +His herald to his side, and went abroad. + +The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog +From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 105 +And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed +Into the open plain; so Haman° bade-- °107 +Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled +The host, and still was in his lusty prime. +From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd; +As when some grey November morn the files, 111 +In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes +Stream over Casbin° and the southern slopes °113 +Of Elburz,° from the Aralian estuaries, °114 +Or some frore° Caspian reed-bed, southward bound °115 +For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd. +The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, +First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; +Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara° come °119 +And Khiva,° and ferment the milk of mares.° °120 +Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns° of the south, °121 +The Tukas,° and the lances of Salore, °122 +And those from Attruck° and the Caspian sands; °123 +Light men and on light steeds, who only drink +The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 125 +And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came +From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; +The Tartars of Ferghana,° from the banks °128 +Of the Jaxartes,° men with scanty beards °129 +And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes 130 +Who roam o'er Kipchak° and the northern waste, °131 +Kalmucks° and unkempt Kuzzaks,° tribes who stray °132 +Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,° °133 +Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; +These all filed out from camp into the plain. 135 +And on the other side the Persians form'd;-- +First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd. +The Ilyats of Khorassan°; and behind, °138 +The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, +Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 140 +But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, +Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, +And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. +And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw +That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 145 +He took his spear, and to the front he came, +And check'd his ranks, and fix'd° them where they stood. °147 +And the old Tartar came upon the sand +Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:-- + +"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 150 +Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. +But choose a champion from the Persian lords +To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." + +As, in the country, on a morn in June, +When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 155 +A shiver runs through the deep corn° for joy-- °156 +So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, +A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran +Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. + +But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,° °160 +Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,° °161 +That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; +Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass +Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, +Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves 165 +Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries-- +In single file they move, and stop their breath, +For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows-- +So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. + +And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 170 +To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, +And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host +Second, and was the uncle of the King°; °173 +These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:-- + +"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 175 +Yet champion have we none to match this youth. +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart.° °177 +But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits° °178 +And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart. +Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 +The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. +Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. +Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." + +So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried:-- +"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! 185 +Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." +He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode +Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. +But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, +And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 190 +Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. +Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, +Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst +Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. +And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 195 +Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still +The table stood before him, charged with food-- +A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread; +And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate° °199 +Listless, and held a falcon° on his wrist, °200 +And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood +Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, +And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird, +And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:-- + +"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. 205 +What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." + +But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:-- +"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink, +But not to-day; to-day has other needs. +The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 210 +For from the Tartars is a challenge brought +To pick a champion from the Persian lords +To fight their champion--and thou know'st his name-- +Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. +O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 215 +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; +And he is young, and Iran's° chiefs are old, °217 +Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. +Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!" + +He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:-- 220 +"Go to°! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I °221 +Am older; if the young are weak, the King +Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo,° °223 +Himself is young, and honours younger men, +And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 225 +Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young-- +The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. +For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? +For would that I myself had such a son, +And not that one slight helpless girl° I have-- °230 +A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, +And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,° °232 +My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, +And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, +And he has none to guard his weak old age. 235 +There would I go, and hang my armour up, +And with my great name fence that weak old man, +And spend the goodly treasures I have got, +And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, +And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 240 +And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more." + +He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:-- +"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, +When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks +Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 245 +Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say: +_Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, +And shuns to peril it with younger men."_° °248 + +And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:-- +"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 250 +Thou knowest better words than this to say. +What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, +Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? +Are not they mortal, am not I myself? +But who for men of nought would do great deeds? 255 +Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! +But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms°; °257 +Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd +In single fight with any mortal man." + +He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran 260 +Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy-- +Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. +But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd +His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, +And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose 265 +Were plain, and on his shield was no device,° °266 +Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, +And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume +Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. +So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, 270 +Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel-- +Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, +The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once +Did in Bokhara by the river find +A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 275 +And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, +Dight° with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green °277 +Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd +All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. +So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 280 +The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd. +And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts +Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. +And dear as the wet diver to the eyes +Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 285 +By sandy Bahrein,° in the Persian Gulf, °286 +Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, +Having made up his tale° of precious pearls, °288 +Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands-- +So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 290 + +And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, +And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came. +And as afield the reapers cut a swath +Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, +And on each side are squares of standing corn, 295 +And in the midst a stubble, short and bare-- +So on each side were squares of men, with spears +Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. +And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast +His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 300 +Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. + +As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, +Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge +Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire-- +At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 305 +When the frost flowers° the whiten'd window-panes-- +And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts +Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed +The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar +Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 310 +All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused° °311 +His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. +For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd; +Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, +Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 315 +Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, +By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound-- +So slender Sohrab seem'd,° so softly rear'd. °318 +And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul +As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 320 +And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:-- + +"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, +And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! +Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. +Behold me! I am vast,° and clad in iron, °325 +And tried°; and I have stood on many a field +Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe-- +Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.° °327 +O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? +Be govern'd°! quit the Tartar host, and come °330 +To Iran, and be as my son to me, +And fight beneath my banner till I die! +There are no youths in Iran brave as thou." + +So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, +The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 335 +His giant figure planted on the sand, +Sole, like some single tower, which a chief +Hath builded on the waste in former years +Against the robbers; and he saw that head, +Streak'd with its first grey hairs;--hope filled his soul, 340 +And he ran forward and embraced his knees, +And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:-- + +"O, by thy father's head°! by thine own soul! °343 +Art thou not Rustum°? speak! art thou not he?" °344 + +But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 345 +And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:-- + +"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! +False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. +For if I now confess this thing he asks, +And hide it not, but say: _Rustum is here_! 350 +He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, +But he will find some pretext not to fight, +And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts +A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. +And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 355 +In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: +'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd +Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords +To cope with me in single fight; but they +Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I 360 +Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.' +So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; +Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." + +And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:-- +"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 365 +Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd +By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt,° or yield! °367 +Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? +Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! +For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 370 +Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, +There would be then no talk of fighting more. +But being what I am, I tell thee this-- +Do thou record it in thine inmost soul: +Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 375 +Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds +Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, +Oxus in summer wash them all away." + +He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:-- +"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so°! °380 +I am no girl to be made pale by words. +Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand +Here on this field, there were no fighting then. +But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. +Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 385 +And thou art proved, I know, and I am young-- +But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. +And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure +Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. +For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 390 +Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, +Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. +And whether it will heave us up to land, +Or whether it will roll us out to sea, +Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 395 +We know not, and no search will make us know; +Only the event will teach us in its hour." + +He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd +His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, +As on some partridge, in the corn a hawk, 400 +That long has tower'd° in the airy clouds, °401 +Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come, +And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear +Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, +Which it sent flying wide;--then Sohrab threw 405 +In turn, and full struck° Rustum's shield; sharp rang, °406 +The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. +And Rustum seized his club, which none but he +Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, +Still rough--like those which men in treeless plains 410 +To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, +Hyphasis° or Hydaspes,° when, high up °412 +By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time +Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,° °414 +And strewn the channels with torn boughs--so huge 415 +The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck +One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, +Lithe as the glancing° snake, and the club came °418 +Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. +And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 420 +To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; +And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, +And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay +Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; +But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 425 +But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:-- + +"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float +Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. +But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; +No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 +Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! +Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul? +Boy as I am, I have seen battles too-- +Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, +And heard their hollow° roar of dying men; °435 +But never was my heart thus touch'd before. +Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? +O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! +Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, +And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 440 +And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, +And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. +There are enough foes in the Persian host, +Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; +Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 445 +Mayst fight; fight _them_, when they confront thy spear! +But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" + +He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, +And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club +He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear, 450 +Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand +Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,° °452 +The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd +His stately crest,° and dimm'd his glittering arms. °454 +His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice 455 +Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:-- + +"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! +Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! +Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! +Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 460 +With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; +But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance +Of battle, and with me, who make no play +Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. +Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 465 +Remember all thy valour°; try thy feints °466 +And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; +Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts +With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.°" °468 + +He spoke, and Sohrab kindled° at his taunts, °470 +And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd +Together, as two eagles on one prey +Come rushing down together from the clouds, +One from the east, one from the west; their shields +Bash'd with a clang together, and a din 475 +Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters +Make often in the forest's heart at morn, +Of hewing axes, crashing trees--such blows +Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. +And you would say that sun and stars took part 480 +In that unnatural° conflict; for a cloud° °481 +Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun +Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose +Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, +And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 485 +In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; +For both the on-looking hosts on either hand +Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, +And the sun sparkled° on the Oxus stream. °489 +But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 490 +And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield +Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear +Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, +And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. +Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,° °495 +Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest +He shore° away, and that proud horsehair plume, °497 +Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; +And Rustum bow'd his head°; but then the gloom °499 +Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 500 +And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse, +Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;-- +No horse's cry was that, most like the roar +Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day +Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 505 +And comes at night to die upon the sand. +The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, +And Oxus curdled° as it cross'd his stream. °508 +But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, +And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd 510 +His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, +Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, +And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. +Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes +Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 515 +And shouted: _Rustum_°!--Sohrab heard that shout, °516 +And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step, +And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; +And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd +His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 520 +He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; +And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, +And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all +The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair-- +Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 525 +And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. + +Then, with a bitter smile,° Rustum began:-- °527 +"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill +A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, +And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent. 530 +Or else that the great Rustum would come down +Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move +His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. +And then that all the Tartar host would praise +Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 +To glad° thy father in his weak old age. °536 +Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! +Dearer to the red jackals° shalt thou be °538 +Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." + +And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:-- 540 +"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain +Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! +No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. +For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, +And I were that which till to-day I was, 545 +They should be lying here, I standing there +But that belovéd name unnerved my arm-- +That name, and something, I confess, in thee, +Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield +Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe. 550 +And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. +But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear +The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! +My father, whom I seek through all the world, +He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" 555 + +As when some hunter° in the spring hath found °556 +A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, +Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, +And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, +And follow'd her to find her where she fell 560 +Far off;--anon her mate comes winging back +From hunting, and a great way off descries +His huddling young left sole°; at that, he checks °563 +His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps +Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 565 +Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she +Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, +In some far stony gorge out of his ken, +A heap of fluttering feathers--never more +Shall the lake glass° her, flying over it; °570 +Never the black and dripping precipices +Echo her stormy scream as she sails by-- +As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, +So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood +Over his dying son, and knew him not. 575 + +But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:-- +"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? +The mighty Rustum never had a son." + +And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 580 +Surely the news will one day reach his ear, +Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, +Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; +And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap +To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 585 +Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! +What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? +Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! +Yet him I pity not so much, but her, +My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 590 +With that old king, her father, who grows grey +With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. +Her most I pity, who no more will see +Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, +With spoils and honour, when the war is done. 595 +But a dark rumour will be bruited up,° °596 +From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; +And then will that defenceless woman learn +That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, +But that in battle with a nameless foe, 600 +By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." + +He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, +Thinking of her he left, and his own death. +He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought. +Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605 +Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew; +For he had had sure tidings that the babe, +Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, +Had been a puny girl, no boy at all-- +So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 +Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms-- +And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, +By a false boast, the style° of Rustum's son; °613 +Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. +So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought 615 +And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide +Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore +At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; +For he remember'd his own early youth, +And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620 +The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries +A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, +Through many rolling clouds--so Rustum saw +His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; +And that old king,° her father, who loved well °625 +His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child +With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, +They three, in that long-distant summer-time-- +The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt +And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 630 +In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth, +Of age and looks° to be his own dear son, °632 +Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand; +Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe +Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 635 +Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, +And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, +On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay, +Lovely in death, upon the common sand. +And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:-- 640 + +"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son +Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved. +Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men +Have told thee false--thou art not Rustum's son. +For Rustum had no son; one child he had-- 645 +But one--a girl; who with her mother now +Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us-- +Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." + +But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now +The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 650 +And he desired to draw forth the steel, +And let the blood flow free, and so to die-- +But first he would convince his stubborn foe; +And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:-- + +"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 655 +Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, +And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. +I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm° I bear °658 +That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, +That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 660 + +He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks, +And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand +Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, +That the hard iron corslet° clank'd aloud; °663 +And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 665 +And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! +If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son." + +Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed +His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 670 +And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points +Prick'd; as a cunning° workman, in Pekin, °672 +Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, +An emperor's gift--at early morn he paints, +And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675 +Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands-- +So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd +On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. +It was that griffin,° which of old rear'd Zal, °679 +Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 680 +A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; +Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved-- +Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. +And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, +And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes, 685 +And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:-- + +"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign +Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?" + +He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood +Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry: 690 +_O boy_--_thy father!_--and his voice choked there. +And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, +And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. +But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast +His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 695 +And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, +Trying to call him back to life; and life +Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, +And they stood wide with horror; and he seized +In both his hands the dust which lay around, 700 +And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,-- +His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; +And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, +And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword, +To draw it, and for ever let life out. 705 +But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, +And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day +The doom which at my birth was written down +In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.° °710 +Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, +When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, +I know it! but fate trod those promptings down +Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged +The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 715 +But let us speak no more of this! I find +My father; let me feel that I have found!° °717 +Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take +My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, +And wash them with thy tears, and say: _My son!_ 720 +Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, +And swift; for like the lightning to this field +I came, and like the wind I go away-- +Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.° °724 +But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." 725 + +So said he, and his voice released the heart +Of Rustum, and his tears brake forth; he cast +His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, +And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, +When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 +With his head bowing to the ground and mane +Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe +First to the one then to the other moved +His head, as if inquiring what their grief +Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 735 +The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked° the sand. °736 +But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:-- + +"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet +Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, +Or ere they brought thy master to this field!" 740 + +But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said:-- +"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, +My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, +My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, +That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 745 +Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! +O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; +For thou hast gone where I shall never go, +And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. +And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750 +And seen the River of Helmund,° and the Lake °751 +Of Zirrah°; and the aged Zal himself °752 +Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, +Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, +And said: _O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!_--but I 755 +Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, +Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, +Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; +But lodged among my father's foes, and seen +Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 760 +Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, +And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk +The desert rivers, Moorghab° and Tejend,° °763 +Kohik,° and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, +The northern Sir°; and this great Oxus stream, °765 +The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." + +Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:-- +"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! +Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt +Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" 770 + +But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Desire not that, my father! thou must live. +For some are born to do great deeds, and live, +As some are born to be obscured, and die. +Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 775 +And reap a second glory in thine age; +Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. +But come! thou seest this great host of men +Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! +Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 780 +They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. +But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, +But carry me with thee to Seistan, +And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 785 +Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends. +And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound° above my bones, °788 +And plant a far-seen pillar over all. +That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 +May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: +_Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, +Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!_ +And I be not forgotten in my grave." + +And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:-- 795 +"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, +So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, +And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, +And carry thee away to Seistan, +And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 800 +With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. +And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound above thy bones, +And plant a far-seen pillar over all, +And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 805 +And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! +What should I do with slaying any more? +For would that all that I have ever slain +Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810 +And they who were call'd champions in their time, +And through whose death I won that fame I have-- +And I were nothing but a common man, +A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, +So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! 815 +Or rather would that I, even I myself, +Might now be lying on this bloody sand, +Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, +Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; +And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820 +And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; +And say: _O son, I weep thee not too sore, +For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!_ +But now in blood and battles was my youth, +And full of blood and battles is my age, 825 +And I shall never end this life of blood." + +Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:-- +"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! +But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, +Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,° °830 +When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, +Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, +Returning home over the salt blue sea, +From laying thy dear master in his grave." + +And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:-- 835 +"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! +Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." + +He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took +The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased +His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 840 +Came welling from the open gash, and life +Flow'd with the stream;--all down his cold white side +The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, +Like the soil'd tissue of white violets +Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 845 +By children whom their nurses call with haste +Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, +His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay-- +White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, +Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 850 +Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, +And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; +Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs +Unwillingly the spirit fled away, +Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 855 +And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. + +So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; +And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak +Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. +As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd 860 +By Jemshid in Persepolis,° to bear °861 +His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps +Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side-- +So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. + +And night came down over the solemn waste, 865 +And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, +And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, +Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, +As of a great assembly loosed, and fires +Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 870 +Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; +The Persians took it on the open sands +Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; +And Rustum and his son were left alone. + +But the majestic river floated on, 875 +Out of the mist and hum of that low land, +Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, +Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian° waste, °878 +Under the solitary moon;--he flow'd +Right for the polar star,° past Orgunjè,° °880 +Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin +To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, +And split his currents; that for many a league +The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along +Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-- 885 +Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had +In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, +A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last +The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide +His luminous home° of waters opens, bright °890 +And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars° °891 +Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN° + + +Saint Brandan sails the northern main; +The brotherhood of saints are glad. +He greets them once, he sails again; +So late!--such storms!--The Saint is mad! + +He heard, across the howling seas, 5 +Chime convent-bells on wintry nights; +He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,° °7 +Twinkle the monastery-lights; + +But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd-- +And now no bells, no convents more! 10 +The hurtling Polar lights° are near'd, °11 +The sea without a human shore. + +At last--(it was the Christmas night; +Stars shone after a day of storm)-- +He sees float past an iceberg white, 15 +And on it--Christ!--a living form. + +That furtive mien, that scowling eye, +Of hair that red° and tufted fell-- °18 +It is--Oh, where shall Brandan fly?-- +The traitor Judas, out of hell! 20 + +Palsied with terror, Brandan sate°; °21 +The moon was bright, the iceberg near. +He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait! +By high permission I am here. + +"One moment wait, thou holy man 25 +On earth my crime, my death, they knew; +My name is under all men's ban-- +Ah, tell them of my respite too! + +"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night-- +(It was the first after I came, 30 +Breathing self-murder,° frenzy, spite, °31 +To rue my guilt in endless flame)-- + +"I felt, as I in torment lay +'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, +An angel touch my arm, and say: 35 +_Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!_ + +"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said. +_The Leper recollect,_° said he, °38 +_Who ask'd the passers-by for aid, +In Joppa,° and thy charity._ °40 + +"Then I remember'd how I went, +In Joppa, through the public street, +One morn when the sirocco spent +Its storms of dust with burning heat; + +"And in the street a leper sate, 45 +Shivering with fever, naked, old; +Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, +The hot wind fever'd him five-fold. + +"He gazed upon me as I pass'd +And murmur'd: _Help me, or I die!_-- 50 +To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, +Saw him look eased, and hurried by. + +"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine, +What blessing must full goodness shower, +When fragment of it small, like mine, 55 +Hath such inestimable power! + +"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I +Did that chance act of good, that one! +Then went my way to kill and lie-- +Forgot my good as soon as done. 60 + +"That germ of kindness, in the womb +Of mercy caught, did not expire; +Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, +And friends me in the pit of fire. + +"Once every year, when carols wake, 65 +On earth, the Christmas-night's repose, +Arising from the sinner's lake, +I journey to these healing snows. + +"I stanch with ice my burning breast, +With silence balm my whirling brain. 70 +Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest +That Joppan leper's ease was pain."-- + +Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes; +He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer-- +Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies! 75 +The iceberg, and no Judas there! + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN° + + +Come, dear children, let us away; +Down and away below! +Now my brothers call from the bay, +Now the great winds shoreward blow, +Now the salt tides seaward flow; 5 +Now the wild white horses° play, °6 +Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. +Children dear, let us away! +This way, this way! + +Call her once before you go-- 10 +Call once yet! +In a voice that she will know: +"Margaret°! Margaret!" °13 +Children's voices should be dear +(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 15 +Children's voices, wild with pain-- +Surely she will come again! +Call her once and come away; +This way, this way! +"Mother dear, we cannot stay! 20 +The wild white horses foam and fret." +Margaret! Margaret! + +Come, dear children, come away down; +Call no more! +One last look at the white-wall'd town, 25 +And the little grey church on the windy shore; +Then come down! +She will not come though you call all day; +Come away, come away! + +Children dear, was it yesterday 30 +We heard the sweet bells over the bay? +In the caverns where we lay, +Through the surf and through the swell, +The far-off sound of a silver bell? +Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35 +Where the winds are all asleep; +Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, +Where the salt weed sways in the stream, +Where the sea-beasts, ranged° all round, °39 +Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 40 +Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, +Dry their mail° and bask in the brine; °42 +Where great whales come sailing by, +Sail and sail, with unshut eye, +Round the world for ever and aye? 45 +When did music come this way? +Children dear, was it yesterday? + +Children dear, was it yesterday +(Call yet once) that she went away? +Once she sate with you and me, 50 +On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, +And the youngest sate on her knee. +She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, +When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.° °54 +She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; 55 +She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray +In the little grey church on the shore to-day. +'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! +And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." +I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; 60 +Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" +She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. +Children dear, was it yesterday? + + Children dear, were we long alone? +"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 65 +Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; +Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. +We went up the beach, by the sandy down +Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town; +Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 70 +To the little grey church on the windy hill. +From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, +But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. +We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, +And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75 +She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: +"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! +Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone; +The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." +But, ah, she gave me never a look, 80 +For her eyes were seal'd° to the holy book! °81 +Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. +Come away, children, call no more! +Come away, come down, call no more! + + Down, down, down! 85 +Down to the depths of the sea! +She sits at her wheel in the humming town, +Singing most joyfully. +Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, +For the humming street, and the child with its toy! 90 +For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; +For the wheel where I spun, +And the blessed light of the sun°!" °93 +And so she sings her fill, +Singing most joyfully, 95 +Till the spindle drops from her hand, +And the whizzing wheel stands still. +She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, +And over the sand at the sea; +And her eyes are set in a stare; 100 +And anon there breaks a sigh, +And anon there drops a tear, +From a sorrow-clouded eye, +And a heart sorrow-laden, +A long, long sigh; 105 +For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden +And the gleam of her golden hair. + + Come away, away, children; +Come children, come down! +The hoarse wind blows coldly; 110 +Lights shine in the town. +She will start from her slumber +When gusts shake the door; +She will hear the winds howling, +Will hear the waves roar. 115 +We shall see, while above us +The waves roar and whirl, +A ceiling of amber, +A pavement of pearl. +Singing: "Here came a mortal, 120 +But faithless was she! +And alone dwell for ever +The kings of the sea." + +But, children, at midnight, +When soft the winds blow, 125 +When clear falls the moonlight, +When spring-tides are low; +When sweet airs come seaward +From heaths starr'd with broom,° °129 +And high rocks throw mildly 130 +On the blanch'd sands a gloom; +Up the still, glistening beaches, +Up the creeks we will hie, +Over banks of bright seaweed +The ebb-tide leaves dry. 135 +We will gaze, from the sand-hills, +At the white, sleeping town; +At the church on the hill-side-- +And then come back down. +Singing: "There dwells a loved one, 140 +But cruel is she! +She left lonely for ever +The kings of the sea." + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT° + +I + +TRISTRAM + + +_Tristram_. Is she not come°? The messenger was sure-- +Prop me upon the pillows once again-- +Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure. +--Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! +What lights will those out to the northward be°? °5 + +_The Page_. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea. + +_Tristram_. Soft--who is that, stands by the dying fire? + +_The Page_. Iseult.° °8 + +_Tristram_. Ah! not the Iseult I desire. + + * * * * * + +What Knight is this so weak and pale, +Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, 10 +Propt on pillows in his bed, +Gazing seaward for the light +Of some ship that fights the gale +On this wild December night? +Over the sick man's feet is spread 15 +A dark green forest-dress; +A gold harp leans against the bed, +Ruddy in the fire's light. +I know him by his harp of gold, +Famous in Arthur's court° of old; °20 +I know him by his forest-dress-- +The peerless hunter, harper, knight, +Tristram of Lyoness.° °23 +What Lady is this, whose silk attire +Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? 25 +The ringlets on her shoulders lying +In their flitting lustre vying +With the clasp of burnish'd gold +Which her heavy robe doth hold. +Her looks are mild, her fingers slight 30 +As the driven snow are white°; °31 +But her cheeks are sunk and pale. +Is it that the bleak sea-gale +Beating from the Atlantic sea +On this coast of Brittany, 35 +Nips too keenly the sweet flower? +Is it that a deep fatigue +Hath come on her, a chilly fear, +Passing all her youthful hour +Spinning with her maidens here, 40 +Listlessly through the window-bars +Gazing seawards many a league, +From her lonely shore-built tower, +While the knights are at the wars? +Or, perhaps, has her young heart 45 +Felt already some deeper smart, +Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive, +Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? +Who is this snowdrop by the sea?-- +I know her by her mildness rare, 50 +Her snow-white hands, her golden hair; +I know her by her rich silk dress, +And her fragile loveliness-- +The sweetest Christian soul alive, +Iseult of Brittany. 55 + +Iseult of Brittany?--but where +Is that other Iseult fair, +That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen? +She, whom Tristram's ship of yore +From Ireland to Cornwall bore, 60 +To Tyntagel,° to the side °61 +Of King Marc,° to be his bride? °62 +She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd +With Tristram that spiced magic draught, +Which since then for ever rolls 65 +Through their blood, and binds their souls, +Working love, but working teen°?--. °67 +There were two Iseults who did sway +Each her hour of Tristram's day; +But one possess'd his waning time, 70 +The other his resplendent prime. +Behold her here, the patient flower, +Who possess'd his darker hour! +Iseult of the Snow-White Hand +Watches pale by Tristram's bed. 75 +She is here who had his gloom, +Where art thou who hadst his bloom? +One such kiss as those of yore +Might thy dying knight restore! +Does the love-draught work no more? 80 +Art thou cold, or false, or dead, +Iseult of Ireland? + + * * * * * + +Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain, +And the knight sinks back on his pillows again. +He is weak with fever and pain; 85 +And his spirit is not clear. +Hark! he mutters in his sleep, +As he wanders° far from here, °88 +Changes place and time of year, +And his closéd eye doth sweep 90 +O'er some fair unwintry sea,° °91 +Not this fierce Atlantic deep, +While he mutters brokenly:-- + +_Tristram_. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails; +Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, 95 +And overhead the cloudless sky of May.-- +_"Ah, would I were in those green fields at play, +Not pent on ship-board this delicious day! +Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy, +Reach me my golden phial stands by thee, 100 +But pledge me in it first for courtesy."_-- +Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine? +Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine! +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! 105 +Keep his eyelids! let him seem +Not this fever-wasted wight +Thinn'd and paled before his time, +But the brilliant youthful knight +In the glory of his prime, 110 +Sitting in the gilded barge, +At thy side, thou lovely charge, +Bending gaily o'er thy hand, +Iseult of Ireland! +And she too, that princess fair, 115 +If her bloom be now less rare, +Let her have her youth again-- +Let her be as she was then! +Let her have her proud dark eyes, +And her petulant quick replies-- 120 +Let her sweep her dazzling hand +With its gesture of command, +And shake back her raven hair +With the old imperious air! +As of old, so let her be, 125 +That first Iseult, princess bright, +Chatting with her youthful knight +As he steers her o'er the sea, +Quitting at her father's will +The green isle° where she was bred, °130 +And her bower in Ireland, +For the surge-beat Cornish strand +Where the prince whom she must wed +Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill,° °134 +High above the sounding sea. 135 +And that potion rare her mother +Gave her, that her future lord, +Gave her, that King Marc and she, +Might drink it on their marriage-day, +And for ever love each other-- 140 +Let her, as she sits on board, +Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly! +See it shine, and take it up, +And to Tristram laughing say: +"Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, 145 +Pledge me in my golden cup!" +Let them drink it--let their hands +Tremble, and their cheeks be flame, +As they feel the fatal bands +Of a love they dare not name, 150 +With a wild delicious pain, +Twine about their hearts again! +Let the early summer be +Once more round them, and the sea +Blue, and o'er its mirror kind 155 +Let the breath of the May-wind, +Wandering through their drooping sails, +Die on the green fields of Wales! +Let a dream like this restore +What his eye must see no more!° °160 + +_Tristram_. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks° are drear-- °161 +Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here? +Were feet like those made for so wild a way? +The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,° °164 +Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day! 165 +_"Tristram!--nay, nay--thou must not take my hand!-- +Tristram!--sweet love!--we are betray'd--out-plann'd. +Fly--save thyself--save me!--I dare not stay."_-- +One last kiss first!--_"'Tis vain--to horse--away!"_ + + * * * * * + +Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move 170 +Faster surely than it should, +From the fever in his blood! +All the spring-time of his love +Is already gone and past, +And instead thereof is seen 175 +Its winter, which endureth still-- +Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill, +The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen, +The flying leaves, the straining blast, +And that long, wild kiss--their last.° °180 +And this rough December-night, +And his burning fever-pain, +Mingle with his hurrying dream, +Till they rule it, till he seem +The press'd fugitive again, 185 +The love-desperate banish'd knight +With a fire in his brain +Flying o'er the stormy main. +--Whither does he wander now? +Haply in his dreams the wind 190 +Wafts him here, and lets him find +The lovely orphan child° again° °192 +In her castle by the coast; +The youngest, fairest chatelaine,° °194 +Whom this realm of France can boast, 195 +Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, +Iseult of Brittany. +And--for through the haggard air, +The stain'd arms, the matted hair +Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,° °200 +There gleam'd something, which recall'd +The Tristram who in better days +Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard°-- °203 +Welcomed here,° and here install'd, °204 +Tended of his fever here, 205 +Haply he seems again to move +His young guardian's heart with love +In his exiled loneliness, +In his stately, deep distress, +Without a word, without a tear. 210 +--Ah! 'tis well he should retrace +His tranquil life in this lone place; +His gentle bearing at the side +Of his timid youthful bride; +His long rambles by the shore 215 +On winter-evenings, when the roar +Of the near waves came, sadly grand, +Through the dark, up the drown'd sand, +Or his endless reveries +In the woods, where the gleams play 220 +On the grass under the trees, +Passing the long summer's day +Idle as a mossy stone +In the forest-depths alone, +The chase neglected, and his hound 225 +Couch'd beside him on the ground.° °226 +--Ah! what trouble's on his brow? +Hither let him wander now; +Hither, to the quiet hours +Pass'd among these heaths of ours. 230 +By the grey Atlantic sea; +Hours, if not of ecstasy, +From violent anguish surely free! + +_Tristram_. All red with blood the whirling river flows, +The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows. 235 +Upon us are the chivalry of Rome-- +Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.° °237 +"Up, Tristram, up," men cry, "thou moonstruck knight°! °238 +What foul fiend rides thee°? On into the fight!" °239 +--Above the din her° voice is in my ears; °240 +I see her form glide through the crossing spears.-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah! he wanders forth again°; °243 +We cannot keep him; now, as then, +There's a secret in his breast° °245 +Which will never let him rest. +These musing fits in the green wood +They cloud the brain, they dull the blood! +--His sword is sharp, his horse is good; +Beyond the mountains will he see 250 +The famous towns of Italy, +And label with the blessed sign° °252 +The heathen Saxons on the Rhine. +At Arthur's side he fights once more +With the Roman Emperor.° °255 +There's many a gay knight where he goes +Will help him to forget his care; +The march, the leaguer,° Heaven's blithe air, °258 +The neighing steeds, the ringing blows-- +Sick pining comes not where these are. 260 +Ah! what boots it,° that the jest °261 +Lightens every other brow, +What, that every other breast +Dances as the trumpets blow, +If one's own heart beats not light 265 +On the waves of the toss'd fight, +If oneself cannot get free +From the clog of misery? +Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale +Watching by the salt sea-tide 270 +With her children at her side +For the gleam of thy white sail. +Home, Tristram, to thy halls again! +To our lonely sea complain, +To our forests tell thy pain! 275 + +_Tristram_. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade, +But it is moonlight in the open glade; +And in the bottom of the glade shine clear +The forest-chapel and the fountain near. +--I think, I have a fever in my blood; 280 +Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood, +Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood. +--Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light; +God! 'tis _her_ face plays in the waters bright. +"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon, 285 +At this soft hour under this sweet moon?"-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + + Ah, poor soul! if this be so, + Only death can balm thy woe. + The solitudes of the green wood 290 + Had no medicine for thy mood; + The rushing battle clear'd thy blood + As little as did solitude. + --Ah! his eyelids slowly break + Their hot seals, and let him wake; 295 + What new change shall we now see? + A happier? Worse it cannot be. + +_Tristram_. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire! +Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright; +The wind is down--but she'll not come to-night. 300 +Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now, +Far hence; her dreams are fair--smooth is her brow +Of me she recks not,° nor my vain desire. °303 + +--I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page, +Would take a score years from a strong man's age; 305 +And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear, +Scant leisure for a second messenger. + +--My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait! +To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by; +To-night my page shall keep me company. 310 +Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me! +Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I; +This comes of nursing long and watching late. +To bed--good night!° °314 + + * * * * * + +She left the gleam-lit fireplace, 315 +She came to the bed-side; +She took his hands in hers--her tears +Down on his wasted fingers rain'd. +She raised her eyes upon his face-- +Not with a look of wounded pride, 320 +A look as if the heart complained-- +Her look was like a sad embrace; +The gaze of one who can divine +A grief, and sympathise. +Sweet flower! thy children's eyes 325 +Are not more innocent than thine. + But they sleep in shelter'd rest, +Like helpless birds in the warm nest, +On the castle's southern side; +Where feebly comes the mournful roar 330 +Of buffeting wind and surging tide +Through many a room and corridor. +--Full on their window the moon's ray +Makes their chamber as bright as day. +It shines upon the blank white walls, 335 +And on the snowy pillow falls, +And on two angel-heads doth play +Turn'd to each other--the eyes closed, +The lashes on the cheeks reposed. +Round each sweet brow the cap close-set 340 +Hardly lets peep the golden hair; +Through the soft-open'd lips the air +Scarcely moves the coverlet. +One little wandering arm is thrown +At random on the counterpane, 345 +And often the fingers close in haste +As if their baby-owner chased +The butterflies again. +This stir they have, and this alone; 350 +But else they are so still! +--Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still; +But were you at the window now, +To look forth on the fairy sight +Of your illumined haunts by night, 355 +To see the park-glades where you play +Far lovelier than they are by day, +To see the sparkle on the eaves, +And upon every giant-bough +Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves 360 +Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain-- +How would your voices run again! +And far beyond the sparkling trees +Of the castle-park one sees +The bare heaths spreading, clear as day, 365 +Moor behind moor, far, far away, +Into the heart of Brittany. +And here and there, lock'd by the land, +Long inlets of smooth glittering sea, +And many a stretch of watery sand 370 +All shining in the white moon-beams-- +But you see fairer in your dreams! + +What voices are these on the clear night-air? +What lights in the court--what steps on the stair? + + + +II + +ISEULT OF IRELAND° + + +_Tristram_. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.-- + Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen! +Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever; + Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been. + +_Iseult_. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried; 5 + Bound I was, I could not break the band. +Chide not with the past, but feel the present! + I am here--we meet--I hold thy hand. + +_Tristram_. Thou art come, indeed--thou hast rejoin'd me; + Thou hast dared it--but too late to save. 10 +Fear not now that men should tax thine honour! + I am dying: build--(thou may'st)--my grave! + +_Iseult_. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly! + What, I hear these bitter words from thee? +Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel-- 15 + Take my hand--dear Tristram, look on me! + +_Tristram_. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage-- + Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair. +But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult! + And thy beauty never was more fair. 20 + +_Iseult_. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty! + I, like thee, have left my youth afar. +Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers-- + See my cheek and lips, how white they are! + +_Tristram_. Thou art paler--but thy sweet charm, Iseult! 25 + Would not fade with the dull years away. +Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight! + I forgive thee, Iseult!--thou wilt stay? + +_Iseult_. Fear me not, I will be always with thee; + I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain; 30 +Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers, + Join'd at evening of their days again. + +_Tristram_. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding + Something alter'd in thy courtly tone. +Sit--sit by me! I will think, we've lived so 35 + In the green wood, all our lives, alone. + +_Iseult_. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me, + Love like mine is alter'd in the breast; +Courtly life is light and cannot reach it-- + Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd! 40 + +What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers + Words by which the wretched are consoled? +What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler, + Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold? + +Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband-- 45 + That was bliss to make my sorrows flee! +Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings°-- + Those were friends to make me false to thee! + +Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced, + Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown-- 50 +Thee, a pining exile in thy forest, + Me, a smiling queen upon my throne? + +Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd, + Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad, +Both have brought their anxious day to evening, 55 + And have now short space for being glad! + +Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people, + Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill, +That a former rival shares her office, + When she sees her humbled, pale, and still. 60 + +I, a faded watcher by thy pillow, + I, a statue on thy chapel-floor, +Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother, + Rouse no anger, make no rivals more. + +She will cry: "Is this the foe I dreaded? 65 + This his idol? this that royal bride? +Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight! + Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side." + +Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me. + I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep. 70 +Close thine eyes--this flooding moonlight blinds them!-- + Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep. + +_Tristram_. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something + Swells my heart, and takes my breath away. +Through a mist I see thee; near--come nearer! 75 + Bend--bend down!--I yet have much to say. + +_Iseult_. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow-- + Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail! +Call on God and on the holy angels! + What, love, courage!--Christ! he is so pale. 80 + +_Tristram_. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching! + This is what my mother said should be, +When the fierce pains took her in the forest, + The deep draughts of death, in bearing me. + +"Son," she said, "thy name shall be of sorrow; 85 + Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake." +So she said, and died in the drear forest. + Grief since then his home with me doth make.° °88 + +I am dying.--Start not, nor look wildly! + Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save. 90 +But, since living we were ununited, + Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave. + +Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult; + Speak her fair, she is of royal blood! +Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me-- 95 + She will grant it; she is kind and good. + +Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee-- + One last kiss upon the living shore! + +_Iseult_. Tristram!--Tristram!--stay--receive me with thee! + Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more.° °100 + + * * * * * + +You see them clear--the moon shines bright. +Slow, slow and softly, where she stood, +She sinks upon the ground;--her hood +Has fallen back; her arms outspread +Still hold her lover's hand; her head 105 +Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed. +O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair +Lies in disorder'd streams; and there, +Strung like white stars, the pearls still are, +And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare, 110 +Flash on her white arms still. +The very same which yesternight +Flash'd in the silver sconces'° light, °113 +When the feast was gay and the laughter loud +In Tyntagel's palace proud. 115 +But then they deck'd a restless ghost +With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes, +And quivering lips on which the tide +Of courtly speech abruptly died, +And a glance which over the crowded floor, 120 +The dancers, and the festive host, +Flew ever to the door.° °122 +That the knights eyed her in surprise, +And the dames whispered scoffingly: +"Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers! 125 +But yesternight and she would be +As pale and still as wither'd flowers, +And now to-night she laughs and speaks +And has a colour in her cheeks; +Christ keep us from such fantasy!"-- 130 +Yes, now the longing is o'erpast, +Which, dogg'd° by fear and fought by shame, °132 +Shook her weak bosom day and night, +Consumed her beauty like a flame, +And dimm'd it like the desert-blast. 135 +And though the bed-clothes hide her face, +Yet were it lifted to the light, +The sweet expression of her brow +Would charm the gazer, till his thought +Erased the ravages of time, 140 +Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought +A freshness back as of her prime-- +So healing is her quiet now. +So perfectly the lines express +A tranquil, settled loveliness, 145 +Her younger rival's purest grace. + +The air of the December-night +Steals coldly around the chamber bright, +Where those lifeless lovers be; +Swinging with it, in the light 150 +Flaps the ghostlike tapestry. +And on the arras wrought you see +A stately Huntsman, clad in green, +And round him a fresh forest-scene. +On that clear forest-knoll he stays, 155 +With his pack round him, and delays. +He stares and stares, with troubled face, +At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace, +At that bright, iron-figured door, +And those blown rushes on the floor. 160 +He gazes down into the room +With heated cheeks and flurried air, +And to himself he seems to say: +_"What place is this, and who are they? +Who is that kneeling Lady fair? 165 +And on his pillows that pale Knight +Who seems of marble on a tomb? +How comes it here, this chamber bright, +Through whose mullion'd windows clear +The castle-court all wet with rain, 170 +The drawbridge and the moat appear, +And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray, +The sunken reefs, and far away +The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? +--What, has some glamour made me sleep, 175 +And sent me with my dogs to sweep, +By night, with boisterous bugle-peal, +Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall, +Not in the free green wood at all? +That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer 180 +That Lady by the bed doth kneel-- +Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!"_ +--The wild boar rustles in his lair; +The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air; +But lord and hounds keep rooted there. 185 + +Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake, +O Hunter! and without a fear +Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow, +And through the glades thy pastime take-- +For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here! 190 +For these thou seest are unmoved; +Cold, cold as those who lived and loved +A thousand years ago.° °193 + + + +III + +ISEULT OF BRITTANY° + + +A year had flown, and o'er the sea away, +In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay; +In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old-- +There in a ship they bore those lovers cold. + +The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, 5 +Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play +In a green circular hollow in the heath +Which borders the sea-shore--a country path +Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind. +The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined, 10 +And to one standing on them, far and near +The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear +Over the waste. This cirque° of open ground °13 +Is light and green; the heather, which all round +Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass 15 +Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass +Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there +Dotted with holly-trees and juniper.° °18 +In the smooth centre of the opening stood +Three hollies side by side, and made a screen, 20 +Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green +With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's° food. °22 +Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands, +Watching her children play; their little hands +Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams 25 +Of stagshorn° for their hats; anon, with screams °26 +Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound +Among the holly-clumps and broken ground, +Racing full speed, and startling in their rush +The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush 30 +Out of their glossy coverts;--but when now +Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow, +Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair, +In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair-- +Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three 35 +Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she +Told them an old-world Breton history.° °37 + +Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there, +Under the hollies, in the clear still air-- +Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering 40 +Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring. +Long they stay'd still--then, pacing at their ease, +Moved up and down under the glossy trees. +But still, as they pursued their warm dry road, +From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd, 45 +And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes +Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise; +Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side, +Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide, +Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away 50 +From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay, +Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams +Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams, +Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear, +The fell-fares settled on the thickets near. 55 +And they would still have listen'd, till dark night +Came keen and chill down on the heather bright; +But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold, +And the grey turrets of the castle old +Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, 60 +Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair, +And brought her tale to an end, and found the path, +And led them home over the darkening heath. + +And is she happy? Does she see unmoved +The days in which she might have lived and loved 65 +Slip without bringing bliss slowly away, +One after one, to-morrow like to-day? +Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will-- +Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still, +Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, 70 +So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet +Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone +Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, +But even that comes languidly; in truth, +She seems one dying in a mask of youth. 75 +And now she will go home, and softly lay +Her laughing children in their beds, and play +Awhile with them before they sleep; and then +She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen +Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar, 80 +Along this iron coast,° know like a star,° °81 +And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit +Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it; +Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind +Her children, or to listen to the wind. 85 +And when the clock peals midnight, she will move +Her work away, and let her fingers rove +Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound +Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground; +Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes 90 +Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise, +And at her prie-dieu° kneel, until she have told °92 +Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold, +Then to her soft sleep--and to-morrow'll be +To-day's exact repeated effigy. 95 + +Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall. +The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal,° °97 +Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound, +Are there the sole companions to be found. +But these she loves; and noiser life than this 100 +She would find ill to bear, weak as she is. +She has her children, too, and night and day +Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play, +The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore, +The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails, 105 +These are to her dear as to them; the tales +With which this day the children she beguiled +She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child, +In every hut along this sea-coast wild. +She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, 110 +Can forget all to hear them, as of old. + +Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, +Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear +To all that has delighted them before, +And lets us be what we were once no more. 115 +No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain +Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain, +By what of old pleased us, and will again. +No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world, +In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd 120 +Until they crumble, or else grow like steel-- +Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring-- +Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, +But takes away the power--this can avail, +By drying up our joy in everything, 125 +To make our former pleasures all seem stale. +This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit +Of passion, which subdues our souls to it, +Till for its sake alone we live and move-- +Call it ambition, or remorse, or love-- 130 +This too can change us wholly, and make seem +All which we did before, shadow and dream. + +And yet, I swear, it angers me to see +How this fool passion gulls° men potently; °134 +Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest, 135 +And an unnatural overheat at best. +How they are full of languor and distress +Not having it; which when they do possess, +They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, +And spend their lives in posting here and there° °140 +Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, +Are furious with themselves, and hard to please. +Like that bold Cæsar,° the famed Roman wight, °143 +Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight +Who made a name at younger years than he; 145 +Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry, +Prince Alexander,° Philip's peerless son, °147 +Who carried the great war from Macedon +Into the Soudan's° realm, and thundered on °149 +To die at thirty-five in Babylon. 150 + +What tale did Iseult to the children say, +Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day? +She told them of the fairy-haunted land +Away the other side of Brittany, +Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 +Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,° °156 +Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps +Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. +For here he came with the fay° Vivian, °158 +One April, when the warm days first began. +He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 +On her white palfrey; here he met his end, +In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. +This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay° °163 +Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear +Before the children's fancy him and her. 165 + +Blowing between the stems, the forest-air +Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair, +Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes +Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise. +Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat, 170 +For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet. +A brier in that tangled wilderness +Had scored her white right hand, which she allows +To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress; +The other warded off the drooping boughs. 175 +But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes +Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize. +Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace, +The spirit of the woods was in her face. +She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight 180 +Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight; +And he grew fond, and eager to obey +His mistress, use her empire° as she may. °184 +They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day 185 +Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away, +In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook; +And up as high as where they stood to look +On the brook's farther side was clear, but then +The underwood and trees began again. 190 +This open glen was studded thick with thorns +Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, +Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer +Who come at noon down to the water here. +You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along 195 +Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong +The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, +And the weird chipping of the woodpecker +Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair, +And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere. 200 +Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow, +To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough +Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild. +As if to itself the quiet forest smiled. +Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here 205 +The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear +Across the hollow; white anemones +Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses +Ran out from the dark underwood behind. +No fairer resting-place a man could find. 210 +"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she +Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree. + +They sate them down together, and a sleep +Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. +Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose 215 +And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws, +And takes it in her hand, and waves it over +The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. +Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple° round, °219 +And made a little plot of magic ground. 220 +And in that daised circle, as men say, +Is Merlin prisoner° till the judgment-day; °222 +But she herself whither she will can rove-- +For she was passing weary of his love.° °224 + + + + + + +LYRICAL POEMS + + + + +THE CHURCH OF BROU° + +I + +THE CASTLE + + +Down the Savoy° valleys sounding, °1 + Echoing round this castle old, +'Mid the distant mountain-chalets° °3 + Hark! what bell for church is toll'd? + +In the bright October morning 5 + Savoy's Duke had left his bride. +From the castle, past the drawbridge, + Flow'd the hunters' merry tide. + +Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering; + Gay, her smiling lord to greet, 10 +From her mullion'd chamber-casement + Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. + +From Vienna, by the Danube, + Here she came, a bride, in spring. +Now the autumn crisps the forest; 15 + Hunters gather, bugles ring. + +Hounds are pulling, prickers° swearing, °17 + Horses fret, and boar-spears glance. +Off!--They sweep the marshy forests. + Westward, on the side of France. 20 + +Hark! the game's on foot; they scatter!-- + Down the forest-ridings lone, +Furious, single horsemen gallop---- + Hark! a shout--a crash--a groan! + +Pale and breathless, came the hunters; 25 + On the turf dead lies the boar-- +God! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him, + Senseless, weltering in his gore. + + * * * * * + +In the dull October evening, + Down the leaf-strewn forest-road, 30 +To the castle, past the drawbridge, + Came the hunters with their load. + +In the hall, with sconces blazing, + Ladies waiting round her seat, +Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais° °35 + Sate the Duchess Marguerite. + +Hark! below the gates unbarring! + Tramp of men and quick commands! +"--'Tis my lord come back from hunting--" + And the Duchess claps her hands. 40 + +Slow and tired, came the hunters-- + Stopp'd in darkness in the court. +"--Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! + To the hall! What sport? What sport?"-- + +Slow they enter'd with their master; 45 + In the hall they laid him down. +On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, + On his brow an angry frown. + +Dead her princely youthful husband + Lay before his youthful wife, 50 +Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces-- + And the sight froze all her life. + + * * * * * + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Kings hold revel, gallants meet. +Gay of old amid the gayest 55 + Was the Duchess Marguerite. + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Feast and dance her youth beguiled. +Till that hour she never sorrow'd; + But from then she never smiled. 60 + +'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys + Far from town or haunt of man, +Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd, + Which the Duchess Maud began; + +Old, that Duchess stern began it, 65 + In grey age, with palsied hands; +But she died while it was building, + And the Church unfinish'd stands-- + +Stands as erst° the builders left it, °69 + When she sank into her grave; 70 +Mountain greensward paves the chancel,° °71 + Harebells flower in the nave.° °72 + +"--In my castle all is sorrow," + Said the Duchess Marguerite then; +"Guide me, some one, to the mountain! 75 + We will build the Church again."-- + +Sandall'd palmers,° faring homeward, °78 + Austrian knights from Syria came. +"--Austrian wanderers bring, O warders! + Homage to your Austrian dame."-- 80 + +From the gate the warders answer'd: + "--Gone, O knights, is she you knew! +Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess; + Seek her at the Church of Brou!"-- + +Austrian knights and march-worn palmers 85 + Climb the winding mountain-way.-- +Reach the valley, where the Fabric + Rises higher day by day. + +Stones are sawing, hammers ringing; + On the work the bright sun shines, 90 +In the Savoy mountain-meadows, + By the stream, below the pines. + +On her palfry white the Duchess + Sate and watch'd her working train-- +Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, 95 + German masons, smiths from Spain. + +Clad in black, on her white palfrey, + Her old architect beside-- +There they found her in the mountains, + Morn and noon and eventide. 100 + +There she sate, and watch'd the builders, + Till the Church was roof'd and done. +Last of all, the builders rear'd her + In the nave a tomb of stone. + +On the tomb two forms they sculptured, 105 + Lifelike in the marble pale-- +One, the Duke in helm and armour; + One, the Duchess in her veil. + +Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork° °109 + Was at Easter-tide put on. 110 +Then the Duchess closed her labours; + And she died at the St. John. + + + +II + +THE CHURCH + + +Upon the glistening leaden roof +Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines; + The stream goes leaping by. +The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof; +'Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 5 + Stands the Church on high. +What Church is this, from men aloof?-- +'Tis the Church of Brou. + +At sunrise, from their dewy lair +Crossing the stream, the kine are seen 10 + Round the wall to stray-- +The churchyard wall that clips the square +Of open hill-sward fresh and green + Where last year they lay. +But all things now are order'd fair 15 +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, at the matin-chime,° °17 +The Alpine peasants, two and three, + Climb up here to pray; +Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, 20 +Ride out to church from Chambery,° °21 + Dight° with mantles gay. °22 +But else it is a lonely time +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, too, a priest doth come 25 +From the wall'd town beyond the pass, + Down the mountain-way; +And then you hear the organ's hum, +You hear the white-robed priest say mass, + And the people pray. 30 +But else the woods and fields are dumb +Round the Church of Brou. + +And after church, when mass is done, +The people to the nave repair + Round the tomb to stray; 35 +And marvel at the Forms of stone, +And praise the chisell'd broideries° rare-- °37 + Then they drop away. +The princely Pair are left alone +In the Church of Brou. 40 + + + +III + +THE TOMB + + +So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair! +In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air, +Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come. +Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb, +From the rich painted windows of the nave, 5 +On aisle, and transept,° and your marble grave; °6 +Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise +From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies, +On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds, +And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds 10 +To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve; +And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive, +Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state, +The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, +Coming benighted to the castle-gate. 15 + + So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair! +Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair +On the carved western front a flood of light +Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright +Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, 20 +In the vast western window of the nave, +And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints +A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints, +And amethyst, and ruby--then unclose +Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, 25 +And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads, +And rise upon your cold white marble beds; +And, looking down on the warm rosy tints, +Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints, +Say: _What is this? we are in bliss--forgiven--_ 30 +_Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!_ +Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain +Doth rustlingly above your heads complain +On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls +Shedding her pensive light at intervals 35 +The moon through the clere-story windows shines, +And the wind washes through the mountain-pines. +Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high, +The foliaged marble forest° where ye lie, °39 +_Hush_, ye will say, _it is eternity!_ 40 +_This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these +The columns of the heavenly palaces!_ +And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear +The passage of the Angels' wings will hear, +And on the lichen-crusted leads° above °45 +The rustle of the eternal rain of love. + + + + +REQUIESCAT° + + +Strew on her roses, roses, + And never a spray of yew! +In quiet she reposes; + Ah, would that I did too! + +Her mirth the world required; 5 + She bathed it in smiles of glee. +But her heart was tired, tired, + And now they let her be. + +Her life was turning, turning, + In mazes of heat and sound. 10 +But for peace her soul was yearning, + And now peace laps her round. + +Her cabin'd,° ample spirit, °13 + It flutter'd and fail'd for breath +To-night it doth inherit 15 + The vasty° hall of death. °16 + + + + +CONSOLATION + + +Mist clogs the sunshine. +Smoky dwarf houses +Hem me round everywhere; +A vague dejection +Weighs down my soul. 5 + +Yet, while I languish, +Everywhere countless +Prospects unroll themselves, +And countless beings +Pass countless moods. 10 + +Far hence, in Asia, +On the smooth convent-roofs, +On the gilt terraces, +Of holy Lassa,° °14 +Bright shines the sun. 15 + +Grey time-worn marbles +Hold the pure Muses°; °17 +In their cool gallery,° °18 +By yellow Tiber,° °19 +They still look fair. 20 + +Strange unloved uproar° °21 +Shrills round their portal; +Yet not on Helicon° °23 +Kept they more cloudless +Their noble calm. 25 + +Through sun-proof alleys +In a lone, sand-hemm'd +City of Africa, +A blind, led beggar, +Age-bow'd, asks alms. 30 + +No bolder robber +Erst° abode ambush'd °32 +Deep in the sandy waste; +No clearer eyesight +Spied prey afar. 35 + +Saharan sand-winds +Sear'd his keen eyeballs; +Spent is the spoil he won. +For him the present +Holds only pain. 40 + +Two young, fair lovers, +Where the warm June-wind, +Fresh from the summer fields +Plays fondly round them, +Stand, tranced in joy. 45 + +With sweet, join'd voices, +And with eyes brimming: +"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,° °48 +Prolong the present! +Time, stand still here!" 50 + +The prompt stern Goddess +Shakes her head, frowning; +Time gives his hour-glass +Its due reversal; +Their hour is gone. 55 + +With weak indulgence +Did the just Goddess +Lengthen their happiness, +She lengthen'd also +Distress elsewhere. 60 + +The hour, whose happy +Unalloy'd moments +I would eternalise, +Ten thousand mourners +Well pleased see end. 65 + +The bleak, stern hour, +Whose severe moments +I would annihilate, +Is pass'd by others +In warmth, light, joy. 70 + +Time, so complain'd of, +Who to no one man +Shows partiality, +Brings round to all men +Some undimm'd hours. 75 + + + + +A DREAM + + +Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd, +Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream, +Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun, +On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, +On the red pinings of their forest-floor, 5 +Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines +The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change +Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees +And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. +Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 +And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came +Notes of wild pastoral music--over all +Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. +Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge, +Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood, 15 +Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves +Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof +Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within, +Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn. +We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. 20 +On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms +Came forth--Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine. +Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast; +Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue, +Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd. 25 +They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved, +And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes. +Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly, +Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed. +One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat 30 +Hung poised--and then the darting river of Life +(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life, +Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd, +Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone. +Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines 35 +Faded--the moss--the rocks; us burning plains, +Bristled with cities, us the sea received. + + + + +LINES° + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + + +In this lone, open glade I lie, +Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand; +And at its end, to stay the eye, +Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees° stand! °4 + +Birds here make song, each bird has his, 5 +Across the girdling city's hum. +How green under the boughs it is! +How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! + +Sometimes a child will cross the glade +To take his nurse his broken toy; 10 +Sometimes a thrush flit overhead +Deep in her unknown day's employ. + +Here at my feet what wonders pass, +What endless, active life is here°! °14 +What blowing daisies, fragrant grass! 15 +An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear. + +Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod +Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out, +And, eased of basket and of rod, +Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. 20 + +In the huge world,° which roars hard by, °21 +Be others happy if they can! +But in my helpless cradle I +Was breathed on by the rural Pan.° °24 + +I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd, 25 +Think often, as I hear them rave, +That peace has left the upper world +And now keeps only in the grave. + +Yet here is peace for ever new! +When I who watch them am away, 30 +Still all things in this glade go through +The changes of their quiet day. + +Then to their happy rest they pass! +The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, +The night comes down upon the grass, 35 +The child sleeps warmly in his bed. + +Calm soul of all things! make it mine +To feel, amid the city's jar, +That there abides a peace of thine, +Man did not make, and cannot mar. 40 + +The will to neither strive nor cry, +The power to feel with others give°! +Calm, calm me more! nor let me die +Before I have begun to live. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER° + +_The Portico of Circe's Palace. Evening._ + +A YOUTH. CIRCE.° + + + _The Youth_. Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession +Of eddying forms, 5 +Sweep through my soul! + +Thou standest, smiling +Down on me! thy right arm, +Lean'd up against the column there, +Props thy soft cheek; 10 +Thy left holds, hanging loosely, +The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,° °12 +I held but now. + +Is it, then, evening +So soon? I see, the night-dews, 15 +Cluster'd in thick beads, dim +The agate brooch-stones +On thy white shoulder; +The cool night-wind, too, +Blows through the portico, 20 +Stirs thy hair, Goddess, +Waves thy white robe! + + _Circe_. Whence art thou, sleeper? + + _The Youth_. When the white dawn first +Through the rough fir-planks 25 +Of my hut, by the chestnuts, +Up at the valley-head, +Came breaking, Goddess! +I sprang up, I threw round me +My dappled fawn-skin; 30 +Passing out, from the wet turf, +Where they lay, by the hut door, +I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, +All drench'd in dew-- +Came swift down to join 35 +The rout° early gather'd °36 +In the town, round the temple, +Iacchus'° white fane° °38 +On yonder hill. + +Quick I pass'd, following 40 +The wood-cutters' cart-track +Down the dark valley;--I saw +On my left, through, the beeches, +Thy palace, Goddess, +Smokeless, empty! 45 +Trembling, I enter'd; beheld +The court all silent, +The lions sleeping,° °47 +On the altar this bowl. +I drank, Goddess! 50 +And sank down here, sleeping, +On the steps of thy portico. + + _Circe_. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? +Thou lovest it, then, my wine? +Wouldst more of it? See, how glows, 55 +Through the delicate, flush'd marble, +The red, creaming liquor, +Strown with dark seeds! +Drink, then! I chide thee not, +Deny thee not my bowl. 60 +Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so! +Drink--drink again! + + _The Youth_. Thanks, gracious one! +Ah, the sweet fumes again! +More soft, ah me, 65 +More subtle-winding +Than Pan's flute-music!° °67 +Faint--faint! Ah me, +Again the sweet sleep! + + _Circe_. Hist! Thou--within there! 70 +Come forth, Ulysses°! °71 +Art° tired with hunting? °72 +While we range° the woodland, °73 +See what the day brings.° °74 + + _Ulysses_. Ever new magic! 75 +Hast thou then lured hither, +Wonderful Goddess, by thy art, +The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, +Iacchus' darling-- +Or some youth beloved of Pan, 80 +Of Pan and the Nymphs°? °81 +That he sits, bending downward +His white, delicate neck +To the ivy-wreathed marge +Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves 85 +That crown his hair, +Falling forward, mingling +With the dark ivy-plants-- +His fawn-skin, half untied, +Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he, 90 +That he sits, overweigh'd +By fumes of wine and sleep, +So late, in thy portico? +What youth, Goddess,--what guest +Of Gods or mortals? 95 + + _Circe_. Hist! he wakes! +I lured him not hither, Ulysses. +Nay, ask him! + + _The Youth_. Who speaks? Ah, who comes forth +To thy side, Goddess, from within? 100 +How shall I name him? +This spare, dark-featured, +Quick-eyed stranger? +Ah, and I see too +His sailor's bonnet, 105 +His short coat, travel-tarnish'd, +With one arm bare°!-- °107 +Art thou not he, whom fame +This long time rumours +The favour'd guest of Circe,° brought by the waves? °110 +Art thou he, stranger? +The wise Ulysses, +Laertes' son? + +_Ulysses_. I am Ulysses. +And thou, too, sleeper? 115 +Thy voice is sweet. +It may be thou hast follow'd +Through the islands some divine bard, +By age taught many things, +Age and the Muses°; °120 +And heard him delighting +The chiefs and people +In the banquet, and learn'd his songs, +Of Gods and Heroes, +Of war and arts, 125 +And peopled cities, +Inland, or built +By the grey sea.--If so, then hail! +I honour and welcome thee. + + _The Youth_. The Gods are happy. 130 +They turn on all sides +Their shining eyes, +And see below them +The earth and men.° °134 + +They see Tiresias° °135 +Sitting, staff in hand, +On the warm, grassy +Asopus° bank, °138 +His robe drawn over +His old, sightless head, 140 +Revolving inly +The doom of Thebes.° °142 + +They see the Centaurs° °143 +In the upper glens +Of Pelion,° in the streams, °145 +Where red-berried ashes fringe +The clear-brown shallow pools, +With streaming flanks, and heads +Rear'd proudly, snuffing +The mountain wind. 150 + +They see the Indian +Drifting, knife in hand, +His frail boat moor'd to +A floating isle thick-matted +With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, 155 +And the dark cucumber. +He reaps, and stows them, +Drifting--drifting;--round him, +Round his green harvest-plot, +Flow the cool lake-waves, 160 +The mountains ring them.° + +They see the Scythian +On the wide stepp, unharnessing +His wheel'd house at noon. +He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal-- 165 +Mares' milk, and bread +Baked on the embers°;--all around °167 +The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd +With saffron and the yellow hollyhock +And flag-leaved iris-flowers. 170 +Sitting in his cart, +He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, +Alive with bright green lizards, +And the springing bustard-fowl, +The track, a straight black line, 175 +Furrows the rich soil; here and there +Clusters of lonely mounds +Topp'd with rough-hewn, +Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer +The sunny waste.° °180 + +They see the ferry +On the broad, clay-laden. +Lone Chorasmian stream°;--thereon, °183 +With snort and strain, +Two horses, strongly swimming, tow 185 +The ferry-boat, with woven ropes +To either bow +Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief, +With shout and shaken spear, +Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern 190 +The cowering merchants, in long robes, +Sit pale beside their wealth +Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, +Of gold and ivory, +Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, 195 +Jasper and chalcedony, +And milk-barr'd onyx-stones.° °197 +The loaded boat swings groaning +In the yellow eddies; +The Gods behold them. 200 +They see the Heroes +Sitting in the dark ship +On the foamless, long-heaving +Violet sea, +At sunset nearing 205 +The Happy Islands.° °206 + + These things, Ulysses, +The wise bards also +Behold and sing. +But oh, what labour! 210 +O prince, what pain! + +They too can see +Tiresias;--but the Gods, +Who give them vision, +Added this law: 215 +That they should bear too +His groping blindness, +His dark foreboding, +His scorn'd white hairs; +Bear Hera's anger° °220 +Through a life lengthen'd +To seven ages. + +They see the Centaurs +On Pelion;--then they feel, +They too, the maddening wine 225 +Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain +They feel the biting spears +Of the grim Lapithæ,° and Theseus,° drive, °228 +Drive crashing through their bones°; they feel °229 +High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230 +Alcmena's dreadful son° °231 +Ply his bow;--such a price +The Gods exact for song: +To become what we sing. + +They see the Indian 235 +On his mountain lake; but squalls +Make their skiff reel, and worms +In the unkind spring have gnawn +Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see +The Scythian; but long frosts 240 +Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp, +Till they too fade like grass; they crawl +Like shadows forth in spring. + +They see the merchants +On the Oxus stream°;--but care °245 +Must visit first them too, and make them pale. +Whether, through whirling sand, +A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst +Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, +In the wall'd cities the way passes through, 250 +Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs, +On some great river's marge, +Mown them down, far from home. + +They see the Heroes° °254 +Near harbour;--but they share 255 +Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes, +Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy°; °257 +Or where the echoing oars +Of Argo first +Startled the unknown sea.° °260 + +The old Silenus° °261 +Came, lolling in the sunshine, +From the dewy forest-coverts, +This way, at noon. +Sitting by me, while his Fauns 265 +Down at the water-side +Sprinkled and smoothed +His drooping garland, +He told me these things. + +But I, Ulysses, 270 +Sitting on the warm steps, +Looking over the valley, +All day long, have seen, +Without pain, without labour, +Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad°-- °275 +Sometimes a Faun with torches°-- °276 +And sometimes, for a moment, +Passing through the dark stems +Flowing-robed, the beloved, +The desired, the divine, 280 +Beloved Iacchus. + +Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! +Ah, glimmering water, +Fitful earth-murmur, +Dreaming woods! 285 +Ah, golden-hair'd, strangely smiling Goddess, +And thou, proved, much enduring, +Wave-toss'd Wanderer! +Who can stand still? +Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me-- 290 +The cup again! + +Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession 295 +Of eddying forms, +Sweep through my soul! + + + + +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 5 + 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. 10 + 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, 15 +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, 20 +See, on her face a glow is spread, +A strong emotion on her cheek! + "Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, + Whence was it, for it is not mine? + +"There is no effort on _my_ brow-- 25 +I do not strive, I do not weep; +I rush with the swift spheres and glow +In joy, and when I will, I sleep. + Yet that severe, that earnest air, + I saw, I felt it once--but where? 30 + +"I knew not yet the gauge of time, +Nor wore the manacles of space; +I felt it in some other clime, +I saw it in some other place. + 'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 35 + And lay upon the breast of God." + + + + +DOVER BEACH + + +The sea is calm to-night. +The tide is full, the moon lies fair +Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, +Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5 +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! +Only, from the long line of spray +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, +Listen! you hear the grating roar +Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 +At their return, up the high strand, +Begin, and cease, and then again begin, +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring +The eternal note of sadness in. + +Sophocles° long ago °15 +Heard it on the Ægæan,° and it brought °16 +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow +Of human misery; we +Find also in the sound a thought, +Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20 + +The Sea of Faith +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. +But now I only hear +Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25 +Retreating, to the breath +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear +And naked shingles of the world. +Ah, love, let us be true +To one another! for the world, which seems 30 +To lie before us like a land of dreams, +So various, so beautiful, so new, +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; +And we are here as on a darkling plain 35 +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, +Where ignorant armies clash by night. + + + + +PHILOMELA° + + +Hark! ah, the nightingale-- +The tawny-throated! +Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! +What triumph! hark!--what pain°! °4 + +O wanderer from a Grecian shore,° °5 +Still, after many years, in distant lands, +Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain +That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain°-- °8 +Say, will it never heal? +And can this fragrant lawn 10 +With its cool trees, and night, +And the sweet, tranquil Thames, +And moonshine, and the dew, +To thy rack'd heart and brain +Afford no balm? 15 + +Dost thou to-night behold, +Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, +The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild°? °18 +Dost thou again peruse +With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 20 +The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame°? °21 +Dost thou once more assay +Thy flight, and feel come over thee, +Poor fugitive, the feathery change +Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25 +With love and hate, triumph and agony, +Lone Daulis,° and the high Cephissian vale°? °27 +Listen, Eugenia-- +How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves°! °29 +Again--thou hearest? 30 +Eternal passion! +Eternal pain°! °32 + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + + +What mortal, when he saw, +Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend, +Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly: +"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law°; °4 +The inly-written chart° thou gavest me, 5 +To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"? + +Ah! let us make no claim, +On life's incognisable° sea, °8 +To too exact a steering of our way; +Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, 10 +If some fair coast have lured us to make stay, +Or some friend hail'd us to keep company. + +Ay! we would each fain drive +At random, and not steer by rule. +Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain 15 +Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, +We rush by coasts where we had lief remain; +Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool. + +No! as the foaming swath +Of torn-up water, on the main, 20 +Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar +On either side the black deep-furrow'd path +Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,° °23 +And never touches the ship-side again; + +Even so we leave behind, 25 +As, charter'd by some unknown Powers +We stem° across the sea of life by night °27 +The joys which were not for our use design'd;-- +The friends to whom we had no natural right, +The homes that were not destined to be ours. 30 + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE + + +Yes°! in the sea of life enisled, °1 +With echoing straits between us thrown, +Dotting the shoreless watery wild, +We mortal millions live _alone_. +The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5 +And then their endless bounds they know. + +But when the moon° their hollows lights, °7 +And they are swept by balms of spring, +And in their glens, on starry nights, +The nightingales divinely sing; 10 +And lovely notes, from shore to shore, +Across the sounds and channels pour-- + +Oh! then a longing like despair +Is to their farthest caverns sent; +For surely once, they feel, we were 15 +Parts of a single continent! +Now round us spreads the watery plain-- +Oh might our marges meet again! + +Who order'd, that their longing's fire +Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? 20 +Who renders vain their deep desire?-- +A God, a God their severance ruled! +And bade betwixt their shores to be +The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.° °24 + + + + +KAISER DEAD° + +_April_ 6, 1887 + + +What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news +Post-haste to Cobham° calls the Muse, °2 +From where in Farringford° she brews °3 + The ode sublime, +Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard° pursues °5 + A rival rhyme. + +Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet, +Were known to all the village-street. +"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; + "A loss indeed!" 10 +O for the croon pathetic, sweet, + Of Robin's reed°! °12 + +Six years ago I brought him down, +A baby dog, from London town; +Round his small throat of black and brown 15 + A ribbon blue, +And vouch'd by glorious renown + A dachshound true. + +His mother, most majestic dame, +Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam° came; °20 +And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same-- + No lineage higher. +And so he bore the imperial name. + But ah, his sire! + +Soon, soon the days conviction bring. 25 +The collie hair, the collie swing, +The tail's indomitable ring, + The eye's unrest-- +The case was clear; a mongrel thing + Kai stood confest. 30 + +But all those virtues, which commend +The humbler sort who serve and tend, +Were thine in store, thou faithful friend. + What sense, what cheer! +To us, declining tow'rds our end, 35 + A mate how dear! + +For Max, thy brother-dog, began +To flag, and feel his narrowing span. +And cold, besides, his blue blood ran, + Since, 'gainst the classes, 40 +He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man° °41 + Incite the masses. + +Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad; +But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad, +Teeming with plans, alert, and glad 45 + In work or play, +Like sunshine went and came, and bade + Live out the day! + +Still, still I see the figure smart-- +Trophy in mouth, agog° to start, °50 +Then, home return'd, once more depart; + Or prest together +Against thy mistress, loving heart, + In winter weather. + +I see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd, 55 +In moments of disgrace uncurl'd, +Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd, + A conquering sign; +Crying, "Come on, and range the world, + And never pine." 60 + +Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone; +Thou hast thine errands, off and on; +In joy thy last morn flew; anon, + A fit! All's over; +And thou art gone where Geist° hath gone, °65 + And Toss, and Rover. + +Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head, +Regards his brother's form outspread; +Full well Max knows the friend is dead + Whose cordial talk, 70 +And jokes in doggish language said, + Beguiled his walk. + +And Glory, stretch'd at Burwood gate, +Thy passing by doth vainly wait; +And jealous Jock, thy only hate, 75 + The chiel° from Skye,° °76 +Lets from his shaggy Highland pate + Thy memory die. + +Well, fetch his graven collar fine, +And rub the steel, and make it shine, 80 +And leave it round thy neck to twine, + Kai, in thy grave. +There of thy master keep that sign, + And this plain stave. + + + + +THE LAST WORD° + + +Creep into thy narrow bed, +Creep, and let no more be said! +Vain thy onset! all stands fast. +Thou thyself must break at last. + +Let the long contention cease! 5 +Geese are swans, and swans are geese. +Let them have it how they will! +Thou art tired; best be still. + +They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? +Better men fared thus before thee; 10 +Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, +Hotly charged--and sank at last. + +Charge once more, then, and be dumb! +Let the victors, when they come, +When the forts of folly fall, 15 +Find thy body by the wall! + + + + +PALLADIUM° + + +Set where the upper streams of Simois° flow °1 +Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; +And Hector° was in Ilium° far below, °3 +And fought, and saw it not--but there it stood! + +It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light 5 +On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. +Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight +Round Troy--but while this stood, Troy could not fall. + +So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. +Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; 10 +Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; +We visit it by moments, ah, too rare! + +We shall renew the battle in the plain +To-morrow;--red with blood will Xanthus° be; °14 +Hector and Ajax° will be there again, °15 +Helen° will come upon the wall to see. °16 + +Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, +And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, +And fancy that we put forth all our life, +And never know how with the soul it fares. 20 + +Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, +Upon our life a ruling effluence send. +And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; +And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. + + + + +REVOLUTIONS + + +Before man parted for this earthly strand, +While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, +God put a heap of letters in his hand, +And bade him make with them what word he could. + +And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece, 5 +Rome, England, France;--yes, nor in vain essay'd +Way after way, changes that never cease! +The letters have combined, something was made. + +But ah! an inextinguishable sense +Haunts him that he has not made what he should; 10 +That he has still, though old, to recommence, +Since he has not yet found the word God would. + +And empire after empire, at their height +Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on; +Have felt their huge frames not constructed right, 15 +And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne. + +One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear +The word, the order, which God meant should be. +--Ah! we shall know _that_ well when it comes near; +The band will quit man's heart, he will breathe free. 20 + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE° + + +Weary of myself, and sick of asking +What I am, and what I ought to be, +At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me +Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. + +And a look of passionate desire 5 +O'er the sea and to the stars I send: +"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! + +"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, +On my heart your mighty charm renew; 10 +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" + +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, +Over the lit sea's unquiet way, +In the rustling night-air came the answer: 15 +"Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they. + +"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, +Undistracted by the sights they see, +These demand not that the things without them +Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 20 + +"And with joy the stars perform their shining, +And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll; +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting +All the fever of some differing soul. + +"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 25 +In what state God's other works may be, +In their own tasks all their powers pouring, +These attain the mighty life you see." + +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, +A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: 30 +"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, +Who finds himself, loses his misery!" + + + + +A SUMMER NIGHT + + +In the deserted, moon-blanch'd 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, 5 +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! 10 + +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; 15 +The spring-tide's brimming flow +Heaved dazzlingly between; +Houses, with long white sweep, + +Girdled the glistening bay; +Behind, through the soft air, 20 +The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away, +The night was far more fair-- +But the same restless pacings to and fro, +And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, +And the same bright, calm moon. 25 + +And the calm moonlight seems to say: +_Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast, +Which neither deadens into rest, +Nor ever feels the fiery glow +That whirls the spirit from itself away_, 30 +_But fluctuates to and fro, +Never by passion quite possess'd +And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?--_ +And I, I know not if to pray +Still to be what I am, or yield and be 35 +Like all the other men I see. + +For most men in a brazen prison live, +Where, in the sun's hot eye, +With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly +Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, 40 +Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall. +And as, year after year, +Fresh products of their barren labour fall +From their tired hands, and rest +Never yet comes more near, 45 +Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; +A while they try to stem +The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, +And the rest, a few, +Escape their prison and depart 50 +On the wide ocean of life anew. +There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart +Listeth, will sail; +Nor doth he know how these prevail, +Despotic on that sea, 55 +Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. +Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd +By thwarting signs, and braves +The freshening wind and blackening waves +And then the tempest strikes him; and between 60 +The lightning-bursts is seen +Only a driving wreck. +And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck +With anguished face and flying hair, +Grasping the rudder hard, 65 +Still bent to make some port he knows not where, +Still standing for some false, impossible shore. +And sterner comes the roar +Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom +Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom 70 +And he, too, disappears and comes no more. + +Is there no life, but there alone? +Madman or slave, must man be one? +Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! +Clearness divine. 75 +Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign +Of languor, though so calm, and though so great +Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; +Who though so noble, share in the world's toil. +And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil! 80 + +I will not say that your mild deeps retain +A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain +Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain-- +But I will rather say that you remain +A world above man's head, to let him see 85 +How boundless might his soul's horizon be, +How vast, yet of which clear transparency! +How it were good to live there, and breathe free! +How fair a lot to fill +Is left to each man still! 90 + + + + +GEIST'S GRAVE° + + +Four years!--and didst thou stay above +The ground, which hides thee now, but four? +And all that life, and all that love, +Were crowded, Geist! into no more? + +Only four years those winning ways, 5 +Which make me for thy presence yearn, +Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, +Dear little friend! at every turn? + +That loving heart, that patient soul, +Had they indeed no longer span, 10 +To run their course, and reach their goal, +And read their homily° to man? °12 + +That liquid, melancholy eye, +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs +Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,° °15 +The sense of tears in mortal things-- + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled +By spirits gloriously gay, +And temper of heroic mould-- +What, was four years their whole short day? 20 + +Yes, only four!--and not the course +Of all the centuries yet to come, +And not the infinite resource +Of Nature, with her countless sum + +Of figures, with her fulness vast 25 +Of new creation evermore, +Can ever quite repeat the past, +Or just thy little self restore. + +Stern law of every mortal lot! +Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, 30 +And builds himself I know not what +Of second life I know not where. + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go, +On us, who stood despondent by, +A meek last glance of love didst throw, 35 +And humbly lay thee down to die. + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart-- +Would fix our favourite on the scene, +Nor let thee utterly depart +And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 40 + +And so there rise these lines of verse +On lips that rarely form them now°; °42 +While to each other we rehearse: +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! + +We stroke thy broad brown paws again, 45 +We bid thee to thy vacant chair, +We greet thee by the window-pane, +We hear thy scuffle on the stair. + +We see the flaps of thy large ears +Quick raised to ask which way we go; 50 +Crossing the frozen lake, appears +Thy small black figure on the snow! + +Nor to us only art thou dear +Who mourn thee in thine English home; +Thou hast thine absent master's° tear, 55 +Dropt by the far Australian foam. + +Thy memory lasts both here and there, +And thou shalt live as long as we. +And after that--thou dost not care! +In us was all the world to thee. 60 + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, +Even to a date beyond our own +We strive to carry down thy name, +By mounded turf, and graven stone. + +We lay thee, close within our reach, 65 +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, +Between the holly and the beech, +Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, + +Asleep, yet lending half an ear +To travellers on the Portsmouth road;-- 70 +There build we thee, O guardian dear, +Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode! + +Then some, who through this garden pass, +When we too, like thyself, are clay, +Shall see thy grave upon the grass, 75 +And stop before the stone, and say: + +_People who lived here long ago +Did by this stone, it seems, intend +To name for future times to know +The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend._ 80 + + + + +EPILOGUE + +TO LESSING'S LAOCOÖN° + + +One morn as through Hyde Park° we walk'd, °1 +My friend and I, by chance we talk'd +Of Lessing's famed Laocoön; +And after we awhile had gone +In Lessing's track, and tried to see 5 +What painting is, what poetry-- +Diverging to another thought, +"Ah," cries my friend, "but who hath taught +Why music and the other arts +Oftener perform aright their parts 10 +Than poetry? why she, than they, +Fewer fine successes can display? + +"For 'tis so, surely! Even in Greece, +Where best the poet framed his piece, +Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground° °15 +Pausanias° on his travels found °16 +Good poems, if he look'd, more rare +(Though many) than good statues were-- +For these, in truth, were everywhere. +Of bards full many a stroke divine 20 +In Dante's,° Petrarch's,° Tasso's° line, °21 +The land of Ariosto° show'd; °22 +And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd +With triumphs, a yet ampler brood, +Of Raphael° and his brotherhood. °25 +And nobly perfect, in our day +Of haste, half-work, and disarray, +Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong, +Hath risen Goethe's,° Wordsworth's° song; °29 +Yet even I (and none will bow 30 +Deeper to these) must needs allow, +They yield us not, to soothe our pains, +Such multitude of heavenly strains +As from the kings of sound are blown, +Mozart,° Beethoven,° Mendelssohn.°" °35 + +While thus my friend discoursed, we pass +Out of the path, and take the grass. +The grass had still the green of May, +And still the unblackan'd elms were gay; +The kine were resting in the shade, 40 +The flies a summer-murmur made. +Bright was the morn and south° the air; °42 +The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair +As those which pastured by the sea, +That old-world morn, in Sicily, 45 +When on the beach the Cyclops lay, +And Galatea from the bay +Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay.° °48 +"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere! +The limits of his art appear. 50 +The passing group, the summer-morn, +The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn-- +Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise, +Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes-- +These, or much greater things, but caught 55 +Like these, and in one aspect brought! +In outward semblance he must give +A moment's life of things that live; +Then let him choose his moment well, +With power divine its story tell." 60 + +Still we walk'd on, in thoughtful mood, +And now upon the bridge we stood. +Full of sweet breathings was the air, +Of sudden stirs and pauses fair. +Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze 65 +Came rustling from the garden-trees +And on the sparkling waters play'd; +Light-plashing waves an answer made, +And mimic boats their haven near'd. +Beyond, the Abbey-towers° appear'd, °70 +By mist and chimneys unconfined, +Free to the sweep of light and wind; +While through their earth-moor'd nave below +Another breath of wind doth blow, +Sound as of wandering breeze--but sound 75 +In laws by human artists bound. + +"The world of music°!" I exclaimed:-- °77 +"This breeze that rustles by, that famed +Abbey recall it! what a sphere +Large and profound, hath genius here! 80 +The inspired musician what a range, +What power of passion, wealth of change +Some source of feeling he must choose +And its lock'd fount of beauty use, +And through the stream of music tell 85 +Its else unutterable spell; +To choose it rightly is his part, +And press into its inmost heart. + +"_Miserere Domine°!_ °89 +The words are utter'd, and they flee. 90 +Deep is their penitential moan, +Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone. +They have declared the spirit's sore +Sore load, and words can do no more. +Beethoven takes them then--those two 95 +Poor, bounded words--and makes them new; +Infinite makes them, makes them young; +Transplants them to another tongue, +Where they can now, without constraint, +Pour all the soul of their complaint, 100 +And roll adown a channel large +The wealth divine they have in charge. +Page after page of music turn, +And still they live and still they burn, +Eternal, passion-fraught, and free-- 105 +_Miserere Domine°!"_ °106 + +Onward we moved, and reach'd the Ride° °107 +Where gaily flows the human tide. +Afar, in rest the cattle lay; +We heard, afar, faint music play; 110 +But agitated, brisk, and near, +Men, with their stream of life, were here. +Some hang upon the rails, and some +On foot behind them go and come. +This through the Ride upon his steed 115 +Goes slowly by, and this at speed. +The young, the happy, and the fair, +The old, the sad, the worn, were there; +Some vacant,° and some musing went, +And some in talk and merriment. 120 +Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells! +And now and then, perhaps, there swells +A sigh, a tear--but in the throng +All changes fast, and hies° along. °124 +Hies, ah, from whence, what native ground? 125 +And to what goal, what ending, bound? +"Behold, at last the poet's sphere! +But who," I said, "suffices here? + +"For, ah! so much he has to do; +Be painter and musician too°! °130 +The aspect of the moment show, +The feeling of the moment know! +The aspect not, I grant, express +Clear as the painter's art can dress; +The feeling not, I grant, explore 135 +So deep as the musician's lore-- +But clear as words can make revealing, +And deep as words can follow feeling. +But, ah! then comes his sorest spell +Of toil--he must life's _movement_° tell! °140 +The thread which binds it all in one, +And not its separate parts alone. +The _movement_ he must tell of life, +Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife; +His eye must travel down, at full, 145 +The long, unpausing spectacle; +With faithful unrelaxing force +Attend it from its primal source, +From change to change and year to year +Attend it of its mid career, 150 +Attend it to the last repose +And solemn silence of its close. + +"The cattle rising from the grass +His thought must follow where they pass; +The penitent with anguish bow'd 155 +His thought must follow through the crowd. +Yes! all this eddying, motley throng +That sparkles in the sun along, +Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold, +Master and servant, young and old, 160 +Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife, +He follows home, and lives their life. + +"And many, many are the souls +Life's movement fascinates, controls; +It draws them on, they cannot save 165 +Their feet from its alluring wave; +They cannot leave it, they must go +With its unconquerable flow. +But ah! how few, of all that try +This mighty march, do aught but die! 170 +For ill-endow'd for such a way, +Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they. +They faint, they stagger to and fro, +And wandering from the stream they go; +In pain, in terror, in distress, 175 +They see, all round, a wilderness. +Sometimes a momentary gleam +They catch of the mysterious stream; +Sometimes, a second's space, their ear +The murmur of its waves doth hear. 180 +That transient glimpse in song they say, +But not of painter can pourtray-- +That transient sound in song they tell, +But not, as the musician, well. +And when at last their snatches cease, 185 +And they are silent and at peace, +The stream of life's majestic whole +Hath ne'er been mirror'd on their soul. + +"Only a few the life-stream's shore +With safe unwandering feet explore; 190 +Untired its movement bright attend, +Follow its windings to the end. +Then from its brimming waves their eye +Drinks up delighted ecstasy, +And its deep-toned, melodious voice 195 +For ever makes their ear rejoice. +They speak! the happiness divine +They feel, runs o'er in every line; +Its spell is round them like a shower-- +It gives them pathos, gives them power. 200 +No painter yet hath such a way, +Nor no musician made, as they, +And gather'd on immortal knolls +Such lovely flowers for cheering souls. +Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach 205 +The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach. +To these, to these, their thankful race +Gives, then, the first, the fairest place; +And brightest is their glory's sheen, +For greatest hath their labour been.°" °210 + + + + + + +SONNETS + + + + +QUIET WORK° + + +One lesson,° Nature, let me learn of thee, °1 +One lesson which in every wind is blown, +One lesson of two duties kept at one +Though the loud° world proclaim their enmity-- °4 + +Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity! 5 +Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows +Far noisier° schemes, accomplish'd in repose, °7 +Too great for haste, too high for rivalry! + +Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, +Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, 10 +Still do thy sleepless ministers move on, + +Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; +Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, +Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE° + + +Others abide our question. Thou art free. +We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still, +Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, +Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, + +Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5 +Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, +Spares but the cloudy border of his base +To the foil'd searching of mortality; + +And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know +Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, 10 +Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so! + +All pains the immortal spirit must endure, +All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow +Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS° + + +When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, +From this poor present self which I am now; +When youth has done its tedious vain expense +Of passions that for ever ebb and flow; + +Shall I not joy° youth's heats° are left behind, °5 +And breathe more happy in an even clime°?-- °6 +Ah no, for then I shall begin to find +A thousand virtues in this hated time! + +Then I shall wish its agitations back, +And all its thwarting currents of desire; 10 +Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, +And call this hurrying fever,° generous fire; °12 + +And sigh that one thing only has been lent +To youth and age in common--discontent. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY° + + +That son of Italy° who tried to blow, °1 +Ere Dante° came, the trump of sacred song, °2 +In his light youth° amid a festal throng °3 +Sate with his bride to see a public show. + +Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow 5 +Youth like a star; and what to youth belong-- +Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong. +A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo, + +'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! +Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found 10 +A robe of sackcloth° next the smooth, white skin. °11 + +Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, +Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground +Of thought and of austerity within. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + + +_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ +So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, +Marcus Aurelius.° But the stifling den °3 +Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, + +Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 5 +And drudge under some foolish° master's ken.° °6 +Who rates° us if we peer outside our pen-- °7 +Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell? + +_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, +Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; 10 +And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame + +Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, +I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! +The aids to noble life are all within." + + + + +EAST LONDON + + +'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead +Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,° °2 +And the pale weaver, through his windows seen +In Spitalfields,° look'd thrice dispirited. °4 + +I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 5 +"Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"-- +"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been, +Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread."_ + +O human soul! as long as thou canst so +Set up a mark of everlasting light, 10 +Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + +To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- +Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! +Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. + + + + +WEST LONDON + + +Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square,° °1 +A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. +A babe was in her arms, and at her side +A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. + +Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, 5 +Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied +Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied. +The rich she had let pass with frozen stare. + +Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers; +She will not ask of aliens but of friends, 10 +Of sharers in a common human fate. + +"She turns from that cold succour, which attends +The unknown little from the unknowing great, +And points us to a better time than ours." + + + + + + +ELEGIAC POEMS + + + + +MEMORIAL VERSES° + +_April_, 1850 + + +Goethe in Weimar sleeps,° and Greece, °1 +Long since, saw Byron's° struggle cease. °2 +But one such death remain'd to come; +The last poetic voice is dumb-- +We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. 5 + +When Byron's eyes were shut in death, +We bow'd our head and held our breath. +He taught us little; but our soul +Had _felt_ him like the thunder's roll. +With shivering heart the strife we saw 10 +Of passion with eternal law; +And yet with reverential awe +We watch'd the fount of fiery life +Which served for that Titanic strife. + +When Goethe's death was told, we said: 15 +Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. +Physician of the iron age,° °17 +Goethe has done his pilgrimage. +He took the suffering human race, +He read each wound, each weakness clear; 20 +And struck his finger on the place, +And said: _Thou ailest here, and here!_ +He look'd on Europe's dying hour +Of fitful dream and feverish power; +His eye plunged down the weltering strife, 25 +The turmoil of expiring life-- +He said: _The end is everywhere, +Art still has truth, take refuge there!_ +And he was happy, if to know +Causes of things, and far below 30 +His feet to see the lurid flow +Of terror, and insane distress, +And headlong fate, be happiness. + +And Wordsworth!--Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! +For never has such soothing voice 35 +Been to your shadowy world convey'd, +Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade +Heard the clear song of Orpheus° come °38 +Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. +Wordsworth has gone from us--and ye, 40 +Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! +He too upon a wintry clime +Had fallen--on this iron time +Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. +He found us when the age had bound 45 +Our souls in its benumbing round; +He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. +He laid us as we lay at birth +On the cool flowery lap of earth, +Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 50 +The hills were round us, and the breeze +Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; +Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. +Our youth returned; for there was shed +On spirits that had long been dead, 55 +Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, +The freshness of the early world. + +Ah! since dark days still bring to light +Man's prudence and man's fiery might, +Time may restore us in his course 60 +Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; +But where will Europe's latter hour +Again find Wordsworth's healing power? +Others will teach us how to dare, +And against fear our breast to steel; 65 +Others will strengthen us to bear-- +But who, ah! who, will make us feel +The cloud of mortal destiny? +Others will front it fearlessly-- +But who, like him, will put it by? 70 + +Keep fresh the grass upon his grave +O Rotha,° with thy living wave! °72 +Sing him thy best! for few or none +Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY° + + +Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; + Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes°! °2 + No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, + Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, + Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head. 5 + But when the fields are still, + And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, + And only the white sheep are sometimes seen; + Cross and recross° the strips of moon-blanch'd green, °9 + Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 10 + +Here, where the reaper was at work of late-- + In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves + His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,° °13 + And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, + Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use-- 15 + Here will I sit and wait, + While to my ear from uplands far away + The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, + With distant cries of reapers in the corn°-- °19 + All the live murmur of a summer's day. 20 + +Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, + And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. + Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, + And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see + Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 25 + And air-swept lindens yield + Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers + Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, + And bower me from the August sun with shade; + And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.° °30 + +And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book°-- °31 + Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! + The story of the Oxford scholar poor, + Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, + Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 35 + One summer-morn forsook + His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, + And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood, + And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, + But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40 + +But once, years after, in the country-lanes, + Two scholars, whom at college erst° he knew, °42 + Met him, and of his way of life enquired; + Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew, + His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 45 + The workings of men's brains, + And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. + "And I," he said, "the secret of their art, + When fully learn'd, will to the world impart; + But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.°" °50 + +This said, he left them, and return'd no more.-- + But rumours hung about the country-side, + That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, + Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, + In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55 + The same the gipsies wore. + Shepherds had met him on the Hurst° in spring; °57 + At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,° °58 + On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors + Had found him seated at their entering. 60 + +But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. + And I myself seem half to know, thy looks, + And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; + And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks + I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place; 65 + Or in my boat I lie + Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats, + 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills. + And watch the warm, green-muffled° Cumner hills, °69 + And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 70 + +For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! + Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, + Returning home on summer-nights, have met + Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,° °74 + Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 + As the punt's rope chops round; + And leaning backward in a pensive dream, + And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers + Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers + And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 80 + +And then they land, and thou art seen no more!-- + Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come; + To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,° °83 + Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam + Or cross a stile into the public way. + Oft thou hast given them store 85 + Of flowers--the frail-leaf'd, white anemony, + Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves + And purple orchises with spotted leaves-- + But none hath words she can report of thee. 90 + +And, above Godstow Bridge,° when hay-time's here + In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, + Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass + Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames, + To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass,° °95 + Have often pass'd thee near + Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; + Mark'd thine outlandish° garb, thy figure spare, °98 + Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air-- + But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! 100 + +At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, + Where at her open door the housewife darns, + Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate + To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. + Children, who early range these slopes and late 105 + For cresses from the rills, + Have known thee eying, all an April-day, + The springing pastures and the feeding kine; + And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, + Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 110 + +In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood°-- °111 + Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way + Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see + With scarlet patches tagg'd° and shreds of grey, °114 + Above the forest-ground called Thessaly°-- °115 + The blackbird, picking food, + Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; + So often has he known thee past him stray + Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray, + And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 120 + +And once, in winter, on the causeway chill + Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, + Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge, + Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, + Thy face tow'rd Hinksey° and its wintry ridge? °125 + And thou hast climb'd the hill, + And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; + Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall + The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall°-- °129 + Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. °130 + +But what--I dream! Two hundred years are flown + Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, + And the grave Glanvil° did the tale inscribe °133 + That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls + To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe; 135 + And thou from earth art gone + Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid-- + Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave + Tall grasses and white-flowering nettles wave, + Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's° shade. °140 + +--No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! + For what wears out the life of mortal men? + 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls + 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, + Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 145 + And numb the elastic powers. + Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,° °147 + And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, + To the just-pausing Genius° we remit °149 + Our worn-out life, and are--what we have been. 150 + +Thou hast not lived,° why should'st thou perish, so? °151 + Thou hadst _one_ aim, _one_ business, _one_ desire°; °152 + Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead! + Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! + The generations of thy peers are fled, 155 + And we ourselves shall go; + But thou possessest an immortal lot, + And we imagine thee exempt from age + And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, + Because thou hadst--what we, alas! have not.° °160 + +For early didst thou leave the world, with powers + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; + Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, + Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings°. °165 + O life unlike to ours! + Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, + Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, + And each half lives a hundred different lives; + Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.° °170 + +Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, + Light half-believers of our casual creeds, + Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, + Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, + Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; 175 + For whom each year we see + Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; + Who hesitate and falter life away, + And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day-- + Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too° °180 + +Yes, we await it!--but it still delays, + And then we suffer! and amongst us one, + Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly + His seat upon the intellectual throne; + And all his store of sad experience he 185 + Lays bare of wretched days; + Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, + And how the dying spark of hope was fed, + And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, + And all his hourly varied anodynes.° °190 + +This for our wisest! and we others pine, + And wish the long unhappy dream would end, + And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; + With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend, + Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair-- 195 + But none has hope like thine! + Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, + Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, + Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, + And every doubt long blown by time away. 200 + +O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, + And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; + Before this strange disease of modern life, + With its sick hurry, its divided aims, + Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife-- 205 + Fly hence, our contact fear! + Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! + Averse, as Dido° did with gesture stern° °208 + From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, + Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! 210 + +Still nursing the unconquerable hope, + Still clutching the inviolable shade,° °212 + With a free, onward impulse brushing through, + By night, the silver'd branches° of the glade-- °214 + Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 215 + On some mild pastoral slope + Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales + Freshen thy flowers as in former years + With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, + From the dark dingles,° to the nightingales! 220 + +But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! + For strong the infection of our mental strife, + Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; + And we should win thee from thy own fair life, + Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 225 + Soon, soon thy cheer would die, + Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, + And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; + And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, + Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 230 + +Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! + --As some grave Tyrian° trader, from the sea, + Descried at sunrise an emerging prow + Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily, + The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 + Among the Ægæan isles°; °236 + And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, + Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,° °238 + Green, bursting figs, and tunnies° steep'd in brine-- °239 + And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 240 + +The young light-hearted masters of the waves-- + And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail; + And day and night held on indignantly + O'er the blue Midland waters° with the gale, °244 + Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 245 + To where the Atlantic raves + Outside the western straits°; and unbent sails °247 + There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, + Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come°; °249 + And on the beach undid his corded bales.° °250 + + + + +THYRSIS° + +A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861 + + +How changed is here each spot man makes or fills°! °1 + In the two Hinkseys° nothing keeps the same; °2 + The village street its haunted mansion lacks, + And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,° °4 + And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks-- 5 + Are ye too changed, ye hills°? °6 + See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men + To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! + Here came I often, often, in old days-- + Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. 10 + +Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, + Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns + The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames + The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs°? °14 + The Vale,° the three lone weirs,° the youthful Thames?--, °15 + This winter-eve is warm, + Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, + The tender purple spray on copse and briers! + And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,° °19 + She needs not June for beauty's heightening,° °20 + +Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!-- + Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power + Befalls me wandering through this upland dim,° °23 + Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour°; °24 + Now seldom come I, since I came with him. 25 + That single elm-tree bright + Against the west--I miss it! is it gone? + We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, + Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; + While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.° °30 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, + But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; + And with the country-folk acquaintance made + By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. + Here, too, our shepherd-pipes° we first assay'd. °35 + Ah me! this many a year + My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! + Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart + Into the world and wave of men depart; + But Thyrsis of his own will went away.° °40 + +It irk'd° him to be here, he could not rest. °41 + He loved each simple joy the country yields, + He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,° °43 + For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, + Here with the shepherds and the silly° sheep. °45 + Some life of men unblest + He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head. + He went; his piping took a troubled sound + Of storms° that rage outside our happy ground; + He could not wait their passing, he is dead.° °50 + +So, some tempestuous morn in early June, + When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, + Before the roses and the longest day-- + When garden-walks and all the grassy floor + With blossoms red and white of fallen May° °55 + And chestnut-flowers are strewn-- + So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, + From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, + Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: + _The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I°!_ °60 + +Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? + Soon will the high Midsummer pomps° come on, °62 + Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, + Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, + Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, 65 + And stocks in fragrant blow; + Roses that down the alleys shine afar, + And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, + And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, + And the full moon, and the white evening-star. 70 + +He hearkens not! light comer,° he is flown! °71 + What matters it? next year he will return, + And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days. +With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, + And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, 75 + And scent of hay new-mown. + But Thyrsis never more we swains° shall see; °77 + See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,° °78 + And blow a strain the world at last shall heed°-- °79 + For Time, not Corydon,° hath conquer'd thee! °80 + +Alack, for Corydon no rival now!-- + But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, + Some good survivor with his flute would go, + Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate°; °84 + And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,° °85 + And relax Pluto's brow, + And make leap up with joy the beauteous head + Of Proserpine,° among whose crowned hair °88 + Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air, + And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.° °90 + +O easy access to the hearer's grace + When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! + For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, + She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,° °94 + She knew each lily white which Enna yields, 95 + Each rose with blushing face°; °96 + She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.° °97 + But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! + Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd; + And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! 100 + +Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be, + Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour + In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill! + Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? + I know the wood which hides the daffodil, 105 + I know the Fyfield tree,° °106 + I know what white, what purple fritillaries + The grassy harvest of the river-fields, + Above by Ensham,° down by Sandford,° yields, °109 + And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; 110 + +I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?-- + But many a dingle on the loved hill-side, + With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees + Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried + High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises, 115 + Hath since our day put by + The coronals of that forgotten time; + Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, + And only in the hidden brookside gleam + Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 120 + +Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, + Above the locks, above the boating throng, + Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,° °123 + Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among + And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 125 + We track'd the shy Thames shore? + Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell + Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, + Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?-- + They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 130 + +Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night + In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. + I see her veil draw soft across the day, + I feel her slowly chilling breath invade + The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent° with grey; °135 + I feel her finger light + Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;-- + The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, + The heart less bounding at emotion new, + And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 140 + +And long the way appears, which seem'd so short + To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; + And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, +The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, + Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! 145 + Unbreachable the fort + Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; + And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, + And near and real the charm of thy repose, + And night as welcome as a friend would fall.° °150 + +But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss + Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side, + A troop of Oxford hunters going home, +As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! + From hunting with the Berkshire° hounds they come. °155 + Quick! let me fly, and cross + Into yon farther field!--'Tis done; and see, + Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify + The orange and pale violet evening-sky, + Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 160 + +I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, + The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, + The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, + And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. + I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165 + Yet, happy omen, hail! + Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale° °167 + (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep + The morningless and unawakening sleep + Under the flowery oleanders pale), 170 + +Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!-- + Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, + These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, + That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; + To a boon southern country he is fled,° °175 + And now in happier air, + Wandering with the great Mother's° train divine °177 + (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, + I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) + Within a folding of the Apennine, 180 + +Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!-- + Putting his sickle to the perilous grain + In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, + For thee the Lityerses-song again + Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; 185 + Sings his Sicilian fold, + His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes-- + And how a call celestial round him rang, + And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, + And all the marvel of the golden skies.° °190 + +There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here + Sole° in these fields! yet will I not despair. + Despair I will not, while I yet descry + 'Neath the mild canopy of English air + That lonely tree against the western sky. 195 + Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, + Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee + Fields where soft sheep° from cages pull the hay, + Woods with anemonies in flower till May, + Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?° °200 + +A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, + Shy to illumin; and I seek it too.° °202 + This does not come with houses or with gold, + With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; + 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold-- 205 + But the smooth-slipping weeks + Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; + Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, + He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; + Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. 210 + +Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest was bound; + Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! + Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, + If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power, + If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. 215 + And this rude Cumner ground, + Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, + Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time, + Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! + And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. 220 + +What though the music of thy rustic flute + Kept not for long its happy, country tone; + Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note + Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, + Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat-- 225 + It fail'd, and thou wast mute! + Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light, + And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, + And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, + Left human haunt, and on alone till night. 230 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! + 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, + Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. + Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, + Let in thy voice a whisper often come, 235 + To chase fatigue and fear: + _Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died. + Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. + Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill, + Our scholar travels yet the loved hill-side._ 240 + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL° + +_November 1857_ + + +Coldly, sadly descends +The autumn-evening. The field +Strewn with its dank yellow drifts +Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, +Fade into dimness apace, 5 +Silent;--hardly a shout +From a few boys late at their play! +The lights come out in the street, +In the school-room windows;--but cold, +Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 +Through the gathering darkness, arise +The chapel-walls, in whose bound +Thou, my father! art laid.° °13 + +There thou dost lie, in the gloom +Of the autumn evening. But ah! 15 +That word, _gloom,°_ to my mind °16 +Brings thee back, in the light +Of thy radiant vigour, again; +In the gloom of November we pass'd +Days not dark at thy side; 20 +Seasons impair'd not the ray +Of thy buoyant cheerfulness, clear. +Such thou wast! and I stand +In the autumn evening, and think +Of bygone autumns with thee. 25 + +Fifteen years have gone round +Since thou arosest to tread, +In the summer-morning, the road +Of death, at a call unforeseen, +Sudden. For fifteen years, 30 +We who till then in thy shade +Rested as under the boughs +Of a mighty oak,° have endured °33 +Sunshine and rain as we might, +Bare, unshaded, alone, 35 +Lacking the shelter of thee. + +O strong soul, by what shore° °37 +Tarriest thou now? For that force, +Surely, has not been left vain! +Somewhere, surely, afar, 40 +In the sounding labour-house vast +Of being, is practised that strength, +Zealous, beneficent, firm! + +Yes, in some far-shining sphere, +Conscious or not of the past, 45 +Still thou performest the word +Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-- +Prompt, unwearied, as here! +Still thou upraisest with zeal +The humble good from the ground, 50 +Sternly repressest the bad! +Still, like a trumpet, doth rouse +Those who with half-open eyes +Tread the border-land dim +'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 55 +Succourest!--this was thy work, +This was thy life upon earth.° °57 + +What is the course of the life +Of mortal men on the earth°?-- °59 +Most men eddy about 60 +Here and there--eat and drink, +Chatter and love and hate, +Gather and squander, are raised +Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust, +Striving blindly, achieving 65 +Nothing; and then they die-- +Perish;--and no one asks +Who or what they have been, +More than he asks what waves, +In the moonlit solitudes mild 70 +Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd, +Foam'd for a moment, and gone. + +And there are some, whom a thirst +Ardent, unquenchable, fires, +Not with the crowd to be spent, 75 +Not without aim to go round +In an eddy of purposeless dust, +Effort unmeaning and vain. +Ah yes! some of us strive +Not without action to die 80 +Fruitless, but something to snatch +From dull oblivion, nor all +Glut the devouring grave! +We, we have chosen our path-- +Path to a clear-purposed goal, 85 +Path of advance!--but it leads +A long, steep journey, through sunk +Gorges, o'er mountains in snow. +Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-- +Then, on the height, comes the storm. 90 +Thunder crashes from rock +To rock, the cataracts reply, +Lightnings dazzle our eyes.° °93 +Roaring torrents have breach'd +The track, the stream-bed descends 95 +In the place where the wayfarer once +Planted his footstep--the spray +Boils o'er its borders! aloft +The unseen snow-beds dislodge +Their hanging ruin°; alas, °100 +Havoc is made in our train! + +Friends, who set forth at our side, +Falter, are lost in the storm. +We, we only are left! +With frowning foreheads, with lips 105 +Sternly compress'd, we strain on, +On--and at nightfall at last +Come to the end of our way, +To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; +Where the gaunt and taciturn host 110 +Stands on the threshold, the wind +Shaking his thin white hairs-- +Holds his lantern to scan +Our storm-beat figures, and asks: +Whom in our party we bring? 115 +Whom we have left in the snow? + +Sadly we answer: We bring +Only ourselves! we lost +Sight of the rest in the storm. +Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120 +Stripp'd, without friends, as we are. +Friends, companions, and train, +The avalanche swept from our side.° °123 + +But thou would'st not _alone_ +Be saved, my father! _alone_ 125 +Conquer and come to thy goal, +Leaving the rest in the wild. +We were weary, and we +Fearful, and we in our march +Fain to drop down and to die. 130 +Still thou turnedst, and still +Beckonedst the trembler, and still +Gavest the weary thy hand. + +If, in the paths of the world, +Stones might have wounded thy feet, 135 +Toil or dejection have tried +Thy spirit, of that we saw +Nothing--to us thou wast still +Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! +Therefore to thee it was given 140 +Many to save with thyself; +And, at the end of thy day, +O faithful shepherd! to come, +Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.° °144 + +And through thee I believe 145 +In the noble and great who are gone; +Pure souls honour'd and blest +By former ages, who else-- +Such, so soulless, so poor, +Is the race of men whom I see-- 150 +Seem'd but a dream of the heart, +Seem'd but a cry of desire. +Yes! I believe that there lived +Others like thee in the past, +Not like the men of the crowd 155 +Who all round me to-day +Bluster or cringe, and make life +Hideous, and arid, and vile; +But souls temper'd with fire, +Fervent, heroic, and good, 160 +Helpers and friends of mankind. + +Servants of God!--or sons +Shall I not call you? because +Not as servants ye knew +Your Father's innermost mind, 165 +His, who unwillingly sees +One of his little ones lost-- +Yours is the praise, if mankind +Hath not as yet in its march +Fainted, and fallen, and died! 170 + +See! In the rocks° of the world +Marches the host of mankind, +A feeble, wavering line. +Where are they tending?--A God +Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. 175 +Ah, but the way is so long! +Years they have been in the wild! +Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, +Rising all round, overawe; +Factions divide them, their host 180 +Threatens to break, to dissolve. +--Ah, keep, keep them combined! +Else, of the myriads who fill +That army, not one shall arrive; +Sole they shall stray: in the rocks 185 +Stagger for ever in vain, +Die one by one in the waste. + +Then, in such hour of need +Of your fainting, dispirited race, +Ye,° like angels, appear, 190 +Radiant with ardour divine! +Beacons of hope, ye appear! +Languor is not in your heart, +Weakness is not in your word, +Weariness not on your brow. 195 +Ye alight in our van! at your voice, +Panic, despair, flee away. +Ye move through the ranks, recall +The stragglers, refresh the outworn, +Praise, re-inspire the brave! 200 +Order, courage, return. +Eyes rekindling, and prayers, +Follow your steps as ye go. +Ye fill up the gaps in our files, +Strengthen the wavering line, 205 +Stablish, continue our march, +On, to the bound of the waste, +On, to the City of God.° °208 + + + + + + + + + * * * * * + [149] + +NOTES + + * * * * * + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than anything +I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I shall not +ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments +instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a letter to +Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.) + +"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished +and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and I think +it will be generally liked; though one can never be sure of this. I +have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a rare thing with me, +and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure what you write is likely +to afford to others. But the story is a very noble and excellent one." +(Arnold, in a letter to his mother, May, 1853.) + +The following synopsis of the story of Sohrab and Rustum the "tale +replete with tears," is gathered from several sources, chiefly +Benjamin's _Persia_, in _The Story of the Nations_, Sir John Malcolm's +_History of Persia_, and the great Persian epic poem, _Shah Nameh_. +The _Shah Nameh_ the original source of the story, and which purports +to narrate the exploits of Persia's kings and champions over a space +of thirty-six centuries, bears the same relation to Persian literature +as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ to the Greek, and the _Æneid_ to the +Latin, though in structure it more nearly resembles _Morte d'Arthur_, +which records in order the achievements of various heroes. In it +the native poet Mansur ibn Ahmad, afterwards known to literature +as Firdausi, the Paradisaical, has set down the early tales and +traditions of his people with all the vividness and color common to +oriental writers. The principal hero of the poem is the mighty Rustum, +who, mounted on his famous horse Ruksh, performed prodigies of valor +in defence of the Persian throne. Of all his adventures his encounter +with Sohrab is the most dramatic. The poem was probably written in +the latter half of the tenth century. As will be seen, the incidents +narrated in Arnold's poem form but an episode in the complete story of +the two champions. [150] + +Rustum (or Rustem), having killed a wild ass while hunting on the +Turanian frontier, and having feasted on its flesh, composed himself +to sleep, leaving his faithful steed, Ruksh (or Raksh), to graze +untethered. On awakening, he found his horse had disappeared, and +believing it had been stolen, the warrior proceeded towards Semenjan, +a near-by city, in hopes of recovering his property. On the way, he +learned that Ruksh had been found by the servants of the king and was +stabled at Semenjan, as he had surmised. Upon Rustum's demand, the +steed was promptly restored to him, and he was about to depart when he +was prevailed upon to accept the king's invitation to tarry awhile and +rest himself in feasting and idleness. + +Now the king of Semenjan had a fair daughter named Tahmineh, who had +become enamoured of Rustum because of his mighty exploits. Susceptible +as she was beautiful, she made her attachment so evident that the +young hero, who was as ardent as he was brave, readily yielded to +the power of her fascination. The consent of the king having been +obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were married with all the rites +prescribed by the laws of the country. A peculiar feature of this +alliance lay in the fact that the king of Semenjan was feudatory to +Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, while Rustum was her greatest +champion. At this time, however, the two countries were at peace. + [151] +For a time all went happily, then Rustum found it necessary to leave +his bride, as he thought, for only a short time. At parting he gave +her an onyx, which he wore on his arm, bidding her, if a daughter +should be born to their union, to twine the gem in her hair under a +fortunate star; but if a son, to bind it on his arm, and he would be +insured a glorious career. Rustum then mounted Ruksh and rode away--as +time proved, never to return. + +The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous son, +whom, because of his comely features, she named Sohrab. Fearing Rustum +would send for the boy when he grew older, and thus rob her of her +treasure, Tahmineh sent word to him that the child was a girl--"no +son," and Rustum took no further interest in it. + +While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble lineage. +He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of ten years, +according to the tradition, was large and handsome and highly +accomplished in the use of arms. Realizing at length that he was of +lofty descent, he insisted that his mother, who had concealed the +fact, should inform him of the name of his father. Being told that it +was the renowned Rustum, he exclaimed, "Since he is my father, I shall +go to his aid; he shall become king of Persia and together we shall +rule the world." After this the youth caused a horse worthy of him to +be found, and with the aid of his grandfather, the king of Semenjan, +he prepared to go on the quest, attended by a mighty host. + +When Afrasiab, the Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was going to +war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after counselling +with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his enterprises, +with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab would fall in battle +and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly sent an army of auxiliaries +to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute courtiers, Houman and Barman, +who, under the guise of friendship, were to act as counsellors to +the young leader. These he ordered to keep the knowledge of their +relationship from father and son and to seek to bring about an +encounter between them, in the hope that Sohrab would slay Rustum, +Afrasiab's most dreaded foeman, after which the unsuspecting youth +might easily be disposed of by treachery. [152] + +Sohrab, with his army and that of Afrasiab, set out, intending to +fight his way until Rustum should be sent against him, when he would +reveal himself to his father and form an alliance with him that would +place the line of Seistan on the throne. On the way southward, Sohrab +overthrew and captured the Persian champion, Hujir, and the same +day conquered the warrior maiden Gurdafrid, whose beauty and tears, +however, prevailed upon him to release her. Guzdehern, father of +Gurdafrid, recognizing Sohrab's prowess, and alarmed for the safety +of the Persian throne, secretly despatched a courier to the king Kai +Kaoos to warn him of the young Tartar's approach. Kaoos, in great +terror, sent for Rustum to hurry to his aid. Regardless of the king's +request, Rustum spent eight days in feasting, then presented himself +at the court. Kaoos, angered at the delay, ordered both the champion +and the messenger to be executed forthwith; but Rustum effected his +escape on Ruksh, and returned to Seistan, leaving Persia to her fate. +The king's wrath, however, soon gave place to fear; and recognizing +the danger of his throne unsupported by Rustum's valor, he despatched +messengers to him with humble petitions and apologies. After much +protesting, Rustum finally yielded and accompanied the Persian army, +under the king Kai Kaoos, which at once set forth to encounter Sohrab. + +The morning before the opening of hostilities, Sohrab, taking the +Persian Hujir, whom he still held a prisoner, to the top of a rocky +eminence, ordered him to point out the tents of the chief warriors +of the Persian army, particularly Rustum's. But Hujir, fearing lest +Sohrab should attack Rustum unexpectedly and so overcome him, declared +that the great chieftain's tent was not among those on the plain +below. Disappointed at his failure to find his father, Sohrab led his +army in a fierce onslaught on the Persians, driving them in confusion +before him. In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos sent for Rustum, who was +somewhat apart from the main troop. Exclaiming that the king never +sent for him except when he had got himself into trouble, the warrior +armed, mounted Ruksh, and rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the +two champions withdrew to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they +might fight out their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each +other, Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried +to dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. +Sohrab, filled with sudden hope,--an instinctive feeling that the +father whom he was seeking stood before him,--eagerly demanded whether +this were Rustum. But Rustum, fearing treachery, said he was only an +ordinary man, having neither palace nor princely kingdom--not Rustum. + +They marked off the lists, and, mounted on their powerful horses, +fought first with javelins, then with swords, clubs, and bows and +arrows. After several hours of fighting both were exhausted, and by +tacit consent they retired to opposite sides of the lists for rest. +When the combat was renewed, Sohrab gained a slight advantage. A truce +was then made for the night, and the warriors returned to their tents +to prepare for the morrow. + +With daybreak the struggle was renewed. To prevent the armies from +intervening or engaging in battle, they were removed to a distance of +several miles. Midway between, Sohrab and Rustum met in the midst of a +lonely, treeless waste. More convinced than before that his adversary +was Rustum, Sohrab sought to bring about a reconciliation, but Rustum +refused. This time they fought on foot. From morning till afternoon +they fought, neither gaining any decided advantage. At last Sohrab +succeeded in felling Rustum to the earth, and was about to slay him, +when the Persian called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous +warfare to slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. +Sohrab, generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again +father and son parted. [154] + +Rustum, scarcely believing himself alive after such an escape, +purified himself with water, and prayed that his wounds might be +healed and his accustomed strength restored to him. Never before had +he been so beset in battle. + +With morning came the renewal of the combat, both champions +determining to end it that day. Late in the evening Rustum, by a +supreme effort, seized Sohrab around the waist and hurled him to the +ground. Then, fearing lest the youth prove too strong for him in the +end, he drew his blade and plunged it into Sohrab's bosom. + +Sohrab forgave Rustum, but warned him to beware the vengeance of his +father, the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that he had slain his +son Sohrab. "I went out to seek my father," cried the dying youth, +"for my mother had told me by what tokens I should know him, and I +perish for longing after him.... Yet I say unto thee, if thou shouldst +become a fish that swimmeth in the depths of the ocean, if thou +shouldst change into a star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, +my father would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place, and avenge my +death upon thee, when he shall learn that the earth is become my bed. +For my father is Rustum the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him, +how that Sohrab his son perished in the quest after his face." These +words were as death to the aged hero, who fell senseless at the side +of his wounded son. When he had recovered he called in despair for +proofs of what Sohrab had said. The now dying youth tore open his mail +and showed his father the onyx which his mother had bound on his arm +as directed. [155] + +The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he cursed +himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for the +efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his tents +and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and buried +it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, was +permitted to return home unmolested. When the tidings of Sohrab's +death reached his mother, she was inconsolable, and died in less than +a year. + +In the main the story as told by Arnold follows the original +narrative. A careful investigation of the alterations made, and the +effect thus produced, will lend added interest to the study of the +poem and give ample theme for composition work. + + +=1. And the first grey of morning fill'd the east.= Note the abrupt +opening. What is gained by its use? At what point in the story as told +in the introductory note does the poem take up the narrative? Be sure +to get a clear mental picture of the initiative scene. _And_ is here +used in a manner common in the Scriptures. Cf. "And the Lord spake +unto Moses," etc. + +=2. Oxus.= The chief river of Central Asia, which separated Turan from +Iran or the Persian Empire, called Oxus by the Greeks and Romans, and +the Jihun or Amu by the Arabs and Persians. It takes its source in +Lake Sir-i-Kol, in the Pamir table-land, at a height of 15,600 feet, +flows northwest, and empties into the Aral Sea on the south. Its +length is about 1300 miles. + +"The introduction of the tranquil pictures of the Oxus, both at the +beginning and close of the poem (ll. 875-892), flowing steadily on, +unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, forms one +of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem." + +=3. Tartar camp.= The Tartars were nomadic tribes of Central Asia and +southern Russia. The so-called Black Tartars, identified with the +Scythians of the Greek historians, inhabited the basin of the Aral and +Caspian Seas, and are the tribe referred to in the poem. They are a +fierce, warlike people; hence our expression, "caught a Tartar." + [156] +=11. Peran-Wisa.= A celebrated Turanian chief, here in command of +Afrasiab's army, which was composed of representatives of many Tartar +tribes, as indicated in ll. 119-134. + +=15. Pamere=, or Pamir. An extensive plateau region of Central Asia, +called by the natives the "roof of the world." Among the rivers having +their source in this plateau are the Oxus, l. 2, and the Jaxartes, l. +129. + +=38. Afrasiab.= The king of the Tartars, and one of the principal +heroes of the _Shah Nameh_, the Persian "Book of Kings." He is reputed +to have been strong as a lion and to have had few equals as a warrior. + +=40. Samarcand.= A city in the district of Serafshan, Turkestan, to +the east of Bokhara; now a considerable commercial and manufacturing +centre, and a centre of Mohammedan learning. + +=42. Ader-baijan.= The northwest province of Persia, on the Turanian +frontier. + +=45. At my boy's years.= See introductory note to poem. + +=60. common fight.= In the sense of a general engagement. Be sure to +catch the reason why Sohrab makes his request. + +=61. sunk.= That is, lost sight of. + +=67. common chance.= See note, l. 60. Which would be the more +dangerous, a "single" or "common" combat? Why? + +=70. To find a father thou hast never seen.= See introductory note to +poem. + +=82. Seistan.= A province of southwest Afghanistan bordering on the +Persian province of Yezd. It is intersected by the Helmund River (l. +751), which flows into the Hamoon Lake, now scarcely more than a +morass. On an island in this lake are ruins of fortifications called +Fort Rustum. This territory was long held by Rustum's family, +feudatory to the Persian kings. =Zal.= Rustum's father, ruler of +Seistan. See note, l. 232. [157] + +=83-85. Whether that ... or in some quarrel=, etc. Either because his +mighty strength ... or because of some quarrel, etc. + +=85. Persian King.= That is, Kai Kaoos (or Kai Khosroo). See +introductory note to poem; also note, l. 223. + +=86-91. There go!= etc. The touching solicitation of these lines is +wholly Arnold's. + +=99. Why ruler's staff, no sword?= + +=101. Kara Kul.= A district some thirty miles southwest of Bokhara, +noted for the excellence of its pasturage, and for its fleeces. + +=107. Haman.= Next to Peran-Wisa in command of Tartar army. See +Houman, in introductory note to poem. + +=113-114. Casbin.= A fortified city in the province of Irak-Ajemi, +Persia, situated on the main route from Persia to Europe, and at one +time the capital of the Iranian empire. Just to the north of the city +rise the =Elburz Mountains= (l. 114), which separate the Persian +Plateau from the depression containing the Caspian and Aral Seas. + +=115. frore.= Frozen, from the Anglo-Saxon _froren_. + + "... the parching air + Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire." + + --MILTON. _Paradise Lost_, ll. 594-595, Book II. + +=119. Bokhara.= Here the state of Bokhara, an extensive region of +Central Asia, touching the Aral Sea to the north, the Oxus to the +south, and Khiva to the west. It has an estimated area of 235,000 +square miles, and contains nineteen cities of considerable size, of +which the capital, Bokhara, is most important. + +=120. Khiva.= A khanate situated in the valley of the lower Oxus, +bordering Bokhara on the southeast. =ferment the milk of mares.= An +intoxicating drink, _Koumiss_, made of camel's or mare's milk, is in +wide use among the steppe tribes. + [158] +=121. Toorkmuns.= A branch of the Turkish race found chiefly in +northern Persia and Afghanistan. + +=122. Tukas.= From the province of Azer-baijan. + +=123. Attruck.= A river of Khorassan, near the frontier of Khiva; it +has a west course, and enters the Caspian Sea on the east side. + +=128. Ferghana.= A khanate of Turkestan, north of Bokhara, in the +upper valley of the Sir Daria. + +=129. Jaxartes.= The ancient name of the Sir Daria River. It takes its +source in the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the Pamir Plateau ranges, +and flows with a general direction north, emptying into the Aral Sea +on the east side. + +=131. Kipchak.= A khanate some seventy miles below Khiva on the Oxus. + +=132. Kalmucks.= A nomadic branch of the Mongolian race, dwelling in +western Siberia. =Kuzzaks.= Now commonly called Cossacks; a warlike +people inhabiting the steppes of southern Russia and extensive +portions of Asia. Their origin is uncertain. + +=133. Kirghizzes.= A rude nomadic people of Mongolian-Tartar race +found in northern Turkestan. + +=138. Khorassan.= (That is, the region of the sun.) A province of +northeastern Persia, largely desert. The origin of the name is + prettily suggested by Moore in the opening poem of _Lalla Rookh_:-- + + "In the delightful province of the sun + The first of Persian lands he shines upon," etc. + +=147. fix'd.= Stopped suddenly, halted. + +=154-169.= Note the effect the challenge has on the two armies. + +=156. corn.= Here used with its European sense of "grain." It is only +in America that the word signifies Indian corn or "maize." + [159] +=160. Cabool.= Capital of northern Afghanistan, and an important +commercial city. + +=161. Indian Caucasus.= A lofty mountain range north of Cabool, which +forms the boundary between Turkestan and Afghanistan. + +=173. King.= See note, l. 85. + +=177. lion's heart.= Explain the line. Why are the terms here used so +forcible in the mouth of Gudurz? + +=178-183. Aloof he sits, etc.= One is reminded by Rustum's deportment +here, of Achilles sulking in his tent and nursing his wrath against +Agamemnon.--_Iliad_, Book I. + +=199. sate.= Old form of "sat," common in poetry. + +=200. falcon.= A kind of hawk trained to catch game birds. + +=217. Iran.= The official name of Persia. + +=221. Go to!= Hebraic expression. Frequently found in Shakespeare. + +=223. Kai Khosroo.= According to the _Shah Nameh_, the thirteenth +Turanian king. He reigned in the sixth century B.C., and has been +identified with Cyrus the Great. + +=230. Not that one slight helpless girl, etc.= See ll. 609-611, also +introduction to the poem. + +=232. snow-haired Zal.= According to tradition, Zal was born with +snow-white hair. His father Lahm, believing this an ill omen, doomed +the unfortunate babe to be exposed on the loftiest summit of the +Elburz Mountains. The Simurgh, a great bird or griffin, found him and +cared for him till grown, then restored him to his repentant parent. +He subsequently married the Princess Rudabeh of Seistan, by whom he +became father of Rustum. + +=243-248. He spoke ... men.= Note carefully Gudurz's argument. Why so +effective with Rustum? + +=257. But I will fight unknown and in plain arms.= The shields and +arms of the champions were emblazoned with mottoes and devices. Why +does Rustum determine to lay aside his accustomed arms and fight +incognito? What effect does this determination have upon the ultimate +outcome of the situation? Read the story of the arming of Achilles +(Book XIX., Homer's _Iliad_), and compare with Rustum's preparation +for battle. [160] + +=266. device.= See note, l. 257. + + =277. Dight.= Adorned, dressed. + + "The clouds in thousand liveries dight." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ l. 62. + +=286. Bahrein= or Aval. A group of islands in the Persian Gulf, +celebrated for its pearl fisheries. + + =288. tale.= Beckoning, number. + + "And every shepherd tells his _tale_, + Under the hawthorn in the dale." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ ll. 67-68. + +=306. flowers.= Decorates, beautifies with floral designs. + +=311. perused.= Studied, observed closely. + +=318.= In a letter dated November, 1852, Mr. Arnold speaks of the +figures in his poem as follows: "I can only say that I took a great +deal of trouble to orientalize them, because I thought they looked +strange, and jarred, if western." What is gained by their use? + +=325. vast.= Large, mighty. + +=326. tried.= Proved, experienced. + +=328. Never was that field lost or that foe saved.= Note the power +gained in this line by the use of the alliteration. + +=330. Be govern'd.= Be influenced, persuaded. + +=343. by thy father's head!= Such oaths are common to the extravagant +speech of the oriental peoples. + +=344. Art thou not Rustum?= See introductory note to poem. + +=367. vaunt.= Boast implied in the challenge. + +=380. Thou wilt not fright me so!= That is, by such talk. + +=401. tower'd.= Remained stationary, poised. + +=406. full struck.= Struck squarely. + [161] +=412. Hyphasis, Hydaspes.= Two of the rivers of the Punjab in northern +India, now known as the Beas and Jhylum. In 326 B.C. Alexander +defeated Porus on the banks of the latter stream. + +=414. wrack.= Ruin, havoc. (Poetical.) + +=418. glancing.= In the sense of darting aside. + +=435. hollow.= Unnatural in tone. + +=452. like that autumn-star.= Probably Sirius, the Dog Star, under +whose ascendency, according to ancient beliefs, epidemic diseases +prevailed. + +=454. crest.= That is, helmet and plume. + +=466. Remember all thy valour.= That is, summon up all your courage. + +=469. girl's wiles.= Explain the line. + +=470. kindled.= Roused, angered. + +=481. unnatural.= because of the kinship of the combatants. + +=481-486. for a cloud=, etc. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. the +cloud that enveloped Paris--Book III., ll. 465-469, of the _Iliad_. + +=489. And the sun sparkled=, etc. Why this reference to the clear Oxus +stream at this moment of intense tragedy? + +=495. helm.= Helmet; defensive armor for the head. + +=497. shore.= Past tense of _shear_, to cut. + +=499. bow'd his head:= because of the force of the blow. + +=508. curdled.= Thickened as with fear. + +=516. Rustum!= Why did this word so affect Sohrab? Note the author's +skill in working up to this climax in the narrative. + +=527-539. Then with a bitter smile=, etc. Compare these words of +the victor, Rustum, with the words of Sohrab, ll. 427-447, when the +advantage was with him. + +=536. glad.= Make happy. + + "That which _gladded_ all the warrior train." + --DRYDEN. + [162] +=538. Dearer to the red jackals=, etc. Cf. I. Sam. xvii. 44: "Come to +me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the +beasts of the field." Careful investigation will show the poem to +abound with Biblical as well as classical parallelisms. + +=556-575. As when some hunter, etc.= One of the truly great similes in +the English language. + +=563. sole.= Alone, solitary. From the Latin _solus_. + +=570. glass.= Reflect as in a mirror. + +=596. bruited up.= Noised abroad. + +=613. the style.= The name or title. + +=625. that old king.= The king of Semenjan. See introductory note to +poem. + +=632. Of age and looks=, etc. That is, of such age as he (Sohrab) +would be, if born of his (Rustum's) union with Tahmineh. + +=658-660. I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm=, etc. This is Arnold's +conception. In the original story Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an +amulet. The onyx was supposed to incite the wearer to deeds of valor. + +=664. corselet.= Protective armor for the body. + +=673. cunning.= Skilful, deft. + +=679. griffin.= In the natural history of the ancients, an imaginary +animal, half lion and half eagle. Here the Simurgh. See note, l. 232. + +=708-710. unconscious hand.= Note how the dying Sohrab seeks to + console the grief-stricken Rustum. + + "Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune. + It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father." + + --_Shah Nameh_. + +=717. have found= (him). Note the ellipsis. + +=723-724. I came ... passing wind.= The _Shah Nameh_ has-- + + "I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." + +=736. caked the sand.= Hardened into cakes. + +=751. Helmund.= See note, l. 82. [163] + +=752. Zirrah.= Another lake in Seistan, southeast of Hamoon, now +almost dry. + +=763-765. Moorghab, Tejend and Kohik.= Rivers of Turkestan which lose +themselves in the deserts to the south of Bokhara. The northern Sir is +the Sir Daria, or Jaxartes. See note, l. 129. + +=788. And heap a stately mound=, etc. Persian tradition says that a +large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed over the +spot where Sohrab was buried. + +=830. on that day.= Shortly after the death of Afrasiab, the Persian +monarch Kai Khosroo, accompanied by a large number of his nobles, went +to a spring far to the north, the location fixed upon as a place +for their repose. Here the king died, and those who went with him +afterward perished in a tempest. Sohrab predicted Rustum would be one +of those lost, but tradition does not have it so. + +=861. Persepolis.= An ancient capital of Persia, the ruins of which +are known as "the throne of Jemshid," after a mythical king. + +=878. Chorasma.= A region of Turkestan, the seat of a powerful empire +in the twelfth century, but now greatly reduced. Its present limits +are about the same as those of Khiva. See note, l. 120. + +=880. Right for the polar star.= That is, due north. =Orgunje.= A +village on the Oxus some seventy miles below Khiva, and near the head +of its delta. + +=890. luminous home.= The Aral Sea. + +=891. new bathed stars.= As the stars appear on the horizon, they seem +to have come up out of the sea. + +=875-892.= Discuss the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these closing lines of the poem. See also note, ll. +231-250, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN [164] + +In this poem Arnold has vividly presented a quaint legend of Judas +Iscariot, popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Brandan (490-577) was +a celebrated Irish monk, famous for his voyages. "According to the +legendary accounts of his travels, he set sail with others to seek the +terrestrial paradise which was supposed to exist in an island of the +Atlantic. Various miracles are related of the voyage, but they are +always connected with the great island where the monks are said to +have landed. The legend was current in the time of Columbus and +long after, and many connected St. Brandan's island with the newly +discovered America. He is commemorated on May 16."--_The Century +Cyclopedia of Names_. + + +=7. Hebrides.= A group of islands off the northwestern coast of +Scotland. + +=11. hurtling Polar lights.= A reference to the rapid, changing +movements of the Aurora Borealis. + +=18. Of hair that red.= According to tradition, Judas Iscariot's hair +was red. + +=21. sate.= See note, l. 199, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Old form of "sat," +common in poetry.) + + +=31. self-murder.= After betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself. See +Matt, xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18. + +=38. The Leper recollect.= There is no scriptural authority for this +incident. + +=40. Joppa=, or Jaffa. A small maritime town of Palestine--the ancient +port of Jerusalem. There is also a small village called Jaffa in +Galilee, some two miles southwest of Nazareth, which may have been the +place the poet had in mind. + + +Image the situation as presented in the first several stanzas. Why +locate in the sea without a "human shore," l. 12? Is there any +especial reason for having the time Christmas night? Note the dramatic +introduction of Judas. What effect did his appearance have on the +saint? How was the latter reassured? Give reasons why Judas felt +impelled to tell his story. Tell the story. Does he praise or belittle +his act of charity? Why does he say "that _chance_ act of good"? How +was it rewarded? Explain his last expression. Was he about to say +more? If so, what? What effect did Judas's story have on Saint +Brandan? Why? What is the underlying thought in the poem? Discuss the +form of verse used and its appropriateness to the theme. [165] + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN + +"The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's two +poems, _The Merman_ and _The Mermaid_. A comparison will show that, in +this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched his subject not +less melodiously and with finer and deeper feeling.--Margaret will not +listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with pain';--dearer to her is +the selfish desire to save her own soul than is the light in the eyes +of her little Mermaiden, dearer than the love of the king of the sea, +who yearns for her with sorrow-laden heart. Here is there an infinite +tenderness and an infinite tragedy." + --L. DUPONT SYLE, _From Milton to Tennyson_. + +Legends of this kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and Cymric +people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more pleasing and +touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note carefully the dramatic +manner in which the pathos of the story is presented and developed. + + +=6. wild white horses.= Breakers, whitecaps. + +=13. Margaret.= A favorite name with Arnold. See _Isolation_ and _A +Dream_ in this volume. + +=39. ranged.= See note, l. 73, _The Strayed Reveller_. (wander +aimlessly about.) + +=42. mail.= Protective covering. + +=54.= Why "down swung the sound of a far-off bell"? [166] + +=81. seal'd.= Fastened; fixed intently upon, as though spellbound. + +=89-93. Hark ... sun.= In her song Margaret shows she is still keenly +alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The priest, bell, +and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here Roman Catholic. The +bell is used in the Roman Church to call especial attention to the +more important portions of the service; the well is the holy-water +font. + +=129. heaths starr'd with broom.= The flower of the broom plant, +common in England, is yellow; hence, _starr'd_. + +In his work on Matthew Arnold, George Saintsbury speaks of this poem +as follows: "It is, I believe, not so 'correct' as it once was to +admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to correctness, at least +the correctness which varies with fashion. _The Forsaken Merman_ is +not a perfect poem--it has _tongueurs_, though it is not long; it has +its inadequacies, those incompetences of expression which are so oddly +characteristic of its author; and his elaborate simplicity, though +more at home here than in some other places, occasionally gives a +dissonance. But it is a great poem,--one by itself,--one which finds +and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained gallery or museum, with +which every true lover of poetry is provided, though he inherits it by +degrees. None, I suppose, will deny its pathos; I should be sorry for +any one who fails to perceive its beauty. The brief picture of the +land, and the fuller one of the sea, and that (more elaborate still) +of the occupations of the fugitive, all have their charm. But the +triumph of the piece is in one of those metrical coups, which give +the triumph of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden change from the +slower movements of the earlier stanzas, or strophes, to the quicker +sweep of the famous conclusions." + [167] +What is the opening situation in the poem? Have the merman and his +children just reached the shore, or have they been there some time? +Why so? Why does the merman still linger, when he is convinced that +further delay will count for nothing? Why does he urge the children to +call? What is shown by his repeated question--"was it yesterday"? Tell +the story of Margaret's departure for the upper world, and discuss the +validity of her reason for going. Do you think she intended to return? +What is the significance of her smile just before departing? Give +a word picture of what the sea-folk saw as they lingered in the +churchyard. Will Margaret ever grieve for the past? If so, when? Why? +Who has your sympathy most, Margaret, the forsaken merman, or the +children? Why? Do you condemn Margaret for the way she has done, or do +you feel she was justified in her actions? Discuss the versification, +giving special attention to its effect on the movement of the poem. + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT + +The story of Tristram and Iseult is one of the most vivid and +passionate of the Arthurian cycle of legends, and is a favorite with +the poets. The following version is abridged from Dunlop's _History of +Fiction_. + +"In the court of his uncle, King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who at +this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became expert +in all knightly exercises.... The king of Ireland, at Tristram's +solicitation, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on +King Marc.... The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter's confidante +a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her +nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult unfortunately partook. +Its influence, during the remainder of their lives, regulated the +affections and destiny of the lovers. + [168] +"After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the +nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance +is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews ... +Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the displeasure +of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult with the White +Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude than love. Afterwards +he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur which became the theatre of +unnumbered exploits. + +"Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany and to +his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was soon +reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation he despatched a confidant +to the queen of Cornwall to try if he could induce her to follow him +to Brittany. + +"Meanwhile Tristram awaited the arrival of the queen with such +impatience that he employed one of his wife's damsels to watch at the +harbor. Through her, Iseult learned Tristram's secret, and filled with +jealousy, flew to her husband as the vessel which bore the queen of +Cornwall was wafted toward the harbor, and reported that the sails +were black (the signal that Iseult, Marc's queen, had refused +Tristram's request to come to him). Tristram, penetrated with +inexpressible grief, died. The account of Tristram's death was the +first intelligence which the queen of Cornwall heard on landing. She +was conducted to his chamber, and expired holding him in her arms." + + +=1. Is she not come?= That is, Iseult of Ireland. Arnold's poem takes +up the story at the point where Tristram, now on his death-bed, is +watching eagerly for the coming of Iseult, Marc's queen, for whom he +had sent his confidant to Cornwall. Evidently he has just awakened +and is still somewhat confused; see l. 7. Surely none will fail to +appreciate so dramatic a situation. + +=5. What ... be?= That is, what lights are those to the northward, the +direction from which Iseult would come? + [169] +=8. Iseult.= Here Iseult of the White Hands, daughter of King Hoel of +Brittany and wife of Tristram. + +=20. Arthur's court.= Arthur, the half-mythical king of the Britons, +set up his court at Camelot, which Caxton locates in Wales and Malory +near Winchester. Here was gathered the famous company of champions +known as the "Knights of the Round Table," whose feats have been +extensively celebrated in song and story. Among these knights Tristram +held high rank, both as a warrior and a harpist. See ll. 17-19. + +=23. Lyoness.= A mythical region near Cornwall, the home country of +Arthur and Tristram. + +=30-31.= Hence the name, Iseult of the White Hands. + +=56-68.= See introductory note to poem for explanation. =Tyntagel.= +A village in Cornwall near the sea. Near it is the ruined Tyntagel +Castle, the reputed birthplace of Arthur. In the romance of Sir +Tristram it is the castle of King Marc, the cowardly and treacherous +king of Cornwall, the southwest county of England. =teen=. See note, +l. 147, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. (Grief, sorrow; from the old English +_teona_, meaning injury.) + + +=88. wanders=, in fancy. Note how the wounded knight's mind flits from +scene to scene, always centring around Iseult of Ireland. + +=91. O'er ... sea.= The Irish Sea. He is dreaming of his return trip +from Ireland with Iseult, "under the cloudless sky of May" (l. 96). + +=129-132.= See introductory note to poem. The green isle, Ireland is +noted for its green fields; hence the name, Emerald (green) Isle. + +=134. on loud Tyntagel's hill.= A high headland on the coast of Wales. +Discuss the force of the adjective "loud" in this connection. + +=137-160. And that ... more.= See introductory note to poem. + +=161. pleasaunce-walks.= A pleasure garden, screened by trees, shrubs, +and close hedges--here a trysting-place. After the marriage of +Iseult to King Marc, she and Tristram contrived to continue their +relationship in secret. [170] + +=164. fay.= Faith. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=180.= Tristram, having been discovered by King Marc in his intrigues +with Iseult, was forced to leave Cornwall; hence his visit to Brittany +and subsequent marriage to Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory +note to poem. + +=192. lovely orphan child.= Iseult of Brittany. + +=194. chatelaine.= From the French, meaning the mistress of a +château--a castle or fortress. + +=200. stranger-knight, ill-starr'd.= That is, Tristram, whose many +mishaps argued his being born under an unlucky star. See also the +account of his birth, note, ll. 81-88, Part II. + +=203. Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard.= Prior to his visit to +Brittany, Tristram had imprisoned his uncle, King Marc, and eloped +with Iseult to the domains of King Arthur. While there he resided +at Joyous Gard, the favorite castle of Launcelot, which that knight +assigned to the lovers as their abode. + +=204. Welcomed here.= That is, in Brittany, where he was nursed back +to health by Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory note to poem. + +=215-226. His long rambles ... ground.= Account for Tristram's +discontent, as indicated in these lines. + +=234-237. All red ... bathed in foam.= The kings of Britain agreed +with Arthur to make war upon Rome. Arthur, leaving Modred in charge +of his kingdom, made war upon the Romans, and, after a number +of encounters, Lucius Tiberius was killed and the Britons were +victorious.--GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Book IV, Chapter XV; Book X, +Chapters I-XIII. According to Malory, Arthur captured many French and +Italian cities (see ll. 250-251); during this continental invasion, +and was finally crowned king at Rome. It seems that he afterward +despatched a considerable number of his knights to carry the Christian +faith among the heathen German tribes. See ll. 252-253. [171] + +=238. moonstruck knight.= A reference to the mystical influence the +ancients supposed the moon to exert over men's minds and actions. + +=239. What foul fiend rides thee?= What evil spirit possesses you and +keeps you from the fight? + +=240. her.= That is, Iseult of Ireland. + +=243. wanders forth again=, in fancy. + +=245. secret in his breast.= What secret? + +=250-253.= See note, ll. 234-237. =blessed sign.= The cross. + +=255. Roman Emperor.= That is, Lucius Tiberius. See note, ll. 234-237. + +=258. leaguer.= Consult dictionary. + +=261. what boots it?= That is, what difference will it make? + +=303. recks not.= Has no thought of (archaic). + +=308-314. My princess ... good night.= Are Tristram's words sincere, +or has he a motive in thus dismissing Iseult? + +=373-374.= From a dramatic standpoint, what is the purpose of these +two lines? + + + +PART II + +With the opening of Part II the lovers are restored to each other. +The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with long waiting, +unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having come to him with +greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, quickly dispel his +doubts as to her loyalty to her former vows. A complete reconciliation +takes place, and they die in each other's embrace. The picture of the +Huntsman on the arras is one of the most notable in English poetry. + + +=47. honied nothings=. Explain. Compare with + + "his tongue Dropt manna." [172] + --_Paradise Lost_, ll. 112-113, Book II. + +=81-88=. Tristram was born in the forest, where his mother Isabella, +sister to King Marc, had gone in search of her recreant husband. + +=97-100=. Tennyson, in _The Last Tournament_, follows Malory in the +story of Tristram's and Iseult's death. "That traitor, King Mark, slew +the noble knight, Sir Tristram, as he sat harping before his lady, +La Beale Isoud, with a trenchant glaive, for whose death was much +bewailing of every knight that ever was in Arthur's days ... and La +Beale Isoud died swooning upon the cross of Sir Tristram, whereof was +great pity."--Malory's _Morte d' Arthur._ + +=113. sconce=. Consult dictionary. + +=116-122=. Why this restlessness on the part of Iseult? Why her +frequent glances toward the door? + +=132. dogg'd=. Worried, pursued. Coleridge uses the epithet +"star-dogged moon," l. 212, Part III, _The Ancient Mariner._ + +=147-193=. For the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these lines, see notes on the Tyrian trader, ll. +231-250, 232, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + +PART III + +After the death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland, our thoughts +inevitably turn to Iseult of the White Hands. The infinite pathos of +her life has aroused our deepest sympathy, and we naturally want to +know further concerning her and Tristram's children. + + +=13. cirque=. A circle (obsolete or poetical). See l. 7, Part III. + +=18. holly-trees and juniper=. Evergreen trees common in Europe and +America. + [173] +=22. fell-fare= (or field-fare). A small thrush found in Northern +Europe. + +=26. stagshorn.= A common club-moss. + +=37. old-world Breton history.= That is, the story of Merlin and +Vivian, ll. 153-224, Part III. + +=79-81=. Compare with the following lines from Wordsworth's +_Michael_:-- + + "This light was famous in its neighborhood. + ... For, as it chanced, + Their cottage on a plot of rising ground + Stood single.... + And from this constant light so regular + And so far seen, the House itself, by all + Who dwelt within the limits of the vale + ... was named _The Evening Star_." + +=81. iron coast.= This line inevitably calls to mind a stanza from +Tennyson's _Palace of Art_:-- + + "One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. + You seemed to hear them climb and fall + And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves, + Beneath the windy wall." + +=92. prie-dieu.= Praying-desk. From the French _prier_, pray; _dieu_, +God. + +=97. seneschal.= A majordomo; a steward. Originally meant _old_ (that +is, _chief) servant_; from the Gothic _sins_, old, and _salks_, a +servant.--SKEAT. + +=134. gulls.= Deceives, tricks. + + "The vulgar, _gulled_ into rebellion, armed," + --DRYDEN. + +=140.= posting here and there. That is, restlessly changing from place +to place and from occupation to occupation. + +=143-145. Like that bold Cæsar=, etc. Julius Cæsar (100?-44 B.C.). +The incident here alluded to Is mentioned in Suetonius' _Life of the +Deified Julius_, Chapter VII. "Farther Spain fell to the lot of Cæsar +as questor. When, at the command of the Roman people, he was holding +court and had come to Cadiz, he noticed in the temple of Hercules a +statue of Alexander the Great. At sight of this statue he sighed, +as if disgusted at his own lack of achievement, because he had done +nothing of note by the time in life (Cæsar was then thirty-two) that +Alexander had conquered the world." (Free translation.) [174] + +=146-150. Prince Alexander, etc.= Alexander III., surnamed "The +Great" (356-323 B.C.), was the most famous of Macedonian generals and +conquerors, and the first in order of time of the four most celebrated +commanders of whom history makes mention. In less than fifteen years +he extended his domain over the known world and established himself as +the universal emperor. He died at Babylon, his capital city, at the +age of thirty-three, having lamented that there were no more worlds +for him to conquer. (For the boundaries of his empire, see any map of +his time.) Pope spoke of him as "The youth who all things but himself +subdued." =Soudan= (l. 149). An obsolete term for Sultan, the Turkish +ruler. + +=153-224=. The story of Merlin, King Arthur's court magician, and the +enchantress Vivian is one of the most familiar of the Arthurian cycle +of legends. =Broce-liande= (l. 156). In Cornwall. See l. 61, Part +I. =fay= (l. 159). Fairy, =empire= (l. 184). That is, power; here +supernatural power. =wimple= (l. 220). A covering for the head. =Is +Merlin prisoner=, etc. (l. 223). Merlin, the magician, is thus +entrapped by means of a charm he had himself communicated to his +mistress, the enchantress Vivian. Malory has Merlin imprisoned under a +rock; Tennyson, in an oak:-- + + "And in the hollow oak he lay as dead + And lost to life and use and name and fame." + --_Merlin and Vivian_. + [175] +=224=. For she was passing weary, etc. + + "And she was ever passing weary of him." + --MALORY. + +PART I. What is the opening situation in the poem? Why have it a +stormy night? What does Tristram's question (l. 7) reveal of his +condition physically and mentally? What is the office of the parts +of the poem coming between the intervals of conversation? How is the +wounded knight identified? How the lady? Follow the wanderings of the +sleeping Tristram's mind. Are the incidents he speaks of in the order +of their occurrence? Explain ll. 102-103; ll. 161-169. Tell the story +of Tristram and Iseult of the White Hands. What is shown by the fact +that Tristram's mind dwells on Iseult of Ireland even at the time of +battle? How account for his wanderings? For his morose frame of mind? +What change has come over nature when Tristram awakes? Why this +change? What is his mood now? Account for his addressing Iseult of +Brittany as he does. Why his order for her to retire? What is her +attitude toward him? Note the manner in which the children are +introduced into the story (ll. 324-325) PART II. Give the opening +situation. Discuss the meeting of Tristram and Iseult. What is +revealed by their conversation? What is the purpose in introducing the +Huntsman on the arras? PART III. What is the purpose of ll. 1-4? Give +the opening situation in Part III. How is Iseult trying to entertain +her children? What kind of a life does she lead? Discuss ll. 112-150 +as to meaning and connection with the theme of the poem. Tell the +story of Merlin and Vivian. Why introduced? Compare Arnold's version +of the story of Tristram and Iseult with the version given in the +introductory note to the poem. + + + + [176] +THE CHURCH OF BROU + + + +I. THE CASTLE + +The church of Brou is actually located in a treeless Burgundian plain, +and not in the mountains, as stated by the poet. + + +=1. Savoy=. A mountainous district in eastern France; formerly one of +the divisions of the Sardinian States. + +=3. mountain-chalets=. Properly, herdsmen's huts in the mountains of +Switzerland. + +=17. prickers=. Men sent into the thickets to start the game. + +=35. dais=. Here, a canopy or covering. + +=69. erst=. See note, l. 42, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. ( Formerly. +(Obsolete except in poetry.)) + +=71. chancel=. The part of a church in which the altar is placed. + +=72. nave=. See note, ll. 70-76, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön_. + +=77. palmers=. Wandering religious votaries, especially those who bore +branches of palm as a token that they had visited the Holy Land and +its sacred places. + +=109. fretwork=. Representing open woodwork. + + + +II. THE CHURCH + +=17. matin-chime=. Bells for morning worship. + +=21. Chambery=. Capital of the department of Savoy Proper, on the +Leysse. + +=22. Dight=. See l. 277, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Adorned, dressed.) + +=37. chisell'd broideries=. The carved draperies of the tombs. + + + +III. THE TOMB + +=6. transept=. The transversal part of a church edifice, which crosses +at right angles between the nave and the choir (the upper portion), +thus giving to the building the form of a cross. + + +=39. foliaged marble forest=. Note the epithet. + [177] +=45. leads=. That is, the leaden roof. See l. 1, Part II. (Upon the +glistening leaden roof). + + + + +REQUIESCAT + +This poem, one of Arnold's best-known shorter lyrics, combines with +perfect taste, simplicity and elegance, with the truest pathos. It has +been said there is not a false note in it. + + +=13. cabin'd=. Used in the sense of being cramped for space. + +=16. vasty=. Spacious, boundless. + +What is the significance of strewing on the roses? Why "never a spray +of yew"? (See note, l.140, _The Scholar-Gipsy.)_ What seems to be the +author's attitude toward death? (Read his poem, _A Wish_.) Discuss the +poem as to its lyrical qualities. + + + + +CONSOLATION + +=14. Holy Lassa= (that is, Land of the Divine Intelligence), the +capital city of Thibet and residence of the Dalai, or Grand Lama, the +pontifical sovereign of Thibet and East Asia. Here is located the +great temple of Buddha, a vast square edifice, surmounted by a gilded +dome, the temple, together with its precincts, covering an area of +many acres. Contiguous to it, on its four sides, are four celebrated +monasteries, occupied by four thousand recluses, and resorted to as +schools of the Buddhic religion and philosophy. There is, perhaps, no +other one place in the world where so much gold is accumulated for +superstitious purposes. + + +=17. Muses.= See note, l. 120, _The Strayed Reveller_. + +=18. In their cool gallery=. That is, in the Vatican art gallery at +Rome. + +=19. yellow Tiber.= So called by the ancients because of the +yellowish, muddy appearance of its waters. + [178] +=21. Strange unloved uproar.= At the time this poem was +written,--1849,--the French army was besieging Rome. + +=23. Helicon.= High mountain in Boeotia, legendary home of the +Muses. + +=32. Erst.= See note, l. 32, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=48. Destiny.= That is, Fate, the goddess of human destiny. + +In what mood is the author at the opening of the poem? How does he +seek consolation? How does the calm of the Muses affect him? Can you +see how he might find help in dwelling on the pictures of the blind +beggar and happy lovers? What is the final thought of the poem? Can +you think of any other poem that has this as its central thought? What +do you think of the author's philosophy of life as set forth in this +poem? Discuss the verse form used. + + + + +LINES + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + +The Kensington Gardens form one of the many beautiful public parks of +London. They are located in the Kensington parish, a western suburb of +the city, lying north of the Thames and four miles west-southwest of +St. Paul's. In his poem Arnold contrasts the serenity of nature +with the restlessness of modern life. "Not Lucan, not Vergil, +only Wordsworth, has more beautifully expressed the spirit of +Pantheism."--HERBERT W. PAUL. + + +=4.= The pine trees here mentioned are since dead. + +=14. What endless active life!= Compare with Arnold's sonnet of this +volume, entitled _Quiet Work_, ll. 4-7 and 11-12. + +=21. the huge world.= London. + +=24. Was breathed on by rural Pan.= Note Arnold's classic way of +accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature god. +See note, l. 67, _The Strayed Reveller_. + [179] +=37-42.= Compare the thought here presented with the following lines + from Wordsworth:-- + + "These beauteous forms, + ... have not been to me + As is a landscape to a blind man's eye. + But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din + Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, + ... sensations sweet + Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; + And passing even into my purer mind, + With tranquil restoration." + +Read also Wordsworth's _Lines to the Daffodil_. + +What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently brought it to +the author's mind? How does he show his interest in nature? In human +beings? What inspiration does the author seek from nature, ll. 37-42? +Explain the meaning of the last two lines. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER + +"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, that +perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, which saves +me from being entirely _ennuyx_, professorial and pedantic." (Matthew +Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, 1858.) + +Circe, according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who dwelt in +the island of Ææa, and who possessed the power to transform men +into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' wanderings.) In +Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic potion, by which this +transformation is accomplished, affects not the body, but the mind of +the youth. + + +=12. ivy-cinctured.= That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, +the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned with ivy. See +also l. 33. [180] + +=36. rout.= Consult dictionary. + +=38. Iacchus.= In the Eleusinian mysteries, Bacchus bore the name of +Iacchus. =fane.= A temple. From the Latin _fanum_, a place of worship +dedicated to any deity. + +=48. The lions sleeping.= As Ulysses' companions approached Circe's +palace, following their landing on her island, they found themselves +"surrounded by lions, tigers, and wolves, not fierce but tamed by +Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician." + +=67. Pan's flute music!= Pan, the god of pastures and woodlands, +was the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's flute, with which he +accompanied himself and his followers in the dance. + +=71. Ulysses.= The celebrated hero of the Trojan war; also famous for +his wanderings. One of his chief adventures, on his return voyage from +Troy, was with the enchantress Circe, with whom he tarried a year, +forgetful of his faithful wife, Penelope, at home. + +=72. Art.= That is, are you. (Now used only in solemn or poetic +style.) + +=73. range.= Wander aimlessly about. + +=74. See what the day brings.= That is, the youth. See ll. 24-52 + +=81. Nymphs.= Goddesses of the mountains, forests, meadows, or waters, +belonging to the lower rank of deities. + +=102-107.= Compare in thought with Tennyson's poem, _Ulysses_. + +=110. The favour'd guest of Circe.= Ulysses. See note, l. 71. + +=120. Muses.= Daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne, nine in number. +According to the earliest writers the Muses were only the inspiring +goddesses of song; but later they were looked to as the divinities +presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and over the arts and +sciences. + [181] +=130-135.= Note the poet's device for presenting a series of mental +pictures. Compare with Tennyson's plan in his _Palace of Art_. Does +Arnold's plan seem more or less mechanical than Tennyson's? + +=135-142. Tiresias.= The blind prophet of =Thebes= (l. 142), the chief +city in Boeotia, near the river =Asopus= (l. 138). In his youth, +Tiresias unwittingly came upon Athene while she was bathing, and was +punished by the loss of sight. As a recompense for this misfortune, +the goddess afterward gave him knowledge of future events. The +inhabitants of Thebes looked to Tiresias for direction in times of +war. + +=143. Centaurs.= Monsters, half man, half horse. + +=145. Pelion.= A mountain in eastern Thessaly, famous in Greek +mythology. In the war between the giants and the gods, the former, in +their efforts to scale the heavens, piled Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion +upon Ossa. + +=151-161.= What in these lines enables you to determine the people and +country alluded to? + +=162-167. Scythian ... embers.= The ancient Greek term for the nomadic +tribes inhabiting the whole north and northeast Europe and Asia. As +a distinct people they built no cities, and formed no general +government, but wandered from place to place by tribes, in their rude, +covered carts (see l. 164), living upon the coarsest kind of food (ll. +166-167). + +=177-180. Clusters of lonely mounds, etc.= That is, ruins of ancient +cities. + +=183. Chorasmian stream.= See note, l. 878, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=197. milk-barr'd onyx-stones.= A reference to the white streaks, or +bars, common to the onyx. + +=206. Happy Islands.= Mythical islands lying far to the west, the +abode of the heroes after death. + +=220. Hera's anger.= Hera (or Juno), wife to Jupiter, was noted for +her violent temper and jealousy. She is here represented as visiting +punishment upon the bard, perhaps out of jealousy of the gods who had +endowed him with poetic power, and his life, thus afflicted, seems +lengthened to seven ages. [182] + +=228-229. Lapithæ.= In Greek legends, a fierce Thessalian race, +governed by Pirothous, a half-brother to the Centaurs. =Theseus.= The +chief hero of Attica, who, according to tradition, united the several +tribes of Attica into one state, with Athens as the capital. His life +was filled with adventure. The reference here is to the time of the +marriage of Pirothous and Hippodamia, on which occasion the Centaurs, +who were among the guests, became intoxicated, and offered indignities +to the bride. In the fight that followed, Theseus joined with the +Lapithæ, and many of the Centaurs were slain. + +=231. Alcmena's dreadful son.= Hercules. On his expedition to capture +the Arcadian boar, his third labor, Hercules became involved in a +broil with the Centaurs, and in self-defence slew several of them with +his arrows. + +=245. Oxus stream.= See note, l. 2, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=254. Heroes.= The demigods of mythology. + +=257. Troy.= The capital of Troas, Asia Minor; the seat of the Trojan war. + +=254-260.= Shortly after the close of the Trojan war, a party of +heroes from all parts of Greece, many of whom had participated in the +expeditions against Thebes and Troy, set out under the leadership of +Jason to capture the Golden Fleece. Leaving the shores of Thessaly, +the adventurers sailed eastward and finally came to the entrance of +the =Euxine Sea= (the =unknown sea=, l. 260), which was guarded by +the Clashing Islands. Following the instructions of the sage Phineus, +Jason let fly a dove between the islands, and at the moment of +rebound the expedition passed safely through. The ship in which the +adventurers sailed was called the Argo, after its builder, Argus; +hence our term Argonauts. + [183] +=261. Silenus.= A divinity of Asiatic origin; foster-father to Bacchus +and leader of the =Fauns= (l. 265), satyr-like divinities, half man, +half goat, sometimes represented in art as hearing torches (l. 274). + +=275. Mænad.= A bacchante,--a priestess or votary of Bacchus. + +=276. Faun with torches.= See note, l. 261. + + +What is the situation at the beginning of the poem? What effect does +the "liquor" have upon the youth? Why is the presence of Ulysses so +much in harmony with the situation? How does he greet Circe; how the +youth? What does his presence suggest to the latter? Why? Note the +vividness of the pictures he describes; also the swiftness with which +he changes from one to another. What power is ascribed to the poet? +Why his "pain"? What effect is gained by closing the poem with the +same words with which it is opened? Why the irregular verse used? + + + + +DOVER BEACH + +In this poem is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, at once +religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is one of his +most passionate interpretations of life. + + +=15. Sophocles= (495-406 B.C.). One of the three great tragic poets of +Greece. His rivals were Æschylus (526-456 B.C.) and Euripides (486-406 +B.C.). + +=16. Ægean Sea.= See note, l. 236, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + + * * * * * + +Image the scene in the opening stanzas. What is the author's mood? +Why does he call some one to look on the scene with him? What is the +"eternal note of sadness"? Why connect it in thought with the sea? Why +does this thought suggest Sophocles? What thought next presents itself +to the author's mind? From what source must one's help and comfort +then be drawn? Why so? Why the irregular versification? State the +theme of the poem. [184] + + + + +PHILOMELA + +"Philomela unites the sensibilities and intellectual experience of +modern Englishmen with the luminousness and simplicity of Greek +poetry."--SAINTSBURY. + +The myth of the nightingale has long been a favorite with the poets, +who have variously interpreted the bird's song. See Coleridge's, +Keats's, and Wordsworth's poems on the subject. The most common +version of the myth, the one followed by Arnold, is as follows:-- + +"Pandion (son of Erichthonius, special ward to Minerva) had two +daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in +marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). This +ruler, after his wife had borne him a son, Itys (or Itylus), wearied +of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to insure her silence, +and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the other sister, +Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which she wove her story, +informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In revenge upon Tereus, the +sisters killed Itylus, and served up the child as food to the father; +but the gods, in indignation, transformed Procne into a swallow, +Philomela into a nightingale, forever bemoaning the murdered Itylus, +and Tereus into a hawk, forever pursuing the sisters."--GAYLEY'S +_Classic Myths_. + + +=4.= Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem. + +=5. O wanderer from a Grecian shore.= See note, l. 27. + +=8.= Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not +one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss. + +=18. Thracian wild.= Thrace was the name used by the early Greeks for +the entire region north of Greece. + [185] +=21. The too clear web=, etc. See introductory note to poem for +explanation of this and the following lines. + +=27. Daulis.= A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of +Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. =Cephessian vale.= The +valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through Doris, Phocis, +and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf. + +=29. How thick the bursts=, etc. Compare with the following lines from + Coleridge:-- + + "'Tis the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes, + As he were fearful that an April night + Would be too short for him to utter forth + His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul + Of all its music!" + --_The Nightingale_. + + Also + + "O Nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of a 'fiery heart':-- + These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce; + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a Valentine." + --WORDSWORTH. + + =31-32. Eternal passion! + Eternal pain!= Compare:-- + + "Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains." + --COLERIDGE, _To a Nightingale_. + + and + + "Sweet bird ... + Most musical, most melancholy!" + --MILTON, _Il Penseroso_. + + +Image the scene in the poem. How does the author secure the proper +atmosphere for the theme of the poem? Account for the note of triumph +in the nightingale's song; note of pain. What is shown by the poet's +question, ll. 10-15? What new qualities are added to the nightingale's +song, l. 25? Account for them. Why _eternal_ passion, _eternal_ pain? +Do you feel the form of verse used (Pindaric blank) to be adapted to +the theme? [186] + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + +=4. kept uninfringed my nature's law.= That is, have lived a perfect +life. + +=5. inly-written chart.= The conscience. + +=8. incognisable.= Not to be comprehended by finite mind. + +=23. prore.= Poetical word for _prow_, the fore part of a ship. + +=27. stem.= Consult dictionary. + +What important incident in the destiny of the soul is alluded to in +stanza 1? Interpret ll. 13-14, and apply to your own experience. Why +cannot we live "chance's fool"? Is there any hint of fatalism in the +poem, or are we held accountable for our own destiny? + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE, ON RETURNING A VOLUME OF THE LETTERS OF ORTIS + +This poem, the fifth in a loosely connected group of lyrics, under the +general name _Switzerland_, is a continuation of the preceding +poem, _Isolation--to Marguerite_, and is properly entitled, _To +Marguerite--Continued_. When printed separately, the above title is +used. + +Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. His +_Ultime Lettere di Ortis_ was translated into the English in 1818. + + [187] +=1. Yes!= Used in answer to the closing thought of the preceding poem. + +=7. moon.= Note the frequency with which reference to the moon, with +its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you give any reason +for this? + +=24.= Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: "_Isolation_ +winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the century--one of +the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of English verse--a +phrase complete and final, with epithets in unerring cumulation." + +Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? Discuss l.2 +as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," l.4? Why "endless +bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling of despair, l.13? Answer the +questions asked in the last stanza. In what frame of mind does the +poem leave you? + + + + +KAISER DEAD + +APRIL 6, 1887 + +Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was most +sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in the minor +key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just lost our dear, dear +mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated from his home in Cobham, +Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very sad." The poem was written the +following July, and was published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for that +month. + + +=2. Cobham.= See note above. + +=3. Farringford,= in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord Tennyson. + +=5. Pen-bryn's bold bard.= Sir Lewis Morris, author of the _Epic of +Hades_, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire. + [188] +=11-12.= In Burns's poem, _Poor Mailie's Elegy_, occur the following +lines:-- + + "Come, join the melancholious croon + O' Robin's reed." + +=20. Potsdam.= The capital of the government district of Potsdam, in +the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's name, _Kaiser_. + +=41. the Grand Old Man.= Gladstone. + +=50. agog.= In a state of eager excitement. + +=65. Geist.= Also remembered in a poem entitled _Geist's Grave_, +included in this volume. + +=76. chiel.= A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow. + + "Buirdly _chiels_ an clever hizzies." + --BURNS, _The Twa Dogs_. + +=Skye.= The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. 7, _Saint +Brandan_. + + + + +THE LAST WORD + +In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a hopeless +struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too strong for +him. + +State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? What +is the _narrow bed_, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With whom has it +been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied in l. 6? What is meant +by _ringing shot_, l. 11? Who are the victors, l. 14? What would they +probably say on finding the body near the wall? Can you think of any +historical characters of whom the poem might aptly have been written? + + + + [189] +PALLADIUM + +At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy a +celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was +reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the belief +was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue remained +within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek champions, succeeded +in entering the city in disguise, stole the Palladium and carried it +off to the besiegers' camp at Argos. It was some time, however, before +the city fell. + +=1. Simois.= A small river of the Troad which takes its rise in the +rocky, wooded eminence which, according to Greek tradition, formed +the acropolis of Troy. The Palladium was set up on its banks near its +source, in a temple especially erected for it (l. 6), and from this +lofty position was supposed to watch over the safety of the city and +her defenders on the plains below. + +=3. Hector.= Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy (Ilium), and his +wife, Hecuba, was the leader and champion of the Trojan armies. He +distinguished himself in numerous single combats with the ablest of +the Greek heroes; and to him was principally due the stubborn defence +of the Trojan capital. He was finally slain by Achilles, aided by +Athene, and his body dragged thrice around the walls of Troy behind +the chariot of his conqueror. + +=14. Xanthus.= The Scamander, the largest and most celebrated river of +the Troad, near which Troy was situated, was presided over by a deity +known to the gods as Xanthus. His contest with Achilles, whom he so +nearly overwhelmed, forms a notable incident of the _Iliad_. + +=15. Ajax, or Aiax.= One of the leading Greek heroes in the siege of +Troy, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. In bravery +and feats of valor he was second only to Achilles. Not being awarded +the armor of Achilles after that hero's death, he slew himself. + [190] +=16.= Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated for +her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to her by +both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in the second +part of _Faust_, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that name, +addresses her thus:-- + + "Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." + +Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3), was the cause +of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek mythology, which +forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, the _Iliad_. + +What is the central thought of the poem? Of what is the Palladium +typical? Explain the thought in stanza 3. What is the force of the +references of stanza 4? Discuss the use of the words "rust" and +"shine," l. 17. Just what is meant by "soul" as the word is used in +the poem? + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE + +_Self-Dependence_ is a poem in every respect characteristic of its +author. In it Arnold exhorts mankind to seek refuge from human +troubles in the example of nature. + +Picture the situation in the poem. What is the poet's mood as shown +in the opening stanzas? From what source does he seek aid? Why? What +answer does he receive? What is the source of nature's repose? Where +and how must the human soul find its contentment? + + + + [191] +GEIST'S GRAVE + +This poem appeared in the January number of the _Fortnightly Review_ +for 1881. + + +=12. homily.= Sermon. + +=15. the Virgilian cry.= _Sunt lacrimæ rerum!_ These words are +interpreted in the following line. + +=42. On lips that rarely form them now.= Arnold wrote but little +poetry after 1867. + +=55-56. thine absent master.= Richard Penrose Arnold, the poet's only +surviving son. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOÖN + +Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a celebrated German dramatist +and critic. For a time he studied theology at Leipsic, then turned his +attention to the stage, and later to criticism. His greatest critical +work (1766) is a treatise on Art, the famous Greek statuary group, +the Laocoön, which gives the work its name, forming the basis for a +comparative discussion of Sculpture, Poetry, Painting, and Music. + + +=1. Hyde Park.= The largest park in London, and the principal +recreation ground of that city. + +=15. Phoebus-guarded ground.= Greece. Phoebus, a name often given +Apollo, the sun god. + +=16. Pausanias.= A noted Greek geographer and writer on art who lived +in the second century. "His work, _The Gazetteer of Hellas_, is our +best repertory of information for the topography, local history, +religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of the different +states of Greece."--K.O. MÜLLER, _History of the Literature of Ancient +Greece_. + [192] +=21-22. Dante= (1265-1321), =Petrarch= (1304-1374), =Tasso= (1544-; +1595), =Ariosto= (1475-1533). Celebrated Italian poets. + +=25. Raphael= (1483-1520). The famous Italian painter. + +=29. Goethe= (1749-1832). The greatest name in German literature. +His works include poetry, dramas, and criticisms. =Wordsworth= +(1770-1850). See the poem, _Memorial Verses_, of this volume. + +=35. Mozart= (1766-1791), =Beethoven= (1770-1827), =Mendelssohn= +(1809-1847). Noted musicians and composers. + +=42. south.= Warm. + +=43-48.= Cyclops Polyphemus, famous in the story of Ulysses, was +a persistent and jealous suitor of Galatea, the fairest of sea +divinities. So ardent was he in his wooings, that he would leave his +flocks to wander at will, while he sang his uncouth lays from the +hilltops to Galatea in the bay below. Her only answers were words of +scorn and mockery. See Andrew Lang's translation of Theocritus, Idyl +VI, for further account. + +=70-76. Abbey towers.= That is, Westminster Abbey, a mile's distance +to the south and east of Hyde Park. The abbey is built in the form of +a cross, the body or lower part of which is termed the nave (l. 73). +The upper portion is occupied by the choir, the anthems of which, with +their organ accompaniments, are alluded to in ll. 74-77. + +=89-106. Miserere Domine!= _Lord, have mercy!_ These words are from +the service of the Church of England. The meaning in these lines is +that Beethoven, in his masterpieces, has transferred the thoughts and +feelings, above inadequately expressed in words, into another and more +emotional tongue; that is, music. + +=107. Ride.= A famous driveway in Hyde Park, commonly called Rotten +Row. + +=119. vacant.= Thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection. + + "For oft, when on my couch I lie + In _vacant_ or in pensive mood." + --WORDSWORTH'S _Lines to the Daffodils_, ll. 19-20. + +=124. hies.= Hastens (poetical). + [193] +=130. painter and musician too!= Arnold held poetry to be equal to +painting and music combined. + +=140. movement.= Activities. Explained in the following lines. + +=163-210.= Note carefully the argument used to prove that poetry +interprets life more accurately and effectively than any of the other +arts. =Homer=, the most renowned of all Greek poets. The time in which +he lived is not definitely known. =Shakespeare= (1504-1616). + +Give the setting of the story. What was the topic of conversation? +What stand did the poet's friend take regarding poetry? Why turn to +Greece in considering the arts? What limitations of the painter's art +are pointed out by the poet? What is his attitude toward music? +What finally is "the poet's sphere," l. 127? Wherein then is poetry +superior to the other arts? Does the author prove his point by his +poem? Discuss the poem as to movement, diction, etc. + + + + + +QUIET WORK + +No poet, not even Wordsworth, was more passionately fond of nature +than Arnold. Note his attitude in the poem. + + +=1. One lesson.= What lesson? + +=4.= Discuss the use of the adjective "loud"; also "noisier," l. 7. + + +Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme +formula, and number of lines. See the introduction to Sharp's _Sonnets +of this Century_. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +Despite this tribute, Arnold considered Homer Shakespeare's equal, if +not his superior. What do Shakespeare's smile and silence imply on +his part? Explain in full the figure used. Do you consider it apt? Why +"Better so," l. 10? What is there in the poem that helps you to see +wherein lay Shakespeare's power to interpret life? Select the lines +which most impress you, and tell why. [194] + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS + +This sonnet was written in 1852, when the poet was in his thirtieth +year. + + +=5. joy.= Be glad. =heats.= Passions. + +=6. even clime.= That is, in the less emotional years of maturity. + +=12. hurrying fever.= See note, l. 6. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY + +=1. That son of Italy.= Giacopone di Todi. + +=2. Dante= (1265-1321). Best known as the author of _The Divine +Comedy_. + +=3. In his light youth.= Explain. + +=11. sackcloth.= Symbolic of mourning or mortification of the flesh. + + +Tell the story of the poem and make the application. Explain Arnold's +idea of poetry as set forth in ll. 12-14. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + +=3. Marcus Aurelius= (121-180 A.D.), commonly called "the philosopher." +A celebrated Roman emperor, prominent among the ethical teachers +of his time. Arnold himself has been aptly styled by Sharp an +"impassioned Marcus Aurelius, wrought by poetic vision and emotion to +poetic music." [195] + +=6. foolish.= In the sense of unreasonable. =ken.= The Scotch word +meaning sight. + +=7. rates.= Berates, reproves. + + +Give the poem's theme. What is implied by the word "even," l. 1? Does +the author agree with the implication? Why so? Discuss l. 5 as to its +meaning. Interpret the expressions "ill-school'd spirit," l. 11, and +"Some nobler, ampler stage of life," l. 12. Where finally are the aids +to a nobler life to be found? Do you agree with this philosophy of +life? + + + + +EAST LONDON + +=2. Bethnal Green.= An eastern suburb of London. + +=4. Spitalfields.= A part of northeast London, comprising the parishes +of Bethnal Green and Christchurch. + + +Image the scene. What is the purpose of the first four lines? Discuss +l. 6. What is the import of the preacher's response? What are the +poet's conclusions drawn in ll. 9-14? + + + + +WEST LONDON + +=1. Belgrave Square.= An important square in the western part of +London. + + +Tell the situation and the story of the poem. Why did the woman +solicit aid from the laboring men? Why not from the wealthy? Explain +ll. 9-11. What is the poet's final conclusion? + + + + [196] +MEMORIAL VERSES + +APRIL, 1850 + +Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in the Lake, District, April 23, 1850. +These verses, dedicated to his memory, are among Arnold's best-known +lines. For adequacy of meaning and charm of expression, they are +almost unsurpassed; they also contain some of the poet's soundest +poetical criticism. The poem was first published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for June, 1850, and bore the date of April 27. + + +=1. Goethe in Weimar sleeps.= The tomb of Goethe, the celebrated +German author (see note, l. 29, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoön_), is +in Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Weimar is +noted as the literary centre of Germany, and for this reason is styled +the German Athens. + +=2. Byron.= George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated English poet +of the French Revolutionary period, died at Missolonghi, Greece, where +he had gone to help the Greeks in their struggle to throw off the +Turkish yoke. He was preëminently a poet of passion, and, as such, +exerted a marked influence on the literature of his day. His petulant, +bitter rebellion against all law has become proverbial; hence the +term "Byronic." The =Titans= (l. 14) were a race of giants who warred +against the gods. The aptness of the comparison made here is at once +evident. In Arnold's sonnet, _A Picture at Newstead_, also occur these +lines:-- + + "'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry + Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony." + +=17. iron age.= In classic mythology, "The last of the four great ages +of the world described by Hesiod. Ovid, etc. It was supposed to +be characterized by abounding oppression, vice, and misery."-- +_International Dictionary_. The preceding ages, in order, were the +age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass. [197] + +=34-39=. Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was stung to death by a serpent, +and passed to the realm of the dead--Hades. Thither Orpheus descended, +and, by the charm of his lyre and song, persuaded Pluto to restore her +to life. This he consented to do on condition that she walk behind +her husband, who was not to look at her until they had arrived in +the upper world. Orpheus, however, looked back, thus violating the +conditions, and Eurydice was caught back into the infernal regions. + + "The ferry guard + Now would not row him o'er the lake again." + --LANDOR. + +=72. Rotha=. A small stream of the English Lake Region, on which Rydal +Mount, Wordsworth's burial-place, is situated. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY + +"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford who was by +his poverty forced to leave his studies there and at last to join +himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant +people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got +so much of their love and esteem that they discovered to him their +mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, +there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars who had formerly been of +his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the +gipsies, and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him +to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with +were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a +traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the +power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself +had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole +secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the +world an account of what he had learned."--GLANVIL'S _Vanity of +Dogmatizing_, 1661. [198] + + +=2. wattled cotes=. Sheepfolds. Probably suggested by Milton's + _Comus_, l. 344:-- + + "The folded flocks, penned in their _wattled cotes_." + +=9. Cross and recross=. Infinitives depending upon seen, l. 8. + +=13. cruse=. Commonly associated in thought with the story of Elijah +and the widow of Zarephath, 1 _Kings_, xvii: 8-16. + +=19. corn=. See note, l. 156, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=30. Oxford towers=. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire and the +seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities in Europe, +is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence of the +Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course the Isis). +It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the tops of +which command a fine view of the city with its domes and +towers."--BAEDEKER'S _Great Britain_, in his _Handbooks for +Travellers_. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, surely, +has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place +and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime, and more than one, +to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily." See also note, l. 19, +_Thyrsis_. + +=31. Glanvil's book=. See introductory note to poem. + +=42. erst=. Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=44-50=. See introductory note to poem. + +=57. Hurst=. Cumner (or Cumnor) Hurst, one of the Cumnor range of +hills, some two or three miles south and west of Oxford, is crowned +with a clump of cedars; hence the name "Hurst." + +=58. Berkshire moors=. Berkshire is the county, or shire, on the south +of Oxford County. + +=69. green-muffled=. Explain the epithet. + [199] +=74. Bablockhithe=. A small town some four miles west and a little +south of Oxford, on the Thames, which at that point is a mere stream +crossed by a ferry. This and numerous other points of interest in the +vicinity of Oxford are frequented by Oxford students; hence Arnold's +familiarity with them and his reference to them in this poem and +_Thyrsis_. See any atlas. + +=79. Wychwood bowers=. That is, Wychwood Forest, ten or twelve miles +north and west of Oxford. See note, l. 74. + +=83. To dance around the Fyfield elm in May=. Fyfield, a parish in +Berkshire, about six miles southwest of Oxford. The reference here is +to the "May-day" celebrations formerly widely observed in Europe, but +now nearly disappeared. The chief features of the celebration in Great +Britain are the gathering of hawthorn blossoms and other flowers, the +crowning of the May-queen and dancing around the May-pole--here the +Fyfield elm. See note, l. 74. Read Tennyson's poem, _The Queen o' the +May_. + +=91. Godstow Bridge=. Some two miles up the Thames from Oxford. + +=95. lasher pass=. An English term corresponding to our _mill race_. +The _lasher_ is the dam, or weir. + +=98. outlandish=. Analyze the word and determine meaning. + +=111. Bagley Wood=. South and west of Oxford, beyond South Hinksey. +See note, l. 125; also note, l. 74. + +=114. tagg'd=. That is, marked; the leaves being colored by frost. + +=115. Thessaly=. The northeastern district of ancient Greece, +celebrated in mythology. Here a forest ground near Bagley Wood. See +note, l. 111; also note, l. 74. + +=125. Hinksey=. North and South Hinksey are unimportant villages a +short distance out from Oxford in the Cumnor Hills. See note, l. 74. + [200] +=129. Christ Church hall=. The largest and most fashionable college +in Oxford; founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. The chapel of Christ +Church is also the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford. + +=130. grange=. Consult dictionary. + +=133. Glanvil=. Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. A noted English divine and +philosopher; author of a defence of belief in witchcraft. + +=140. red-fruited yew tree=. The yew tree is very common in English +burial-grounds. It grows slowly, lives long, has a dark, thick +foliage, and yields a red berry. See Wordsworth's celebrated poem, +_The Yew-Tree_. + +=141-170=. "This note of lassitude is struck often--perhaps too +often--in Arnold's poems."--DU PONT SYLE. See also _The Stanzas in +Memory of the Author of Obermann_. For the author's less despondent +mood, see his _Rugby Chapel_, included in this volume. + +=147. teen=. Grief, sorrow; from the old English _teona_, meaning +injury. + +=149. the just-pausing Genius=. Does the author here allude to death? + +=151. Thou hast not lived= (so). That is, as described in preceding +stanza. + +=152. Thou hadst one aim=, etc. What was the Scholar-Gipsy's _one_ +motive in life? + +=157-160. But thou possessest an immortal lot=, etc. Explain. + +=165. Which much to have tried=, etc. Which many attempts and many +failures bring. + +=180. do not we ... await it too=? That is, the spark from heaven. See +l. 171. + +=182-190=. Possibly Carlyle, although the author may have had in mind +a type rather than an individual. + +=208-209. Averse, as Dido did=, etc. Dido, the mythical queen of +Carthage, being deserted by her lover Æneas, slew herself. She +afterward met him on his journey through Hades, but turned from him in +scorn. + [201] + "In vain he thus attempts her mind to move + With tears and prayers and late repenting love; + Disdainfully she looked, then turning round + But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground, + And what he says and swears regards no more + Than the deaf rocks when the loud billows roar." + --DRYDEN'S _Translation_. + +For entire episode, see _Æneid_, vi, 450-476. + +=212. inviolable shade=. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. +Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this and the +preceding line. + +=214=. Why "silver'd" branches? + +=220=. dingles. Wooded dells. + +=231-250=. Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained +image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days of sick +unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. In the +course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt Hutton says of +this poem and this closing picture: "That most beautiful and graceful +poem on the _Scholar-Gipsy_ (the Oxford student who is said to have +forsaken academic study in order to learn, if it might be, those +potent secrets of nature, the traditions of which the gypsies are +supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a digression of the most vivid +beauty.... Nothing could illustrate better than this [closing] passage +Arnold's genius and his art.... His whole drift having been that +care and effort and gain and pressure of the world are sapping human +strength, he ends with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, +which exhibits human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could +quote poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant +digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of +melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is +still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to say, +but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the human +spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources +still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to +feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does not +teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it." [202] + +=232. As some grave Tyrian trader, etc=. Tyre, the second oldest and +most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a strong +competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean. + +=236. Ægean Isles=. The Ægean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean +lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the north, and +Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small islands, many of +which are famous in Greek mythology. + +=238. Chian wine=. Chios, or Scio, an island in the Ægean Sea (see +note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs. + +=239. tunnies=. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in the +Mediterranean Sea. + +=244. Midland waters=. The Mediterranean Sea. + +=245. Syrtes=. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, +the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, =soft Sicily=. Sicily +is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily." + +=247. western straits=. Strait of Gibraltar. + +=250. Iberians=. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by +Portugal and Spain. + +What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What quest is +to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join himself to the +gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, then, did he continue +with them till his death? Why would he avoid others than members of +the gipsy crew? Why his pensive air? To what truth does the author +suddenly awake? How does the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain +fully lines 180-200. Note carefully the author's contrast between the +life led by the Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better? +Why? Make an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it +apt? Why used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted +to the theme of the poem? [203] + + + + +THYRSIS + +A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, who +died at Florence, 1861. + +Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a +sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English +language. + +Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. In +the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in the +Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has come +to mean any rustic. + +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin in spirit +to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He studied at both +Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately associated and +became fast friends. In 1869 his health began to fail, and two years +later he died in Florence, Italy, where he had gone in the hope of +being benefited by the climate. + +Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his poem: +"Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the Thyrsis was +modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been much reading during +the two years this poem has been forming itself, and that I meant the +diction to be so artless as to be almost heedless. However, there is +a mean which must not be passed, and before I reprint this I will +consider well all objections. The images are all from actual +observation.... The cuckoo in the wet June morning, I heard in the +garden at Woodford, and all those three stanzas, which you like, are +reminiscences of Woodford. Edward has, I think, fixed on the two +stanzas I myself like best: 'O easy access,' and 'And long the way +appears.' I also like 'Where is the girl,' and the stanza before it; +but that is because they bring certain places and moments before +me.... It is probably too quiet a poem for the general taste, but I +think it will stand wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold +wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I think, +solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had long been +in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, and, when I +began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You say, truly, that +there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic side, in fact) which one +cannot deal with in this way.... Still, Clough had the idyllic side, +too; to deal with this suited my desire to deal again with that Cumner +country. Anyway, only so could I treat the matter this time. _Valeat +quantum_." [204] + + +=1.= Note how the tone of the poem is struck in the first line. + +=2. In the two Hinkseys.= That is, North and South Hinksey. See note, +l. 125, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=4. Sibylla's name.= In ancient mythology the Sibyls were certain +women reputed to possess special powers of prophecy, or divination, +and who claimed to make special intercession with the gods in behalf +of those who resorted to them. Do you see why their "name" would be +used on signs as here mentioned? + +=6. ye hills.= See note, l. 30, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=14. Ilsley Downs.= The surface of East and West Ilsley parishes, in +Berkshire, some twelve or fourteen miles south of Oxford, is broken by +ranges of plateau-like hills, known in England as _downs_. + +=15. The Vale.= White Horse Vale; the upper valley of the River Ock, +westward from Oxford. =weirs=. See note, l. 95, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + [205] +=19. And that sweet city with her dreaming spires.= Arnold's intense +love for Oxford and the surrounding country appears in many of his +essays and poems. In the introduction to his _Essays on Criticism_, +Vol. I, occurs the following tribute: "Beautiful city! so venerable, +so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our +century, so serene! + + 'There are our young barbarians all at play!' + +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments to +the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment of +the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, +keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, +to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from +another side?... Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and +unpopular names and impossible loyalties! what example could ever so +inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher +could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all prone, +that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of +Schiller, makes it his friend's highest praise ... to have left miles +out of sight behind him: the bondage of 'was uns alle bändigt, Das +Gemeine'?" + +=20.= Compare with Lowell's lines on June, in _The Vision of Sir +Launfal_. + +=22-23.= Explain. + +=24. Once pass'd I blindfold here.= That is, at one time I could have +passed here blindfolded, being so familiar with the country. Can you +think of any other possible interpretation? + +=26-30.= Explain. + +=31-40.= Compare the thought here to that of Milton's _Lycidas_, ll. +23-38. A comparison of the two poems entire, in thought and structure, +will be found to be both interesting and profitable. =Shepherd-pipe= +(l. 35). The term =pipe=, also reed (l. 78), is continually used in +pastoral verse as symbolic of poetry and song. [206] + +=38-45. Needs must I lose them=, etc. That is, I must lose them, etc. +Arnold's great ambition was to devote his life to literature, which +circumstances largely prevented; while Clough was eager to take a more +active part in life, not being content with the uneventful career of a +poet, =irk'd= (l. 40). Annoyed; worried. =keep= (l. 43). Here used in +the sense of remain, =silly= (l. 45). Harmless; senseless. The word has +an interesting history. + +=46-50=. Like Arnold, Clough held lofty ideals of life, and grieved to +see men living so far below their privileges. This, with his loss +of faith in God, tinged his poetry with sadness. The storms (l. 49) +allude to the spiritual, political, and social unrest of the last of +the first half, and first of the last half, of the nineteenth century. + +=51-60. So ... So....= Just as the cuckoo departs with the bloom of +the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. =With blossoms red and white= +(l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common in English gardens. + +=62. high Midsummer pomps=. Explained in the following lines. + +=71. light comer=. That is, the cuckoo. Compare + + "O blithe New-comer." + --WORDSWORTH, _Lines to the Cuckoo_. + +=77. swains=. Consult dictionary. + +=78. reed=. See note, l. 35 of poem. + +=79. And blow a strain the world at last shall heed=. On the whole, +Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by the +reviewers. + +=80. Corydon=. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis, +shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music. + +=84. Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate=. Bion of Smyrna, Asia Minor, +a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent the later +years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was poisoned. +His untimely death was lamented by his follower and pupil, Moschus of +Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and genuine pathos. =ditty=. +In a general sense, any song; usually confined, however, to a song +narrating some heroic deed. [207] + +=85. cross the unpermitted ferry's flow=. That is, cross the river +of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to Hades. +Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry being +passed by mortals. See note, ll. 34-39, _Memorial Verses_; also ll. +207-210, _The Scholar-Gipsy_, of this volume. + +=88-89. Proserpine=, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the +underworld, was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as +the goddess of the spring. + +=90. And flute his friend like Orpheus=, etc. See note, ll. 34-39, +_Memorial Verses_. + +=94. She knew the Dorian water's gush divine=. The river Alpheus, +in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus--the country of the +Dorians--disappears from the surface and flows in subterranean +channels for some considerable part of its course to the sea. In +ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again to the surface in +central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite haunt of Proserpine, +as the fountain of Arethusa. + +=95-96. She knew each lily white which Enna yields=, etc. According to +Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers in the vale of Enna +when carried off by Pluto. + +=97. She loved the Dorian pipe=, etc. What reason or reasons can you +give for Proserpine's love of things Dorian? + +=106. I know the Fyfield tree=. See l. 83, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=109. Ensham, Sanford=. Small towns on the Thames; the former, some +four miles above Oxford; the latter, a like distance below. + +=123. Wytham flats=. Some three miles above Oxford, along the Thames. + [208] +=135. sprent. Sprinkled=. The preterit or past participle of _spreng_ +(obsolete or archaic). + +=141-150=. Explain. + +=155. Berkshire=. See note, l. 58, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=167. Arno-vale=. The valley of the Arno, a river in Tuscany, Italy, +on which Florence is situated. + +=175. To a boon ... country he has fled=. That is, to Italy. + +=177. the great Mother=. Ceres, the earth goddess. + +=181-190=. Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral +poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, +who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the +power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make +strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to +death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, +took upon himself the reaping contest with Lityerses, overcame him, +and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, +like the Linus-song, one of the early, plaintive strains of Greek +popular poetry, and used to be sung by the corn reapers. Other +traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph, who exacted from +him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and +was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, +raised him to heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from +which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly +sacrifices. See Servius, _Comment, in Vergil. Bucol_., V, 20, and +VIII, 68. + +=191-200=. Explain the lines. =Sole= (l. 192). See l. 563, _Sohrab and +Rustum_. =soft sheep= (l. 198). Note the use of the adjective _soft_. +Cf. _soft Sicily_, l. 245, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=201-202. A fugitive and gracious light=, etc. What is the light +sought by the Scholar-Gipsy and by the poet? Beginning with l. 201, +explain the succeeding stanzas, sentence by sentence, to the close of +the poem. Then sum up the thought in a few words. + [209] +What is the author's mood, as shown by the first stanza? What is his +purpose in recalling the haunts once familiar to him about Oxford? +Why the mention of the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the significance of the +"tree" so frequently alluded to in the poem? Discuss stanzas 4 and 5 +as to meaning. To what is Thyrsis (Clough) likened in stanzas 6, 7, +and 8? Where, however, is there a difference? Apply ll. 81-84 to +Clough and Arnold. How do you explain the "easy access" of the Dorian +shepherds to Proserpine, l. 91? What digression is made in ll. +131-150? What is the poet's attitude toward life? Why will he not +despair so long as the "lonely tree" remains? What comparison does +he make between Clough and the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the "gracious +light," l. 201? Where found? What voice whispers to him amid the +"heart-wearying roar" of the city? What effect does it have upon him? +Does it give him courage or fortitude? Discuss the verse form and +diction of the poem. + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL + +_Rugby Chapel_ (1857), one of Arnold's best-known and most +characteristic productions, was written in memory of his father, Dr. +Thomas Arnold, famous as the great head-master at Rugby. Dr. Arnold +was born at East Cowes in the Isle of Wight, June 13, 1795, and as a +boy was at school at Warminster and Winchester. In 1811 he entered +Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and having won recognition as a +scholar, was awarded a fellowship of the Oriel in 1815. Three years +later he settled at Laleham, where, in 1820, he married Mary Penrose, +daughter of Justice Penrose, and where, two years later, was born +Matthew, who was destined to win marked distinction among English men +of letters. In 1827 he was elected head-master at Rugby, and shortly +afterward began those important reforms which have placed him among +the greatest educators of his century. Chief among his writings is +his _History of Rome_, published in several volumes. In 1841 he was +appointed Regius Professor of History at Oxford. He died very suddenly +on Sunday, June 12, 1842, and on the following Friday his remains +were interred in the chancel of Rugby Chapel, immediately under the +communion table. [210] + +In his poem Arnold has drawn a vivid picture of a strong, helpful, +hopeful, unselfish soul, cheering and supporting his weaker comrades +in their upward and onward march--a picture of the guide and companion +of his earlier years; and in so doing he has preserved his father's +memory to posterity in a striking and an abiding way. + + +=1-13=. Note carefully the tone of these introductory lines, and +determine the poet's purpose in opening the poem in this mood. The +picture inevitably calls to mind Bryant's lines, _The Death of +Flowers_. + +=16. gloom=. The key-word to the preceding lines. Explain why it calls +to mind the poet's father. Keats makes a similar use of the word +_forlorn_ in his _Ode to the Nightingale_. + + "... forlorn. + Forlorn! the very word is like a bell + To toll me back from thee to my sole self." + +=30-33=. Discuss the figure as to its aptness. + +=37. shore=. A word common to hymns. + +=38-57=. Discuss the poet's idea of the future life as set forth in +these lines. Can you think of any other author or authors who have +held a like view? + +=58-59=. The poet asks this question only to answer it in the lines +following. Compare and contrast the two classes of men spoken of; +their aims in life and their achievements. Why is the path of those +who have chosen a "clear-purposed goal" pictured so difficult? Who are +they that start well, but fall out by the wayside? [211] + +=90-93=. Compare with Byron's description of a storm in the Alps, +Canto III, _Childe Harold_. + + "Far along, + From peak to peak, the rattling crags among + Leaps the live thunder." + +=98-101=. So unstable is the hold of the "snow-beds" on the mountain +sides that travellers passing beneath them are forbidden by the guides +to speak, lest their voices precipitate an avalanche. See ll. 160-169, +_Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=117-123=. What human frailties are indicated in the answer to the +host's question? Note the contrast in the succeeding lines. + +=124-144=. The imagery of these lines is drawn from Dr. Arnold's +life at Rugby. Under his care frequent excursions were made into the +neighboring Westmoreland Hills. Nothing perhaps gives a better idea of +the man than the description of his "delight in those long mountain +walks, when they would start with their provisions for the day, +himself the guide and life of the party, always on the lookout how +best to break the ascent by gentle stages, comforting the little ones +in their falls and helping forward those who were tired, himself +always keeping with the laggers, that none might strain their strength +by trying to be in front with him; and then, when his assistance was +not wanted, the liveliest of all--his step so light, his eye so +quick in finding flowers to take home to those who were not of the +party."--ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY. + +=171. In the rocks=. That is, among the rocks. + +=190. Ye=. Antecedent? + +=208. City of God=. + + "There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the _city of + God_." + --_Psalms_, xlvi: 4. + + * * * * * + + + +INDEX TO NOTES + +Abbey towers, 192. +Ader-baijan, 166. +Ægean Isles, 202, +Afrasiab, 156. +Agog, 188. +Ajax, 189. +Alcmena's dreadful son, 182. +All red ... bathed in foam, 170. +Aloof he sits, etc., 159. +And that ... more, 169, +Ariosto, 192. +Arno-vale, 208. +Art, 180. +Arthur's court, 169. +Art them not Rustum? 160. +Asopus, 181. +As some grave Tyrian trader, etc., 202 +As when some hunter, etc., 162. +At my boy's years, 156. +Attruck, 158. +_Austerity of Poetry_, 194. +Averse, as Dido did, etc., 200. + +Bablockhithe, 199. +Bagley Wood, 199. +Bahrein, 160. +Beethoven, 192. +Be govern'd, 160. +Belgrave Square, 195. +Bell, 166. +Berkshire moors, 198. +Bethnal Green, 195. +Blessed sign, 171. +Blow a strain the world at last shall heed, 206. +Bokhara, 157. +Bow'd his head, 161. +Breathed on by rural Pan, 178. +Broce-liande, 174. +Bruited up, 162. +Byron, 196. +By thy father's head, 160. + +Cabin'd, 177. +Cabool, 159. +Caked the sand, 163. +Casbin, 157. +Centaurs, 181. +Chambery, 176. +Chancel, 176. +Chatelaine, 170. +Chian wine, 202. +Chiel, 188. +Chisell'd broideries, 176. +Chorasma, 163. +Chorasmian stream, 181. +Christ Church hall, 199 +Cirque, 172. +City of God, 211. +Clusters of lonely mounds, 181 +Cobham, 187. +Common chance, 156. +Common fight, 156. +_Consolation_, 177. +Cool gallery, 177. +Corn, 158. +Corselet, 162. +Corydon,206. +Crest, 161. +Cross and recross, 198. +Cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, 207. +Cruse, 198. +Cunning, 162. +Curdled, 161. + +Dais, 176. +Dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 199. +Dante, 192. +Daphnis, 208. +Daulis, 185. +Dearer to the red jackals, etc., 162. +Destiny, 178. +Device, 160. +Dight, 160. +Dingles, 201. +Ditty, 207. +Dogg'd, 172. +Do not we ... await it too? 200. +_Dover Beach_, 183. + +_East London_, 195. +Empire, 174. +Ensham, 207. +_Epilogue to Rising's Laocoön_, 191. +Erst, 198. +Eternal passion! eternal pain! 185, +Eurydice, 197. +Even clime, 194.-- + +Falcon, 159. +Fane, 180. +Farringford, 187. +Faun with torches, 183. +Favour'd guest of Circe, 180. +Fay,170. +Fay, 174. +Fell-fare, 173. +Ferghana, 158. +Ferment the milk of mares, 157. +Fight unknown and in plain arms,159. +Find a father thou hast never seen,156. +First grey of morning fill'd the east, 155. +Fix'd, 158. +Flowers, 160. +Flute his friend, like Orpheus,' etc., 207. +Foliaged marble forest, 177. +Foolish, 195. +For a cloud, etc., 161. +Fretwork, 176. +Frore, 157. +Fugitive and gracious light, etc. 208. +Full struck, 161. + +Geist, 188. +_Geist's Grave_, 191. +Girl's wiles, 161. +Glad, 161. +Glancing, 161. +Glanvil, 200. +Glanvil's book, 198. +Glass, 162. +Gloom, 210. +Godstow Bridge, 199. +Goethe, 192. +Goethe in Weimar sleeps, 196. +Go to! 159. +Grand Old Man, 188. +Grange, 200. +Great Mother, 208. +Green isle, 169. +Green-muffled, 199. +Griffin, 162. +Gulls, 173. + +Hair that red, 164. +Haman, 157. +Happy Islands, 181. +Hark ... sun, 166. +Have found, 162. +Heap a stately mound, etc., 163. +Heaths starr'd with broom, 166. +Heats, 194. +Hebrides, 164. +Hector, 189. +Helen, 190. +Helm, 161. +Helmund, 163. +Hera's anger, 181. +Heroes, 182. +He spoke ... men, 159. +Hies, 193. +High Midsummer pomps, 206. +Hinksey, 199. +His long rambles ... ground, 170. +Hollow, 161. +Holly trees and juniper, 172. +Holy Lassa, 177. +Holy well, 166. +Homer, 193. +Homily, 191. +Honied nothings, 172. +How thick the bursts, etc., 185. +Huge world, 178. +_Human Life_,186. +Hurrying fever, 194. +Hurst, 198. +Hurtling Polar lights, 164. +Hydaspes, 161. +Hyde Park, 191. +Hyphasis, 161. + +Iacchus, 180. +Iberians, 202. +I came ... passing wind, 162. +I know the Fyfield tree, 207. +Ilsley Downs, 204. +Incognisable, 186. +Indian Caucasus, 159. +In his light youth, 194. +Inly-written chart, 186. +Inviolable shade, 201. +Iran, 159. +Irk'd, 206. +Iron age, 196. +Iron coast, 173. +Iseult, 169. +Is Merlin prisoner, etc., 174. +_Isolation_, 186. +Is she not come? 168. +Ivy-cinctured, 179. + +Jaxartes, 158. +Joppa, 164. +Joy, 194. +Just-pausing Genius, 200. + +Kai Khosroo, 159. +_Kaiser Dead_, 187. +Kalmucks, 158. +Kara Kul, 157. +Keep, 206. +Ken, 195. +Kept uninfringed my nature's law, 186. +Khiva, 157. +Khorassan, 158. +Kindled, 161. +King Marc, 169. +Kipchak, 158. +Kirghizzes, 158. +Kohik, 163. +Kuzzaks, 158. + +Lapithæ, 182. +Lasher pass, 199. +Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard, 170. +Leads, 177. +Leaguer, 171. +Leper recollect, 164. +Light comer, 206. +Like that autumn star, 161. +Like that bold Cæsar, etc., 173. +_Lines Written in Kensington Gardens_, 178. +Lion's heart, 159. +Lions sleeping, 180. +Lips that rarely form them now, 191. +Lityerses, 208. +Loud Tyntagel's hill, 169. +Lovely orphan child, 170. +Luminous home, 163. +Lyoness, 169. + +Mænad, 183. +Mail, 166. +Marcus Aurelius, 194. +Margaret, 165. +Matin-chime, 176. +_Memorial Verses_, 196. +Mendelssohn, 192. +Midland waters, 202. +Milk-barr'd onyx-stones, 181. +Miserere Domine, 192. +Moon, 187. +Moonstruck knight, 171. +Moorghab, 163. +Mountain-chalets, 176. +Movement, 193 +Mozart, 192. +Muses, 180. +My princess ... good night, 171. + +Needs must I lose them, etc., 206. +Never was that field lost or that foe saved, 160. +New bathed stars, 163. +Northern Sir, 163. +Nymphs, 180. + +O'er ... sea, 169. +Of age and looks, etc., 162. +Old-world Breton history, 173. +Once pass'd I blindfold here, 205. +One lesson, 193. +One slight helpless girl, 159. +On that day, 163. +Orgunje, 163. +Orpheus, 197. +Outlandish, 199. +Oxford towers, 198. +Oxus, 155. +O wanderer from a Grecian shore, 184. + +Painter and musician too, 193. +_Palladium_, 189. +Palmers, 176. +Pamere, 156. +Pan's flute music, 180. +Passing weary, 175. +Pausanias, 191. +Pelion, 181. +Pen-bryn's bold bard, 187. +Peran-Wisa, 156. +Persepolis, 163. +Persian King, 157. +Perused, 160. +Petrarch, 192. +_Philomela_ 184. +Phoebus-guarded ground, 191. +Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate, 206. +Pleasaunce-walks, 169. +Posting here and there, 173. +Potsdam, 188. +Prick'd upon this arm, etc., 162. +Prickers, 176. +Prie-dieu, 173. +Priest, 166. +Prince Alexander, 174. +Prore, 186. +Proserpine, 207. + +_Quiet Work_, 193. + +Range, 180. +Raphael, 192. +Rates, 195. +Recks not, 171. +Red-fruited yew tree, 200. +Reed, 205. +Remember all thy valour, 161. +_Requiescat_, 177. +Ride, 192. +Right for the polar star, 163. +Roman Emperor, 171. +Rotha, 197. +Rout, 180. +_Rugby Chapel_, 209. +Rustum! 161. + +Sackcloth, 194. +_Saint Brandan_, 164. +Samarcand, 156. +Sandford, 207. +Sate, 159. +Savoy, 176. +Sconce, 172. +Scythian ... embers, 181. +Seal'd, 166. +Secret in his breast, 171. +See what the day brings, 180. +Seistan, 156. +_Self-Dependence_, 190. +Self-murder, 164. +Seneschal, 173. +Shakespeare, 193. +_Shakespeare_, 193. +She knew each lily white which Enna yields, etc., 207. +She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, 207. +She loved the Dorian pipe, etc., 207. +Shepherd-pipe, 205. +Shore, 161. +Sibylla's name, 204. +Silenus, 183. +Silly, 206. +Simois, 189. +Skye, 188. +Snow-haired Zal, 159. +Soft sheep, 208. +Soft Sicily, 202. +_Sohrab and Rustum_, 149. +Sole, 162. +Son of Italy, 194. +Sophocles, 183. +So ... So ..., 206. +Soudan, 174. +South, 192. +Spitalfields, 195. +Sprent, 208. +Stagshorn, 173. +Stem, 186. +Stranger-knight, ill-starr'd, 170. +Strange unloved uproar, 178. +Style, 162. +Sunk, 156. +Sun sparkled, etc., 161. +Swains, 206. +Syrtes, 202. + +Tagg'd, 199. +Tale, 160. +Tartar camp, 155. +Tasso, 192. +Teen, 200. +Tejend, 163. +That old king, 162. +That sweet city with her dreaming spires, 205. +Thebes, 181. +_The Church of Brou_, 176. +_The Forsaken Merman_, 165. +_The Last Word_, 188. +There, go! etc., 157. +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, 197. +Thessaly, 199. +_The Strayed Reveller_, 179. +Thine absent master, 191. +Thou had'st one aim, etc., 200. +Thou hast not lived, 200. +Thou possessest an immortal lot etc., 200. +Thou wilt not fright me so, 160. +Thracian wild, 184. +_Thyrsis_, 203. +Tiresias, 181. +Titans, 196. +To a boon ... country he has fled, 208. +Too clear web, etc., 185. +Toorkmuns, 158. +Tower'd, 160. +Transept, 176. +Tried, 160. +_Tristram and Iseult_, 167. +Troy, 182. +Tukas, 158. +Tunnies, 202. +Tyntagel, 169. + +Ulysses, 180. +Unconscious hand, 162. +Unknown sea, 182. +Unnatural, 161. + +Vacant, 192. +Vale, 204. +Vast, 160. +Vasty, 177. +Vaunt, 160. +Virgilian cry, 191. + +Wanders, 169. +Wattled cotes, 198. +Weirs, 204. +Welcomed here, 170. +Western straits, 202. +_West London_, 195. +What boots it, 171. +What endless active life, 178. +What foul fiend rides thee? 171. +Whether that ... or in some quarrel, 157. +Which much to have tried, etc., 200. +Wild white horses, 165. +Wimple, 174. +With a bitter smile, etc., 161. +With blossoms red and white, 206. +Wordsworth, 192. +_Worldly Place_, 194. +Wrack, 161. +Wychwood bowers, 199. +Wytham flats, 207. + +Xanthus, 189. + +Yellow Tiber, 177. +Yes, 187. +_Youth's Agitations_, 194. + +Zal, 157. +Zirrah, 163. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and +Other Poems, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 13364-8.txt or 13364-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/6/13364/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems + +Author: Matthew Arnold + +Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<br /> + +<h2>MATTHEW ARNOLD'S</h2> +<br /> +<h1>SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</h1> +<br /> +<h3>AND OTHER POEMS</h3> +<br /><br /> +<h4>EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES<br /><br /> + +BY</h4> + +<h3>JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN</h3><br /> + +<h4>HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION<br /> +HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE</h4><br /><br /> + +<h5>1905</h5> + + + + +<hr /> + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3><span class="left">[p.vii]</span> + +<p class="contents"> +PREFACE<br /><br /> + +INTRODUCTION<br /> + + <a href="#LIFE">A Short Life of Arnold</a><br /> + <a href="#POET">Arnold the Poet</a><br /> + <a href="#CRITIC">Arnold the Critic</a><br /> + <a href="#LIST">Chronological List of Arnold's Works</a><br /> + <a href="#CONTEMPORARY">Contemporary Authors</a><br /> + <a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">Bibliography</a> +<br /><br /><br /> +SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS +<br /><br /> + NARRATIVE POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#SOHRAB">Sohrab and Rustum</a><br /> + <a href="#BRANDAN">Saint Brandan</a><br /> + <a href="#FORSAKEN">The Forsaken Merman</a><br /> + <a href="#ISEULT">Tristram and Iseult</a><br /><br /> + + LYRICAL POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#CHURCH">The Church of Brou</a><br /> + <a href="#REQ">Requiescat</a><br /> + <a href="#CON">Consolation</a><br /> + <a href="#DREAM">A Dream</a><br /> + <a href="#KENSINGTON">Lines written in Kensington Gardens</a><br /> + <a href="#REVELLER">The Strayed Reveller</a><br /> + <a href="#MOR">Morality</a><br /> + <a href="#BEACH">Dover Beach</a><br /> + <a href="#PHI">Philomela</a><br /> + <a href="#HUMANLIFE">Human Life</a><br /> + <a href="#ISOL">Isolation—To Marguerite</a><br /> + <a href="#DEAD">Kaiser Dead</a><br /> + <a href="#WORD">The Last Word</a><br /> + <a href="#PAL">Palladium</a><br /> + <a href="#REVOLUTIONS">Revolutions</a><br /> + <a href="#DEPENDENCE">Self-Dependence</a><br /> + <a href="#NIGHT">A Summer Night</a><br /> + <a href="#GRAVE">Geist's Grave</a><br /> + <a href="#LAOCOON">Epilogue—To Lessing's LAOCOON</a><br /><br /> + + SONNETS<br /><br /> + <a href="#WORK">Quiet Work</a><br /> + <a href="#SHAKESPEARE">Shakespeare</a><br /> + <a href="#AGITATIONS">Youth's Agitations</a><br /> + <a href="#POETRY">Austerity of Poetry</a><br /> + <a href="#PLACE">Worldly Place</a><br /> + <a href="#EASTLON">East London</a><br /> + <a href="#WESTLON">West London</a><br /><br /> + + ELEGIAC POEMS<br /><br /> + <a href="#VERSES">Memorial Verses</a><br /> + <a href="#GIPSY">The Scholar-Gipsy</a><br /> + <a href="#THYR">Thyrsis</a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPEL">Rugby Chapel</a><br /><br /><br /> + + <a href="#NOTES">NOTES</a><br /><br /><br /> + <a href="#INDEX">INDEX<br /><br /></a> + + + + +</p> + <hr /> + + + +<h3><a name="LIFE">INTRODUCTION</a></h3><span class="left">[p.ix]</span> + + +<h4>A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD</h4> +<p> +Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village +of Laleham, Middlesex County, England, December +24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, best +remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and in +later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and +of Mary Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character +and intellect.</p> +<p> +Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from +the eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story +of Arnold's life is soon told. As a boy he lived the life +of the normal English lad, with its healthy routine of +task and play. He was at school at both Laleham and +Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention +as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was +elected to an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, +and the next year matriculated for his university work. +Arnold's career at Oxford was a memorable one. While +here he was associated with such men as John Duke +Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, +John Henry Newman, Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, +closest of all, with Arthur Hugh Clough, whose early<span class="left">[p.x]</span> +death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac poem—<i>Thyrsis</i>. +Among this brilliant company Arnold moved +with ease, the recognized favorite. Having taken the +Newdigate prize for English verse, and also having won +a scholarship, he was graduated with honors in 1844, and +in March of the following year had the additional distinction +of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning +glory of an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics +for a short time at Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the +post of private secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, +Lord President of the Council, which position he occupied +until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of +Schools by the Committee on Education. The same +year he married Frances Lucy Wightman, daughter of +Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the Queen's +Bench.</p> +<p> +Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the +history of England's public schools. For more than +thirty-five years he served as inspector and commissioner, +which offices he filled with efficiency. As inspector he +was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike by +teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his +appearance to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the +admission of a ray of light when a shutter is suddenly +opened in a darkened room. All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing +children, and kindly sympathetic teachers, more +than excellence in grade reports. In connection with the +duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently <span class="left">[p.xi]</span> +on the Continent to inquire into foreign methods +of primary and secondary education. Here he found +much that was worth while, and often carried back to +London larger suggestions and ideas than the national +mind was ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, +the school system of England was extensively revised +and improved. He resigned his position under the +Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years +before his death.</p> +<p> +In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His +first volume of verse, <i>The Strayed Reveller and Other +Poems</i>, appeared (1848), and although quietly received, +slowly won its way into public favor. The next year the +narrative poem, <i>The Sick King in Bokhara</i>, came out, and +was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under +the title of <i>Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems</i>. By +this time Arnold's reputation as a poet was established, +and in 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, +where he began his career as a lecturer, in which +capacity he twice visited America. <i>Merope, a Tragedy</i> +(1856) and a volume under the title of <i>New Poems</i> +(1869) finish the list of his poetical works, with the exception +of occasional verses.</p> +<p> +Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist +wholly of critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly +with the greater issues of his day. As will be seen by +their titles (see page xxxviii of this volume), the subject-matter +of these essays is of very great scope, embracing +in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and popular +religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence<span class="left">[p.xii]</span> +on public thought and stamped himself as one of the +ablest critics and reformers of the last century. Arnold's +life was thus one of many widely diverse activities and was +at all times deeply concerned with practical as well as with +literary affairs; and on no side was it deficient in human +sympathies and relations. He won respect and reputation +while he lived, and his works continue to attract +men's minds, although with much unevenness. It has +been said of him that, of all the modern poets, except +Goethe, he was the best critic, and of all the modern +critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet. +He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his +daughter returning from America, April 15, 1888. By +his death the world lost an acute and cultured critic, a +refined writer, an earnest educational reformer, and a +noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham.</p> +<p> +Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been +made the subject for a biography. By means of his letters, +his official reports, and statements of his friends, +however, one is able to trace the successive stages of his +career, as he steadily grew in honor and public usefulness. +Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus +presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The +subjoined appreciations have been selected with a view +of giving the student a glimpse of Arnold as he appeared +to unprejudiced minds.</p> +<p> +One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: +"His perfect self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, +the humorous turn which he could give to any subject<span class="left">[p.xiii]</span> +that he handled, his gaiety, audacity, and unfailing command +of words, made him one of the most popular and +successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known."</p> +<p> +"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, +yet full of dreams and schemes. His Olympian manners +began even at Oxford: there was no harm in them: they +were natural, not put on. The very sound of his voice +and wave of his arm were Jove-like."—PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER.</p> +<p> +"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. +He conspired and contrived to make things pleasant. +Pedantry he abhorred. He was a man of this life +and this world. A severe critic of this world he indeed +was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing +what is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, +he set himself to make the best of it. Its sights and +sounds were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling fern, the +eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing at our +sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' +the vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways +and tricks, whether of mind or manner, all delighted, +amused, tickled him."</p><br /> + + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, +he was of the earth earthy.... His mind was based on +the plainest possible things. What he hated most was +the fantastic—the far-fetched, all-elaborated fancies and +strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track +of human experience, and the broader the better. He<span class="left">[p.xiv]</span> +was a plain-sailing man. This is his true note."—MR. +AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.</p> +<p> +"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest +of anybody to his own; he had not a spark of envy or +jealousy; he stood well aloof from all the bustlings and +jostlings by which selfish men push on; he bore life's +disappointments—and he was disappointed in some +reasonable hopes—with good nature and fortitude; he +cast no burden upon others, and never shrank from +bearing his own share of the daily load to the last ounce +of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and most active +interest in the well-being of his country and his countrymen."—MR. +JOHN MORLEY.</p> +<p> +In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks +of the poet's personality as revealed by his letters in the +following beautiful manner: "Few who did not know +Arnold could have been prepared for the revelation of a +nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every relation +of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional +constancy and plainness.... Every one must +take delight in the mental association with Arnold in the +scenes of his existence ... and in his family affections. +A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, fond +of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, +and with it a character so founded upon the rock, so +humbly serviceable, so continuing in power and grace, +must wake in all the responses of happy appreciation +and leave the charm of memory.</p> +<p> +"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither<span class="left">[p.xv]</span> +resolve nor effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, +and he never failed, seemingly, in act or word of +sympathy, in little or great things; and when to this one +adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where he +habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity +of his home, the gift that these letters bring may +be appreciated. That gift is the man himself, but set in +the atmosphere of home, with sonship and fatherhood, +sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years fully +accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood—a +sweet and wholesome English home, with all the cloud +and sunshine of the English world drifting over its roof-trees, +and the soil of England beneath its stones, and +English duties for the breath of its being. To add such +a home to the household rights of English Literature is +perhaps something from which Arnold would have shrunk, +but it endears his memory."</p> + +<p class="indent"> + "It may be overmuch<br /> +He shunned the common stain and smutch,<br /> + From soilure of ignoble touch<br /> + Too grandly free,<br /> + Too loftily secure in such<br /> + Cold purity;<br /> +But he preserved from chance control<br /> +The fortress of his established soul,<br /> +In all things sought to see the whole;<br /> + Brooked no disguise,<br /> +And set his heart upon the goal,<br /> + Not on the prize."<br /> + +—MR. WILLIAM WATSON, <i>In Laleham Churchyard</i>.</p> + + +<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /> + +<h4>ARNOLD THE <a name="POET">POET</a></h4><span class="left">[p.xvi]</span> +<p> +Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. +No other author of modern times, perhaps no other +English author of any time, appeals so directly as he +to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of his +pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. +He is always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for +a word or phrase; and on the whole, his judgments are +good. Between his prose and verse, however, there is +a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual quality. +True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical +courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness +of phrase and manner; and is, in equal degree, the output +of a singularly sane and noble nature; but here the +comparison ends; for, while his prose is often stormy +and contentious, his poetry has always about it an +atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference +is not far to seek. His poetry, written in early +manhood, reflects his inner self, the more lovable side +of his nature; while his prose presents the critic and +the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and permitting +at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he +endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment +with themselves and their surroundings.</p> +<p> +With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's +poetical career began and ended inside of twenty years. +The reason for this can only be conjectured, and need +not be dwelt upon here. But although his poetic life<span class="left">[p.xvii]</span> +was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking +well up among the literary productions of the last century. +As a popular poet, however, he will probably never class +with Tennyson or Longfellow. His poems are too coldly +classical and too unattractive in subject to appeal to the +casual reader, who is, generally speaking, inclined toward +poetry of the emotions rather than of the intellect—Arnold's +usual kind. That he recognized this himself, +witness the following quiet statements made in letters +to his friends: "My poems are making their way, I think, +though slowly, and are perhaps never to make way very +far. There must always be some people, however, to +whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm.... They +represent, on the whole, the main movement +of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they +will probably have their day, as people become conscious +to themselves of what that movement of mind is, +and interested in the literary productions which reflect +it." Time has verified the accuracy of this judgment. +In short, Arnold has made a profound rather than a +wide impression. To a few, however, of each generation, +he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"—a poet with +a purpose and a message.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Poetic Culture</b>.—Obviously, the sources of +Arnold's culture were classical. As one critic has tersely +said, "He turned over his Greek models by day and by +night." Here he found his ideal standards, and here he +brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his +thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and<span class="left">[p.xviii]</span> +Epictetus (of mood congenial with his own) were props +of his mind, as were Sophocles, "who saw life steadily +and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he called +the purest of men. These like natures afforded him +repose and consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry +and Greek philosophy appealed profoundly to him. Of +the Greek poets he wrote: "No other poets have lived so +much by the imaginative reason; no other poets have +made their works so well balanced; no other poets have +so well satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied +the religious sense." More than any other English +poet he prized the qualities of measure, proportion, and +restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, and high seriousness, +conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the substance +of true poetry. In explaining his own position as +to his art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn +and practise, amid the bewildering confusion of our times, +what is sound and true in poetic art, I seem, to myself to +find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among +the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted +in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is +disheartening, and not hostile criticism." And again: +"The radical difference between the poetic theory of the +Greeks and our own is this: that with them, the poetical +character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, +was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed +mainly on the value of separate thoughts and images +which occur in the treatment of an action. They regard +the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems which<span class="left">[p.xix]</span> +seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, +and not for the sake of producing any total impression. +We have critics who seem to direct their +attention merely to detached expressions, to the language +about the action, not the action itself. I verily believe +that the majority of them do not believe that there is +such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a +poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will +permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to +suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies +them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with +a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is, they +permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided +that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their +curiosity."</p> +<p> +Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his +ideas of that unity which gratifies the poetical sense, +and has approached very close to his Greek models in +numerous instances; most notably so in his great epic or +narrative poem, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>, which is dealt with +elsewhere in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do +better than to quote for our consideration at this time, a +fine synthesis of Mr. Arthur Galton. He says: "In +Matthew Arnold's style and in his manner, he seems to +me to recall the great masters, and this in a striking and +in an abiding way.... To recall them at all is a rare +gift, but to recall them naturally, and with no strained +sense nor jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly +rare that it is almost enough in itself to place a<span class="left">[p.xx]</span> +writer among the great masters; to proclaim that he +is one of them. To recall them at all is a rare gift, +though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets +recall them too; but with these, with every one of them, +it is the exception when they resemble the great masters. +They have their own styles, which abide with them; it +is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they +break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal +style. Just the contrary of this is true of +Matthew Arnold. It is his own, his usual, and his most +natural style which recalls the great masters; and only +when he does not write like himself, does he cease to +resemble them.... No man who attains to this great +style can fail to have a distinguished function; and Matthew +Arnold, like Milton, will be 'a leaven and a power,' +because he, too, has made the great style current in English. +With his desire for culture and for perfection, +there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his +nature, his training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. +To convey the message of those ancients whom he loved +so well, in that English tongue which he was taught by +them to use so perfectly;—to serve as an eternal protest +against charlatanism and vulgarity;—is exactly the mission +he would have chosen for himself.... The few +writers of our language, therefore, who give us 'an ideal +of excellence, the most high and the most rare,' have an +important function; we should study their works continually, +and it should be a matter of passionate concern with +us, that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect<span class="left">[p.xxi]</span> +models, should abide with us forever." The Greeks +recognized three kinds of poetry,—Lyric, Dramatic, and +Epic. Arnold tried all three. First, then, as a lyricist.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Lyricist</b>.—Lyric poetry is the artistic expression +of the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, +hence it is subjective. The action is usually vapid, the +verse musical, the time quick. Unlike the Epic and +Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the +poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this +species of verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has +been said, one searches in vain through the whole course +of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay or serious, offhand +poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is +soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental +qualities of the poet's mind and temperament. Though +by no means lacking in emotional sensibility, Arnold was +too intellectually self-conscious to be carried away by the +impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With him +the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. +With the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at +least, reversed. The poet throws off intellectual restraint, +and "lets his illumined being o'errun" with music and +song. This Arnold could not or would not do. Then, +too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically. This, +combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues +a not too discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked +genius in inventing verse forms, and hence found himself +under the necessity of employing or adapting those +already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior<span class="left">[p.xxii]</span> +to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly +his own. Again, considerable portions of his lyric verse +consist merely of prose, cut into lines of different length, +in imitation of the unrhymed measures of the Greek +poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these +rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick +drawn by a city gamin sharply across the area railings,—a +not inapt comparison. That they were not always +successful, witness the following stanza from <i>Merope</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Thou confessest the prize<br /> +In the rushing, blundering, mad,<br /> +Cloud-enveloped, obscure,<br /> +Unapplauded, unsung<br /> +Race of Calamity, mine!" +</p> +<p> +Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, +Arnold was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at +times, in those same uneven measures in which are +found his most signal failures—the unrhymed Pindaric. +<i>Philomela</i> written in this style is one of the most exquisite +bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put +it, "It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." +In urbanity of phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it +is unsurpassed and shows Arnold at his best. <i>Rugby +Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of Man</i>, and +<i>A Dream</i> are good examples of his longer efforts in this +verse form. In the more common lyric measures, Arnold +was, at times, equally successful. Saintsbury, commenting +on <i>Requiescat</i>, says that the poet has "here achieved +the triple union of simplicity, pathos, and (in the best<span class="left">[p.xxiii]</span> +sense) elegance"; and adds that there is not a false note +in the poem. He also speaks enthusiastically of the +"honey-dropping trochees" of the <i>New Sirens</i>, and of +the "chiselled and classic perfection" of the lines of +<i>Resignation</i>. Herbert W. Paul, writing of <i>Mycerinus</i>, +declares that no such verse has been written in England +since Wordsworth's <i>Laodamia</i>; and continues, "The +poem abounds in single lines of haunting charm." +Among his more successful longer lyrics are <i>The Sick +King in Bokhara, Switzerland, Faded Leaves</i>, and <i>Tristram +and Iseult</i>, and <i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i>, +included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Dramatist</b>.—The drama is imitated human +action, and is intended to exhibit a picture of human life +by means of dialogue, acting, and stage accessories. In +nature, it partakes of both lyric and epic, thus uniting +sentiment and action with narration. Characters live +and act before us, and speak in our presence, the interest +being kept up by constantly shifting situations tending +toward some striking result. As a dramatist, Arnold +achieved no great success. Again the fundamental +qualities of his mind stood in the way. An author so +subjective, so absorbed in self-scrutiny and introspection +as he, is seldom able to project himself into the minds of +others to any considerable extent. His dramas are brilliant +with beautiful phrases, his pictures of landscapes +and of nature in her various aspects approach perfection; +but in the main, he fails to handle his plots in a dramatic +manner and, as a result, does not secure the totality of<span class="left">[p.xxiv]</span> +impression so vital to the drama. Frequently, too, his +characters are tedious, and in their dialogue manage to +be provokingly unnatural or insipid. They also lack in +individuality and independence in speech and action. +Many of his situations, likewise, are at fault. For +instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters +as Ulysses and Circe playing the subordinate roles +assigned to them in <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>. A true +dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a +blunder. <i>Merope</i> is written in imitation of the Greek +tragedians. It has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, +and a classic brevity of style; but it is frigid and +artificial, and fails in the most essential function of +drama—to stir the reader's emotions. <i>Empedocles on +Etna</i>, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some respects +a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, +and contains some of Arnold's best lyric verses and most +beautiful nature pictures; but the dialogue is colorless, +the rhymes poor, the plot, such as it contains, but indifferently +handled, and even Empedocles, the principal +character, is frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's +dramas show that his forte was not in character-drawing +nor in dialogue.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy</b>.—Epic poetry narrates +in grand style the achievements of heroes—the +poet telling the story as if present. It is simple in construction +and uniform in meter, yet it admits of the dialogue +and the episode, and though not enforcing a moral +it may hold one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive<span class="left">[p.xxv]</span> +in tone and expresses sorrow or lamentation. Both epic +and elegy are inevitably serious in mood, and slow and +stately in action. In these two forms of verse Arnold +was at his best. Stockton pronounced <i>Sohrab and +Rustum</i> the noblest poem in the English language. +Another critic has said that "it is the nearest analogue +in English to the rapidity of action, plainness of thought, +plainness of diction, and nobleness of Homer." Combining, +as it does, classic purity of style with romantic ardor +of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of Arnold's +poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume +of 1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his +idea of unity of impression; "while the truth of its +oriental color, the deep pathos of the situation, the fire +and intensity of the action, the strong conception of +character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make +it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer +poems, among which it is the largest in bulk and also +the most ambitious in scheme." <i>Balder Dead</i>, a characteristic +Arnoldian production, founded upon the Norse +legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great +as <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>, has much poetic worth and ranks +high among its kind; and <i>Tristram and Iseult</i>, with its +infinite tragedy, and <i>The Sick King in Bokhara</i>, gorgeous +in oriental color, are rare examples of the lyrical epic. +<i>The Forsaken Merman</i> and <i>Saint Brandan</i>, which are +dealt with elsewhere in this volume, are good examples +of his shorter narrative poems. In <i>Thyrsis</i>, the beautiful +threnody in which he celebrated his dead friend, Clough,<span class="left">[p.xxvi]</span> +Arnold gave to the world one of its greatest elegies. One +finds in this poem and its companion piece, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, +the same unity of classic form with romantic feeling +present in <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. Both are crystal-clear +without coldness, and restrained without loss of a full +volume of power. Mr. Saintsbury, writing of <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, +says: "It has everything—a sufficient scheme, a +definite meaning and purpose, a sustained and adequate +command of poetical presentation, and passages and +phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less +praise is due <i>Thyrsis</i>. Other of his elegiac poems +are <i>Heine's Grave, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, +Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," Obermann +Once More, Rugby Chapel</i>, and <i>Memorial Verses</i>, the +two last named being included in this volume. In such +measures as are used in these poems, in the long, stately, +swelling measures, whose graver movements accord with a +serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most at ease.</p> +<p> +<b>Greek Spirit in Arnold</b>.—But it is not alone in the fact +that he selects classic subjects, and writes after the manner +of the great masters, that Arnold's affinity with the +Greeks is manifested. His poems in spirit, as in form, +reflect the moods common to the ancient Hellenes, "One +feels the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, +"not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, +and Shelley there was Greek influence, but in them the +result was modern. In Arnold the antiquity remains—remains +in mood, just as in Landor it remains in form. +The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is<span class="left">[p.xxvii]</span> +pagan in philosophic spirit, not Attic, but of later and +stoical time; with the patience, endurance, suffering, not +in the Christian types, but as they now seem to a post-Christian +imagination, looking back to the past." Even +when his poems treat of modern or romantic subjects, one +is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with +the same quality of imagination as would the Greek +masters themselves: and in the same form.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Attitude toward Nature</b>.—In his attitude toward +Nature Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A +close study, however, reveals a wide difference, both in +the way Nature appealed to them and in their mood in +her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary refuge +from the doubts and distractions of our modern life,—a +soothing, consoling, uplifting power; to Wordsworth she +was an inspiration,—a presence that disturbed him "with +the joy of elevated thoughts." Conscious of the help he +found in her association, Arnold urged all men to follow +Nature's example; to possess their souls in quietude, despite +the storm and turmoil without. Pancoast says: +"He delights in leading us to contemplate the infinite +calm of Nature, beside which man's transitory woes are +reduced to a mere fretful insignificance. All the beautiful +poem of <i>Tristram and Iseult</i> is built upon the skilful +alternation of two themes. We pass from the feverish, +wasting, and ephemeral struggle of human passions and +desire, into an atmosphere that shames its heat and fume +by an immemorial coolness and repose;" and the same +comparison constitutes the theme for a considerable portion<span class="left">[p.xxviii]</span> +of his poetical work. In his method of approaching +Nature, Arnold also differed widely from Wordsworth, in +that he saw with the outward eye, that is objectively; +while Wordsworth saw rather with the inward eye, or +subjectively. In this Arnold is essentially Greek and +more Tennysonian than Wordsworthian. Many of his +poems, in full or in part, are mere nature pictures, and +are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus +stream at the close of <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>; the English +garden in <i>Thyrsis</i>; and the hunter on the arras, in <i>Tristram +and Iseult</i>, are all notable examples. This pictorial +method Wordsworth seldom used. In spirit, too, the +poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, first +of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in +the wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom +from the fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of +Nature's God.</p> +<p> +<b>Arnold's Attitude toward Life</b>.—Arnold's attitude toward +life has been dwelt upon in the appreciations under the +biographical sketch in this volume and need only briefly +be summed up here. To him, human life in its higher +developments presented itself as a stern and strenuous +affair; but he never faltered nor sought to escape from +his share of the burden. "On the contrary, the prevailing +note of his poetry is self-reliance; help must come from +the soul itself, for</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"The fountains of life are all within." +</p> +<p> +He preaches fortitude and courage in the face of the<span class="left">[p.xxix]</span> +mysterious and the inevitable—a courage, indeed, forlorn +and pathetic in the eyes of many—and he constantly +takes refuge from the choking cares of life, in a +kind of stoical resignation. As a reformer, his function +was especially to stir people up, to make them dissatisfied +with themselves and their institutions, and to force them +to think, to become individual. Everywhere in his +works one is confronted by his unvarying insistence +upon the supremacy of conduct and duty. The modern +tendency to drift away from the old, established religious +faith was a matter of serious thought to him and led him +to give to the world a rational creed that would satisfy +the sceptics and attract the indifferent. We cannot do +better than quote for our closing thought the following +pregnant lines from the author's sonnet entitled <i>The +Better Part</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Hath man no second life? <i>Pitch this one high!</i><br /> +Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?<br /> +<i>More strictly, then, the inward judge obey</i>!<br /> +Was Christ a man like us? <i>Ah! let us try<br /> +If we then, too, can be such men as he!</i>" +</p> + + <br /><hr/><br /><br /> + + + +<h4>ARNOLD THE <a name="CRITIC">CRITIC</a></h4> +<p> +The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted +from well-known authorities.</p> +<p> +"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy +of his verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, +light-hearted. The classical bent of his mind<span class="left">[p.xxx]</span> +shows itself here, unmixed with the inheritance of romantic +feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is his +prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of +its definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect +which suffuses it; but the doctrine which he spent his +life in preaching is based upon a classical ideal, the ideal +of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he daringly called it, <i>perfection</i>.... Wherever, +in religion, politics, education, +or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination +of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word +of deliverance, 'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with +the best which has been thought and done in the world, +is his panacea for all ills.... In almost all of his +prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' +by which word he characterized the narrow-mindedness +and self-satisfaction of the British middle class.</p> +<p> +"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task +he had to perform.... In <i>Culture and Anarchy</i> and +many successive works, he made his plea for the gospel +of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, as befitted the +Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into the +dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in <i>Literature +and Dogma</i>, where he pleads for a more liberal +and literary reading of the Bible, his manner is quiet, +suave, and gently persuasive. At other times, as in +<i>Friendship's Garland</i>, he shoots the arrows of his sarcasm +into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate +raillery and scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, +because it is veiled by a mock humility, and is scrupulously<span class="left">[p.xxxi]</span> +polite.</p> +<p> +"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single +piece is the famous essay <i>On Translating Homer</i>, which +deserves careful study for the enlightenment it offers concerning +many of the fundamental questions of style. The +essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from <i>Essays in Criticism</i>, +and that on Emerson, from <i>Discourses in America</i>, +furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and +weight of matter in this province.</p> +<p> +"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose +may be described as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. +In comparison with Carlyle, Buskin, and Newman, he is +worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic vision of +these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, +the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. +He marks a return to the conventions of life after +the storm and stress of the romantic age. Yet in his +own way he also was a prophet and a preacher, striving +whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from bondage +to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry +and balance of character which has seemed to many noble +minds the true goal of human endeavor."—MOODY AND +LOVETT, <i>A History of English Literature</i>.</p> +<p> +"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment +were pretty nearly infallible. He combined a loyal +and reasonable submission to literary authority, with a +free and even daring use of private judgment. His admiration +for the acknowledged masters of human utterance—Homer, +Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe—<span class="left">[p.xxxii]</span>was genuine and enthusiastic, +and incomparably better +informed than that of some more conventional critics. +Yet this cordial submission to recognized authority, this +honest loyalty to established reputation, did not blind +him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating +praise; did not deter him from exposing the tendency to +verbiage in Burke and Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness +of much of Wordsworth's blank verse, the undercurrent +of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of +Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in +small. Whatever literary production was brought under +Matthew Arnold's notice, his judgment was clear, sympathetic, +and independent. He had the readiest appreciation +of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity +and inflation—of what he called endeavors to render +platitude endurable by making it pompous, and lively +horror of affectation and unreality."—Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL.</p> +<p> +"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a +high place among the foremost prose writers of the time. +His style is in marked contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence +of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's pure and radiant coloring. +It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, discriminating, +incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. Notwithstanding +its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is +often a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an +opponent by its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and +its calm air of assured superiority. By his insistence +on a high standard of technical excellence, and by his<span class="left">[p.xxxiii]</span> +admirable presentation of certain principles of literary +judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. +On the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the +human element, the comprehensive sympathy that we +recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. Yet Carlyle could +not have written the essay <i>On Translating Homer</i>, with +all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, +any more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's +large-hearted essay on <i>Burns</i>. Arnold's varied energy +and highly trained intelligence have been felt in many +different fields. He has won a peculiar and honorable +place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as +literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, +and finally, in his <i>Culture and Anarchy</i>, he has set forth +his scheme of social reform, and in certain later books +has made His contribution to contemporary thought."—PANCOAST, <i>Introduction to English Literature</i>.</p> + + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + +<h4>CHRONOLOGICAL <a name="LIST">LIST</a> OF ARNOLD'S WORKS</h4><span class="left">[p.xxxiv]</span> +<p class="indent2"><span class="outdent2"> +1840. Alaric at Rome. (Prize poem at Rugby.)</span><br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1843. Cromwell. (Prize poem at Oxford.)</span><br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1849. The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems.<br /></span> + Mycerinus.<br /> + The Strayed Reveller.<br /> + Fragment of an Antigone.<br /> + The Sick King in Bokhara.<br /> + Religious Isolation.<br /> + To my Friends.<br /> + A Modern Sappho.<br /> + The New Sirens.<br /> + The Voice.<br /> + To Fausta.<br /> + Stagyrus.<br /> + To a Gipsy Child.<br /> + The Hayswater Boat.<br /> + The Forsaken Merman.<br /> + The World and the Quietist.<br /> + In Utrumque Paratus.<br /> + Resignation.<br /> + <span class="outdent"> + Sonnets.</span><br /> + Quiet Work.<br /> + To a Friend.<br /> + Shakespeare.<br /> + To the Duke of Wellington.<br /> + Written in Butler's Sermons.<br /> + Written in Emerson's Essays.<br /> + To an Independent Preacher.<br /> + To George Cruikshank.<br /> + To a Republican Friend.<br /> +<span class="outdent2"> +1852. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems.</span><br /><span class="left">[p.xxxv]</span> + Empedocles on Etna.<br /> + The River.<br /> + Excuse.<br /> + Indifference.<br /> + Too Late.<br /> + On the Rhine.<br /> + Longing.<br /> + The Lake.<br /> + Parting.<br /> + Absence.<br /> + Destiny. (Not reprinted.)<br /> + To Marguerite.<br /> + Human Life.<br /> + Despondency.<br /> + Youth's Agitations—A Sonnet.<br /> + Self-Deception.<br /> + Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.)<br /> + Tristram and Iseult.<br /> + Memorial Verses. (Previously published in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>.)<br /> + Courage. (Not reprinted.)<br /> + Self-Dependence.<br /> + A Summer Night.<br /> + The Buried Life.<br /> + A Farewell.<br /> + Stanzas in Memory of the Author of <i>Obermann</i>.<br /> + Consolation.<br /> + Lines written in Kensington Gardens.<br /> + The World's Triumphs—A Sonnet.<br /> + The Second Best.<br /> + Revolutions.<br /> + The Youth of Nature.<br /><span class="left">[p.xxxvi]</span> + The Youth of Man.<br /> + Morality.<br /> + Progress.<br /> + The Future.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1853. Poems.</span><br /> + Sohrab and Rustum.<br /> + Cadmus and Harmonia. (A fragment of Empedocles on Etna.)<br /> + Philomela.<br /> + Thekla's Answer.<br /> + The Church of Brou.<br /> + The Neckan.<br /> + Switzerland.<br /> + Richmond Hill. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.)<br /> + Requiescat.<br /> + The Scholar-Gipsy.<br /> + Stanzas in Memory of the Late Edward Quillman.<br /> + Power of Youth. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.)<br /><span class="outdent2"> +1854. A Farewell.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1855. Poems.</span><br /> + Balder Dead<br /> + Separation.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1858. Merope: A Tragedy.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1867. New Poems.</span><br /> + Persistency of Poetry.<br /> + Saint Brandan. <i>(Fraser's Magazine</i>, July, 1860.)<br /> + Sonnets.<br /> + A Picture of Newstead.<br /> + Rachel. (Three Sonnets.)<br /> + East London.<br /> + West London.<br /> + Anti-Desperation.<br /><span class="left">[p.xxxvii]</span> + Immorality.<br /> + Worldly Place.<br /> + The Divinity.<br /> + The Good Shepherd with the Kid.<br /> + Austerity of Poetry.<br /> + East and West.<br /> + Monica's Last Prayer.<br /> + Calais Sands.<br /> + Dover Beach.<br /> + The Terrace at Berne.<br /> + Stanzas composed at Carnæ.<br /> + A Southern Night. (Previously published in the <i>Victoria Regia</i>, 1861.)<br /> + Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira."<br /> + Palladium.<br /> + Early Death and Fame.<br /> + Growing Old.<br /> + The Progress of Poesy.<br /> + A Nameless Epitaph.<br /> + The Last Word.<br /> + A Wish.<br /> + A Caution to Poets.<br /> + Pis-Aller.<br /> + Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON.<br /> + Bacchanalia.<br /> + Rugby Chapel.<br /> + Heine's Grave.<br /> + Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.<br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1860. The Lord's Messengers. (<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, July.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1866. Thyrsis. (<i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, April.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1868. Obermann Once More.</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1873. New Rome. (<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, June.)</span><br /><span class="left">[p.xxxviii]</span> + <span class="outdent2"> +1877. Haworth Churchyard with Epilogue. (<i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, May.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1881. Geist's Grave. (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, January.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1882. Westminster Abbey. (<i>Nineteenth Century Magazine</i>, January.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> + Poor Matthais. (<i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, December.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> +1887. Horatian Echo. (<i>The Century Guild Hobby Horse</i>, July.)</span><br /> + <span class="outdent2"> + Kaiser Dead. (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, July.)</span><br /><br /></p> + + + +<h4>PROSE WORKS</h4> +<p class="indent1"> +1859. England and the Italian Question.<br /> +1861. Popular Education in France.<br /> + On Translating Homer.<br /> +1864. A French Eton.<br /> +1865. Essays in Criticism.<br /> +1867. On Study of Celtic Literature.<br /> +1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent.<br /> +1869. Culture and Anarchy.<br /> +1870. St. Paul and Protestantism.<br /> +1871. Friendship's Garland.<br /> +1873. Literature and Dogma.<br /> +1874. Higher Schools and Universities in Germany.<br /> +1875. God and the Bible.<br /> +1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion.<br /> +1879. Mixed Essays.<br /> +1882. Irish Essays.<br /> +1885. Discourses in America.<br /> +1888. Essays in Criticism, Second Series.<br /> + Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad.<br /> + Civilization in the United States.<br /></p> + + + +<h4><a name="CONTEMPORARY">CONTEMPORARY</a> AUTHORS</h4><span class="left">[p.xxxix]</span> +<p class="indent2"> +Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881).<br /> +Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859).<br /> +Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).<br /> +Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892).<br /> +Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882).<br /> +William M. Thackeray (1811-1863).<br /> +Robert Browning (1812-1889).<br /> +Charles Dickens (1812-1870).<br /> +George Eliot (1819-1880).<br /> +John Ruskin (1819-1900).<br /> +Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).<br /> + +William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878).<br /> +Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).<br /> +Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).<br /> +John G. Whittier (1807-1892).<br /> +Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882).<br /> +Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).<br /> +James Russell Lowell (1819-1891).</p> + + + +<h4><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></h4><span class="left">[p.xl]</span> +<p class="indent3"> +<i>The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold</i> (The Macmillan Company, + one volume).<br /> +<i>The English Poets</i>, Vol. I, by T.H. Ward.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age</i>, edited by the English + Club of Sewanee, Tennessee.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Sir J.G. Fitch.<br /> +<i>Tennyson, Ruskin, and Other Literary Estimates</i>, by Frederic + Harrison.<br /> +<i>Studies in Interpretation</i>, by W.H. Hudson.<br /> +<i>Corrected Impressions on Matthew Arnold</i>, by G.E.B. Saintsbury.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Herbert W. Paul.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by G.E.B. Saintsbury.<br /> +<i>Arnold's Letters</i>, collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell.<br /> +<i>The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold</i>, edited by T.B. Smart.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold</i>, by Andrew Lang, in <i>Century Magazine</i>, + 1881-1882, p. 849.<br /> + +<i>The Poetry of Matthew Arnold</i>, by R.H. Hutton, in<br /> + <i>Essays Theological and Literary</i>, Vol. II.<br /> +<i>Religion and Culture</i>, by John Shairp.<br /> +<i>Arnold</i>, in <i>Victorian Poets</i>, by Stedman.<br /> +<i>Matthew Arnold, New Poems</i>, in <i>Essays and Studies</i>, by + A.C. Swinburne.<br /> +<i>Arnold</i>, in <i>Our Living Poets</i>, by Forman.</p> + + +<br /><br /> + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a name="SOHRAB">SOHRAB</a> AND RUSTUM</h2> + +<h3>AND OTHER POEMS</h3> + + + <br /><hr /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.1]</span> +<h1>NARRATIVE POEMS</h1> + +<br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#NOTES">SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</a>°</h2> + +<h5>AN EPISODE</h5> +<br /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1">1</a></span>And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2">2</a></span>And the fog rose out of the Oxus° stream. <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3">3</a></span>But all the Tartar camp° along the stream <br /> +Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long<br /> +He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;<br /> +But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,<br /> +He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,<br /> +And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And went abroad into the cold wet fog,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11">11</a></span>Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's° tent.<br /><br /> +Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood<br /> +Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand<br /> +Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15">15</a></span>When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere° <br /> +Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,<br /> +And to a hillock came, a little back<br /> +From the stream's brink—the spot where first a boat,<br /> +Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The men of former times had crown'd the top<br /> +With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now<br /><span class="left">[p.2]</span> +The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,<br /> +A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.<br /> +And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,<br /> +And found the old man sleeping on his bed<br /> +Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.<br /> +And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step<br /> +Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:—<br /><br /> +"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.<br /> +Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"<br /><br /> +But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:—<br /> +"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>The sun is not yet risen, and the foe<br /> +Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie<br /> +Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38">38</a></span>For so did King Afrasiab° bid me seek<br /> +Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#40">40</a></span>In Samarcand,° before the army march'd;<br /> +And I will tell thee what my heart desires.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42">42</a></span>Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan° first <br /> +I came among the Tartars and bore arms,<br /> +I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45">45</a></span>At my boy's years,° the courage of a man.<br /> +This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on<br /> +The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,<br /> +And beat the Persians back on every field,<br /> +I seek one man, one man, and one alone—<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,<br /> +Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field,<br /> +His not unworthy, not inglorious son.<br /> +So I long hoped, but him I never find.<br /> +Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask.<br /><span class="left">[p.3]</span> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Let the two armies rest to-day; but I<br /> +Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords<br /> +To meet me, man to man; if I prevail,<br /> +Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall—<br /> +Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#60">60</a></span>Dim is the rumour of a common fight,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#61">61</a></span>Where host meets host, and many names are sunk°;<br /> +But of a single combat fame speaks clear."<br /><br /> +He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand<br /> +Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine!<br /> +Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#67">67</a></span>And share the battle's common chance° with us<br /> +Who love thee, but must press for ever first,<br /> +In single fight incurring single risk,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70">70</a></span>To find a father thou hast never seen°?<br /> +That were far best, my son, to stay with us<br /> +Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,<br /> +And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns.<br /> +But, if this one desire indeed rules all,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>To seek out Rustum—seek him not through fight!<br /> +Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms,<br /> +O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son!<br /> +But far hence seek him, for he is not here.<br /> +For now it is not as when I was young,<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>When Rustum was in front of every fray;<br /> +But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#82">82</a></span>In Seistan,° with Zal, his father old.<br /> +Whether that his own mighty strength at last<br /> +Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#85">85</a></span>Or in some quarrel° with the Persian King.°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#86">86</a></span>There go°!—Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes <br /> +Danger or death awaits thee on this field.<br /><span class="left">[p.4]</span> +Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost<br /> +To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>To seek thy father, not seek single fights<br /> +In vain;—but who can keep the lion's cub<br /> +From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son?<br /> +Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires."<br /><br /> +So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay;<br /> +And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat<br /> +He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet,<br /> +And threw a white cloak round him, and he took<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#99">99</a></span>In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword°;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#101">101</a></span>Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul°; <br /> +And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd<br /> +His herald to his side, and went abroad.<br /><br /> +The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.<br /> +And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#107">107</a></span>Into the open plain; so Haman° bade—<br /> +Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled<br /> +The host, and still was in his lusty prime.<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;<br /> +As when some grey November morn the files,<br /> +In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#113">113</a></span>Stream over Casbin° and the southern slopes <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#114">114</a></span>Of Elburz,° from the Aralian estuaries, <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#115">115</a></span>Or some frore° Caspian reed-bed, southward bound<br /> +For the warm Persian sea-board—so they stream'd.<br /> +The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,<br /> +First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#119">119</a></span>Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara° come <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#120">120</a></span>And Khiva,° and ferment the milk of mares.°<br /><span class="left">[p.5]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#121">121</a></span>Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns° of the south,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#122">122</a></span>The Tukas,° and the lances of Salore,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#123">123</a></span>And those from Attruck° and the Caspian sands;<br /> +Light men and on light steeds, who only drink<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.<br /> +And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came<br /> +From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#128">128</a></span>The Tartars of Ferghana,° from the banks<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#129">129</a></span>Of the Jaxartes,° men with scanty beards <br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#131">131</a></span>Who roam o'er Kipchak° and the northern waste,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#132">132</a></span>Kalmucks° and unkempt Kuzzaks,° tribes who stray <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#133">133</a></span>Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,° <br /> +Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>These all filed out from camp into the plain.<br /> +And on the other side the Persians form'd;—<br /> +First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#138">138</a></span>The Ilyats of Khorassan°; and behind, <br /> +The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel.<br /> +But Peran-Wisa with his herald came,<br /> +Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front,<br /> +And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks.<br /> +And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back,<br /> +He took his spear, and to the front he came,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#147">147</a></span>And check'd his ranks, and fix'd° them where they stood. <br /> +And the old Tartar came upon the sand<br /> +Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear!<br /> +Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.<br /> +But choose a champion from the Persian lords<br /> +To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man."<br /><br /><span class="left">[p.6]</span> +As, in the country, on a morn in June,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>When the dew glistens on the pearled ears,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#156">156</a></span>A shiver runs through the deep corn° for joy—<br /> +So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,<br /> +A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran<br /> +Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.<br /><br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#160">160</a></span>But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#161">161</a></span>Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,°<br /> +That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow;<br /> +Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass<br /> +Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves<br /> +Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries—<br /> +In single file they move, and stop their breath,<br /> +For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows—<br /> +So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up <br /> +To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came,<br /> +And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#173">173</a></span>Second, and was the uncle of the King°; <br /> +These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, <br /> +Yet champion have we none to match this youth.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#177">177</a></span>He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart.° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#178">178</a></span>But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits° <br /> +And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart.<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>Him will I seek, and carry to his ear<br /> +The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name.<br /> +Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight.<br /> +Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up."<br /><br /> +So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said!<br /> +Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man."<br /><span class="left">[p.7]</span> +He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode<br /> +Back through the opening squadrons to his tent.<br /> +But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran,<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd,<br /> +Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents.<br /> +Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay,<br /> +Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst<br /> +Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around.<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found<br /> +Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still<br /> +The table stood before him, charged with food—<br /> +A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#199">199</a></span>And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate° <br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#200">200</a></span>Listless, and held a falcon° on his wrist,<br /> +And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood<br /> +Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand,<br /> +And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird,<br /> +And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:—<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight.<br /> +What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink."<br /><br /> +But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:—<br /> +"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink,<br /> +But not to-day; to-day has other needs.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze;<br /> +For from the Tartars is a challenge brought<br /> +To pick a champion from the Persian lords<br /> +To fight their champion—and thou know'st his name—<br /> +Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid.<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's!<br /> +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#217">217</a></span>And he is young, and Iran's° chiefs are old,<br /> +Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee.<br /> +Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!"<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.8]</span> + +<span class="right"> 220</span>He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#221">221</a></span>"Go to°! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I <br /> +Am older; if the young are weak, the King<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#223">223</a></span>Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo,°<br /> +Himself is young, and honours younger men,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>And lets the aged moulder to their graves.<br /> +Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young—<br /> +The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I.<br /> +For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame?<br /> +For would that I myself had such a son,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#230">230</a></span>And not that one slight helpless girl° I have—<br /> +A son so famed, so brave, to send to war,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#232">232</a></span>And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,°<br /> +My father, whom the robber Afghans vex,<br /> +And clip his borders short, and drive his herds,<br /> +<span class="right"> 235</span>And he has none to guard his weak old age.<br /> +There would I go, and hang my armour up,<br /> +And with my great name fence that weak old man,<br /> +And spend the goodly treasures I have got,<br /> +And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame,<br /> +<span class="right"> 240</span>And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings,<br /> +And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more."<br /><br /> + +He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:—<br /> +"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this,<br /> +When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks<br /> +<span class="right"> 245</span>Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks,<br /> +Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame,</i><br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#248">248</a></span><i class="indent4">And shuns to peril it with younger men."</i>° <br /><br /> + +And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words?<br /> +Thou knowest better words than this to say.<br /> +What is one more, one less, obscure or famed,<br /> +Valiant or craven, young or old, to me?<br /><span class="left">[p.9]</span> +Are not they mortal, am not I myself?<br /> +<span class="right"> 255</span>But who for men of nought would do great deeds?<br /> +Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257">257</a></span>But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms°; <br /> +Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd<br /> +In single fight with any mortal man."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 260</span>He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran<br /> +Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy—<br /> +Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came.<br /> +But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd<br /> +His followers in, and bade them bring his arms,<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#266">266</a></span>Were plain, and on his shield was no device,°<br /> +Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold,<br /> +And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume<br /> +Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume.<br /> +<span class="right"> 270</span>So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse,<br /> +Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel—<br /> +Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth,<br /> +The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once<br /> +Did in Bokhara by the river find<br /> +<span class="right"> 275</span>A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home,<br /> +And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#277">277</a></span><a name="Dight">Dight</a>° with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green<br /> +Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd<br /> +All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know.<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd<br /> +The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd.<br /> +And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts<br /> +Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was.<br /> +And dear as the wet diver to the eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore,<br /><span class="left">[p.10]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#286">286</a></span>By sandy Bahrein,° in the Persian Gulf,<br /> +Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#288">288</a></span>Having made up his tale° of precious pearls,<br /> +Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands—<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came.<br /><br /> + +And Rustum to the Persian front advanced,<br /> +And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came.<br /> +And as afield the reapers cut a swath<br /> +Down through the middle of a rich man's corn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>And on each side are squares of standing corn,<br /> +And in the midst a stubble, short and bare—<br /> +So on each side were squares of men, with spears<br /> +Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand.<br /> +And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast<br /> +<span class="right"> 300</span>His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw<br /> +Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came.<br /><br /> + +As some rich woman, on a winter's morn,<br /> +Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge<br /> +Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire—<br /> +<span class="right"> 305</span>At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#306">306</a></span>When the frost flowers° the whiten'd window-panes—<br /> +And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts<br /> +Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed<br /> +The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar<br /> +<span class="right"> 310</span>Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#311">311</a></span>All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused° <br /> +His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was.<br /> +For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd;<br /> +Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 315</span>Which in a queen's secluded garden throws<br /> +Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,<br /> +By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#318">318</a></span>So slender Sohrab seem'd,° so softly rear'd.<br /><span class="left">[p.11]</span> +And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul<br /> +<span class="right"> 320</span>As he beheld him coming; and he stood,<br /> +And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:—<br /> + "O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft,<br /> +And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold!<br /> +Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#325">325</a></span>Behold me! I am vast,° and clad in iron,<br /> +And tried°; and I have stood on many a field<br /> +Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#328">328</a></span>Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.°<br /> +O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#330">330</a></span>Be govern'd°! quit the Tartar host, and come<br /> +To Iran, and be as my son to me,<br /> +And fight beneath my banner till I die!<br /> +There are no youths in Iran brave as thou."<br /> + So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice,<br /> +<span class="right"> 335</span>The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw<br /> +His giant figure planted on the sand,<br /> +Sole, like some single tower, which a chief<br /> +Hath builded on the waste in former years<br /> +Against the robbers; and he saw that head,<br /> +<span class="right"> 340</span>Streak'd with its first grey hairs;—hope filled his soul,<br /> +And he ran forward and embraced his knees,<br /> +And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#343">343</a></span> "O, by thy father's head°! by thine own soul<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#344">344</a></span>Art thou not Rustum°? speak! art thou not he?"<br /> +<span class="right"> 345</span> But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,<br /> +And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:—<br /> + "Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean!<br /> +False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys.<br /> +For if I now confess this thing he asks,<br /> +<span class="right"> 350</span>And hide it not, but say: <i class="indent4">Rustum is here</i>!<br /> +He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,<br /><span class="left">[p.12]</span> +But he will find some pretext not to fight,<br /> +And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts<br /> +A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way.<br /> +<span class="right"> 355</span>And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall,<br /> +In Samarcand, he will arise and cry:<br /> +'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd<br /> +Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords<br /> +To cope with me in single fight; but they<br /> +<span class="right"> 360</span>Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I<br /> +Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.'<br /> +So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud;<br /> +Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me."<br /><br /> + +And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 365</span>"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus<br /> +Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#367">367</a></span>By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt,° or yield! <br /> +Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?<br /> +Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee!<br /> +<span class="right"> 370</span>For well I know, that did great Rustum stand<br /> +Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd,<br /> +There would be then no talk of fighting more.<br /> +But being what I am, I tell thee this—<br /> +Do thou record it in thine inmost soul:<br /> +<span class="right"> 375</span>Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield,<br /> +Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds<br /> +Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods,<br /> +Oxus in summer wash them all away."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#380">380</a></span>"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so°!<br /> +I am no girl to be made pale by words.<br /> +Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand<br /> +Here on this field, there were no fighting then.<br /> +But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here.<br /><span class="left">[p.13]</span> +<span class="right"> 385</span>Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I,<br /> +And thou art proved, I know, and I am young—<br /> +But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven.<br /> +And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure<br /> +Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know.<br /> +<span class="right"> 390</span>For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,<br /> +Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate,<br /> +Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.<br /> +And whether it will heave us up to land,<br /> +Or whether it will roll us out to sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 395</span>Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death,<br /> +We know not, and no search will make us know;<br /> +Only the event will teach us in its hour."<br /><br /> + +He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd<br /> +His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came,<br /> +<span class="right"> 400</span>As on some partridge, in the corn a hawk,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#401">401</a></span>That long has tower'd° in the airy clouds,<br /> +Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come,<br /> +And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear<br /> +Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand,<br /> +<span class="right"> 405</span>Which it sent flying wide;—then Sohrab threw<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#406">406</a></span>In turn, and full struck° Rustum's shield; sharp rang,<br /> +The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear.<br /> +And Rustum seized his club, which none but he<br /> +Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge,<br /> +<span class="right"> 410</span>Still rough—like those which men in treeless plains<br /> +To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#412">412</a></span>Hyphasis° or Hydaspes,° when, high up<br /> +By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#414">414</a></span>Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 415</span>And strewn the channels with torn boughs—so huge<br /> +The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck<br /> +One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,<br /><span class="left">[p.14]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#418">418</a></span>Lithe as the glancing° snake, and the club came <br /> +Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 420</span>And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell<br /> +To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand;<br /> +And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword,<br /> +And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay<br /> +Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand;<br /> +<span class="right"> 425</span>But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword,<br /> +But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float<br /> +Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones.<br /> +But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I;<br /> +<span class="right"> 430</span>No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul.<br /> +Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so!<br /> +Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?<br /> +Boy as I am, I have seen battles too—<br /> +Have waded foremost in their bloody waves,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#435">435</a></span>And heard their hollow° roar of dying men;<br /> +But never was my heart thus touch'd before.<br /> +Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart?<br /> +O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven!<br /> +Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears,<br /> +<span class="right"> 440</span>And make a truce, and sit upon this sand,<br /> +And pledge each other in red wine, like friends,<br /> +And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds.<br /> +There are enough foes in the Persian host,<br /> +Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang;<br /> +<span class="right"> 445</span>Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou<br /> +Mayst fight; fight <i class="indent4">them</i>, when they confront thy spear!<br /> +But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!"<br /><br /> + +He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen,<br /> +And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club<br /> +<span class="right"> 450</span>He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear,<br /><span class="left">[p.15]</span> +Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#452">452</a></span>Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,°<br /> +The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#454">454</a></span>His stately crest,° and dimm'd his glittering arms.<br /> +<span class="right"> 455</span>His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice<br /> +Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:—<br /><br /> + +"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands!<br /> +Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words!<br /> +Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more!<br /> +<span class="right"> 460</span>Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now<br /> +With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance;<br /> +But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance<br /> +Of battle, and with me, who make no play<br /> +Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 465</span>Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#466">466</a></span>Remember all thy valour°; try thy feints<br /> +And cunning! all the pity I had is gone;<br /> +Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#469">469</a></span>With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.°"<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#470">470</a></span>He spoke, and Sohrab kindled° at his taunts,<br /> +And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd<br /> +Together, as two eagles on one prey<br /> +Come rushing down together from the clouds,<br /> +One from the east, one from the west; their shields<br /> +<span class="right"> 475</span>Bash'd with a clang together, and a din<br /> +Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters<br /> +Make often in the forest's heart at morn,<br /> +Of hewing axes, crashing trees—such blows<br /> +Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd.<br /> +<span class="right"> 480</span>And you would say that sun and stars took part<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#481">481</a></span>In that unnatural° conflict; for a cloud°<br /> +Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun<br /> +Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose<br /><span class="left">[p.16]</span> +Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 485</span>And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair.<br /> +In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone;<br /> +For both the on-looking hosts on either hand<br /> +Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#489">489</a></span>And the sun sparkled° on the Oxus stream.<br /> +<span class="right"> 490</span>But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes<br /> +And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield<br /> +Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear<br /> +Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin,<br /> +And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#495">495</a></span>Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,°<br /> +Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#497">497</a></span>He shore° away, and that proud horsehair plume,<br /> +Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#499">499</a></span>And Rustum bow'd his head°; but then the gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 500</span>Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,<br /> +And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,<br /> +Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;—<br /> +No horse's cry was that, most like the roar<br /> +Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day<br /> +<span class="right"> 505</span>Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side,<br /> +And comes at night to die upon the sand.<br /> +The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#508">508</a></span>And Oxus curdled° as it cross'd his stream.<br /> +But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on,<br /> +<span class="right"> 510</span>And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd<br /> +His head; but this time all the blade, like glass,<br /> +Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm,<br /> +And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone.<br /> +Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 515</span>Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#516">516</a></span>And shouted: <i class="indent4">Rustum</i>°!—Sohrab heard that shout,<br /><span class="left">[p.17]</span> +And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step,<br /> +And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form;<br /> +And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 520</span>His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side.<br /> +He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground;<br /> +And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,<br /> +And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all<br /> +The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair—<br /> +<span class="right"> 525</span>Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet,<br /> +And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#527">527</a></span>Then, with a bitter smile,° Rustum began:—<br /> +"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill<br /> +A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse,<br /> +<span class="right"> 530</span>And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent.<br /> +Or else that the great Rustum would come down<br /> +Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move<br /> +His heart to take a gift, and let thee go.<br /> +And then that all the Tartar host would praise<br /> +<span class="right"> 535</span>Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#536">536</a></span>To glad° thy father in his weak old age.<br /> +Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#538">538</a></span>Dearer to the red jackals° shalt thou be<br /> +Than to thy friends, and to thy father old."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 540</span>And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain<br /> +Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!<br /> +No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.<br /> +For were I match'd with ten such men as thee,<br /> +<span class="right"> 545</span>And I were that which till to-day I was,<br /> +They should be lying here, I standing there<br /> +But that belovéd name unnerved my arm—<br /> +That name, and something, I confess, in thee,<br /> +Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield<br /><span class="left">[p.18]</span> +<span class="right"> 550</span>Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe.<br /> +And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate.<br /> +But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear<br /> +The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!<br /> +My father, whom I seek through all the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 555</span>He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!"<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#556">556</a></span>As when some hunter° in the spring hath found <br /> +A breeding eagle sitting on her nest,<br /> +Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,<br /> +And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,<br /> +<span class="right"> 560</span>And follow'd her to find her where she fell <br /> +Far off;—anon her mate comes winging back<br /> +From hunting, and a great way off descries<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#563">563</a></span>His huddling young left sole°; at that, he checks<br /> +His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps<br /> +<span class="right"> 565</span>Circles above his eyry, with loud screams<br /> +Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she<br /> +Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,<br /> +In some far stony gorge out of his ken,<br /> +A heap of fluttering feathers—never more<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#570">570</a></span>Shall the lake glass° her, flying over it;<br /> +Never the black and dripping precipices<br /> +Echo her stormy scream as she sails by—<br /> +As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,<br /> +So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 575</span>Over his dying son, and knew him not.<br /><br /> + +But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:—<br /> +"What prate is this of fathers and revenge?<br /> +The mighty Rustum never had a son."<br /><br /> + +And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +<span class="right"> 580</span>"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I.<br /> +Surely the news will one day reach his ear,<br /> +Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long,<br /><span class="left">[p.19]</span> +Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;<br /> +And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap<br /> +<span class="right"> 585</span>To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.<br /> +Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!<br /> +What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?<br /> +Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen!<br /> +Yet him I pity not so much, but her,<br /> +<span class="right"> 590</span>My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells<br /> +With that old king, her father, who grows grey<br /> +With age, and rules over the valiant Koords.<br /> +Her most I pity, who no more will see<br /> +Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp,<br /> +<span class="right"> 595</span>With spoils and honour, when the war is done.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#596">596</a></span>But a dark rumour will be bruited up,°<br /> +From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;<br /> +And then will that defenceless woman learn<br /> +That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,<br /> +<span class="right"> 600</span>But that in battle with a nameless foe,<br /> +By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud,<br /> +Thinking of her he left, and his own death.<br /> +He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought.<br /> +<span class="right"> 605</span>Nor did he yet believe it was his son<br /> +Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew;<br /> +For he had had sure tidings that the babe,<br /> +Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,<br /> +Had been a puny girl, no boy at all—<br /> +<span class="right"> 610</span>So that sad mother sent him word, for fear<br /> +Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms—<br /> +And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#613">613</a></span>By a false boast, the style° of Rustum's son;<br /> +Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.<br /> +<span class="right"> 615</span>So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought<br /><span class="left">[p.20]</span> +And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide<br /> +Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore<br /> +At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes;<br /> +For he remember'd his own early youth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 620</span>And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,<br /> +The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries<br /> +A far, bright city, smitten by the sun,<br /> +Through many rolling clouds—so Rustum saw<br /> +His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#625">625</a></span>And that old king,° her father, who loved well<br /> +His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child<br /> +With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,<br /> +They three, in that long-distant summer-time—<br /> +The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt<br /> +<span class="right"> 630</span>And hound, and morn on those delightful hills<br /> +In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#632">632</a></span>Of age and looks° to be his own dear son,<br /> +Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand;<br /> +Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe<br /> +<span class="right"> 635</span>Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,<br /> +Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,<br /> +And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,<br /> +On the mown, dying grass—so Sohrab lay,<br /> +Lovely in death, upon the common sand.<br /> +<span class="right"> 640</span>And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son<br /> +Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved.<br /> +Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men<br /> +Have told thee false—thou art not Rustum's son.<br /> +<span class="right"> 645</span>For Rustum had no son; one child he had—<br /> +But one—a girl; who with her mother now<br /> +Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us—<br /> +Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war."<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.21]</span> +But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now<br /> +<span class="right"> 650</span>The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce,<br /> +And he desired to draw forth the steel,<br /> +And let the blood flow free, and so to die—<br /> +But first he would convince his stubborn foe;<br /> +And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 655</span>"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? <br /> +Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,<br /> +And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#658">658</a></span>I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm° I bear<br /> +That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,<br /> +<span class="right"> 660</span>That she might prick it on the babe she bore."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,<br /> +And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand<br /> +Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#664">663</a></span>That the hard iron corslet° clank'd aloud;<br /> +<span class="right"> 665</span>And to his heart he press'd the other hand,<br /> +And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie!<br /> +If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son."<br /><br /> + +Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed<br /> +<span class="right"> 670</span>His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,<br /> +And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#672">672</a></span>Prick'd; as a cunning° workman, in Pekin,<br /> +Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,<br /> +An emperor's gift—at early morn he paints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 675</span>And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp<br /> +Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands—<br /> +So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd<br /> +On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#679">679</a></span>It was that griffin,° which of old rear'd Zal,<br /> +<span class="right"> 680</span>Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,<br /> +A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks;<br /><span class="left">[p.22]</span> +Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved—<br /> +Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign.<br /> +And Sohrab bared that image on his arm,<br /> +<span class="right"> 685</span>And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes,<br /> +And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:—<br /><br /> + +"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign<br /> +Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?"<br /><br /> + +He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 690</span>Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry:<br /> +<i class="indent4">O boy</i>—<i class="indent4">thy father!</i>—and his voice choked there.<br /> +And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes,<br /> +And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.<br /> +But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast<br /> +<span class="right"> 695</span>His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips,<br /> +And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,<br /> +Trying to call him back to life; and life<br /> +Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,<br /> +And they stood wide with horror; and he seized<br /> +<span class="right"> 700</span>In both his hands the dust which lay around,<br /> +And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,—<br /> +His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;<br /> +And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,<br /> +And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword,<br /> +<span class="right"> 705</span>To draw it, and for ever let life out.<br /> +But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands,<br /> +And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day<br /> +The doom which at my birth was written down<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#710">710</a></span>In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.°<br /> +Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,<br /> +When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,<br /> +I know it! but fate trod those promptings down<br /> +Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged<br /><span class="left">[p.23]</span> +<span class="right"> 715</span>The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear.<br /> +But let us speak no more of this! I find<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#717">717</a></span>My father; let me feel that I have found!°<br /> +Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take<br /> +My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,<br /> +<span class="right"> 720</span>And wash them with thy tears, and say: <i class="indent4">My son!</i><br /> +Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life,<br /> +And swift; for like the lightning to this field<br /> +I came, and like the wind I go away—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#724">724</a></span>Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.°<br /> +<span class="right"> 725</span>But it was writ in Heaven that this should be."<br /><br /> + +So said he, and his voice released the heart<br /> +Of Rustum, and his tears brake forth; he cast<br /> +His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,<br /> +And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts,<br /> +<span class="right"> 730</span>When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse,<br /> +With his head bowing to the ground and mane<br /> +Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe<br /> +First to the one then to the other moved<br /> +His head, as if inquiring what their grief<br /> +<span class="right"> 735</span>Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#736">736</a></span>The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked° the sand.<br /> +But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:—<br /><br /> + +"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet<br /> +Should first have rotted on their nimble joints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 740</span>Or ere they brought thy master to this field!"<br /><br /> + +But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said:—<br /> +"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days,<br /> +My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,<br /> +My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,<br /> +<span class="right"> 745</span>That I should one day find thy lord and thee.<br /> +Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!<br /> +O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;<br /><span class="left">[p.24]</span> +For thou hast gone where I shall never go,<br /> +And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home.<br /> +<span class="right"> 750</span>And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#751">751</a></span>And seen the River of Helmund,° and the Lake<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#752">752</a></span>Of Zirrah°; and the aged Zal himself<br /> +Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,<br /> +Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 755</span>And said: <i class="indent4">O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!</i>—but I<br /> +Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face,<br /> +Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,<br /> +Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;<br /> +But lodged among my father's foes, and seen<br /> +<span class="right"> 760</span>Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,<br /> +Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,<br /> +And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#763">763</a></span>The desert rivers, Moorghab° and Tejend,°<br /> +Kohik,° and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#765">765</a></span>The northern Sir°; and this great Oxus stream,<br /> +The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die."<br /><br /> + +Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:—<br /> +"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me!<br /> +Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt<br /> +<span class="right"> 770</span>Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!"<br /><br /> + +But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"Desire not that, my father! thou must live.<br /> +For some are born to do great deeds, and live,<br /> +As some are born to be obscured, and die.<br /> +<span class="right"> 775</span>Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,<br /> +And reap a second glory in thine age;<br /> +Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.<br /> +But come! thou seest this great host of men<br /> +Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!<br /> +<span class="right"> 780</span>Let me entreat for them; what have they done?<br /><span class="left">[p.25]</span> +They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star.<br /> +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.<br /> +But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,<br /> +But carry me with thee to Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right"> 785</span>And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,<br /> +Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends.<br /> +And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#788">788</a></span>And heap a stately mound° above my bones,<br /> +And plant a far-seen pillar over all.<br /> +<span class="right"> 790</span>That so the passing horseman on the waste<br /> +May see my tomb a great way off, and cry:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there,<br /> +Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!</i><br /> +And I be not forgotten in my grave."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 795</span>And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:—<br /> +"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,<br /> +So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,<br /> +And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,<br /> +And carry thee away to Seistan,<br /> +<span class="right"> 800</span>And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,<br /> +With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.<br /> +And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,<br /> +And heap a stately mound above thy bones,<br /> +And plant a far-seen pillar over all,<br /> +<span class="right"> 805</span>And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.<br /> +And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!<br /> +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!<br /> +What should I do with slaying any more?<br /> +For would that all that I have ever slain<br /> +<span class="right"> 810</span>Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes,<br /> +And they who were call'd champions in their time,<br /> +And through whose death I won that fame I have—<br /> +And I were nothing but a common man,<br /><span class="left">[p.26]</span> +A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,<br /> +<span class="right"> 815</span>So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!<br /> +Or rather would that I, even I myself,<br /> +Might now be lying on this bloody sand,<br /> +Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,<br /> +Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou;<br /> +<span class="right"> 820</span>And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan;<br /> +And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;<br /> +And say: <i class="indent4">O son, I weep thee not too sore,<br /> +For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!</i><br /> +But now in blood and battles was my youth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 825</span>And full of blood and battles is my age,<br /> +And I shall never end this life of blood."<br /><br /> + +Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:—<br /> +"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man!<br /> +But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#830">830</a></span>Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,°<br /> +When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship,<br /> +Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo,<br /> +Returning home over the salt blue sea,<br /> +From laying thy dear master in his grave."<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 835</span>And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:—<br /> +"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea!<br /> +Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure."<br /><br /> + +He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took<br /> +The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased<br /> +<span class="right"> 840</span>His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood<br /> +Came welling from the open gash, and life<br /> +Flow'd with the stream;—all down his cold white side<br /> +The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd,<br /> +Like the soil'd tissue of white violets<br /> +<span class="right"> 845</span>Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank,<br /> +By children whom their nurses call with haste<br /><span class="left">[p.27]</span> +Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low,<br /> +His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay—<br /> +White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps,<br /> +<span class="right"> 850</span>Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,<br /> +Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them,<br /> +And fix'd them feebly on his father's face;<br /> +Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs<br /> +Unwillingly the spirit fled away,<br /> +<span class="right"> 855</span>Regretting the warm mansion which it left,<br /> +And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.<br /><br /> + +So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;<br /> +And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak<br /> +Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.<br /> +<span class="right"> 860</span>As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#861">861</a></span>By Jemshid in Persepolis,° to bear<br /> +His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps<br /> +Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side—<br /> +So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 865</span>And night came down over the solemn waste,<br /> +And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,<br /> +And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night,<br /> +Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,<br /> +As of a great assembly loosed, and fires<br /> +<span class="right"> 870</span>Began to twinkle through the fog; for now<br /> +Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal;<br /> +The Persians took it on the open sands<br /> +Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;<br /> +And Rustum and his son were left alone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 875</span>But the majestic river floated on,<br /> +Out of the mist and hum of that low land,<br /> +Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#878">878</a></span>Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian° waste,<br /> +Under the solitary moon;—he flow'd<br /><span class="left">[p.28]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#880">880</a></span>Right for the polar star,° past Orgunjè,°<br /> +Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin<br /> +To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,<br /> +And split his currents; that for many a league<br /> +The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along<br /> +<span class="right"> 885</span>Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—<br /> +Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had<br /> +In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,<br /> +A foil'd circuitous wanderer—till at last<br /> +The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#890">890</a></span>His luminous home° of waters opens, bright<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#891">891</a></span>And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars°<br /> +Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#SAINT">SAINT BRANDAN</a><a name="BRANDAN">°</a></h2> + +<p class="indent4"> +Saint Brandan sails the northern main;<br /> +The brotherhood of saints are glad.<br /> +He greets them once, he sails again;<br /> +So late!—such storms!—The Saint is mad!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>He heard, across the howling seas,<br /> +Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7b">7</a></span>He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,°<br /> +Twinkle the monastery-lights;<br /><br /> + +But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd—<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And now no bells, no convents more!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11b">11</a></span>The hurtling Polar lights° are near'd,<br /> +The sea without a human shore.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.29]</span> +At last—(it was the Christmas night;<br /> +Stars shone after a day of storm)—<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>He sees float past an iceberg white,<br /> +And on it—Christ!—a living form.<br /><br /> + +That furtive mien, that scowling eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18b">18</a></span>Of hair that red° and tufted fell—<br /> +It is—Oh, where shall Brandan fly?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The traitor Judas, out of hell!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21b">21</a></span>Palsied with terror, Brandan sate°;<br /> +The moon was bright, the iceberg near.<br /> +He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait!<br /> +By high permission I am here.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>"One moment wait, thou holy man<br /> +On earth my crime, my death, they knew;<br /> +My name is under all men's ban—<br /> +Ah, tell them of my respite too!<br /><br /> + +"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night—<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>(It was the first after I came,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31b">31</a></span>Breathing self-murder,° frenzy, spite,<br /> +To rue my guilt in endless flame)—<br /><br /> + +"I felt, as I in torment lay<br /> +'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>An angel touch my arm, and say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!</i><br /><br /> + +"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38b">38</a></span><i class="indent4">The Leper recollect,</i>° said he,<br /> +<i class="indent4">Who ask'd the passers-by for aid,</i><br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#40b">40</a></span><i class="indent4">In Joppa,° and thy charity.</i><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.30]</span> +"Then I remember'd how I went,<br /> +In Joppa, through the public street,<br /> +One morn when the sirocco spent<br /> +Its storms of dust with burning heat;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 45</span>"And in the street a leper sate,<br /> +Shivering with fever, naked, old;<br /> +Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,<br /> +The hot wind fever'd him five-fold.<br /><br /> + +"He gazed upon me as I pass'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>And murmur'd: <i class="indent4">Help me, or I die!</i>—<br /> +To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,<br /> +Saw him look eased, and hurried by.<br /><br /> + +"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,<br /> +What blessing must full goodness shower,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>When fragment of it small, like mine,<br /> +Hath such inestimable power!<br /><br /> + +"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I<br /> +Did that chance act of good, that one!<br /> +Then went my way to kill and lie—<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Forgot my good as soon as done.<br /><br /> + +"That germ of kindness, in the womb<br /> +Of mercy caught, did not expire;<br /> +Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,<br /> +And friends me in the pit of fire.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>"Once every year, when carols wake,<br /> +On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,<br /> +Arising from the sinner's lake,<br /> +I journey to these healing snows.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.31]</span> +"I stanch with ice my burning breast,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>With silence balm my whirling brain.<br /> +Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest<br /> +That Joppan leper's ease was pain."—<br /><br /> + +Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;<br /> +He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer—<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies!<br /> +The iceberg, and no Judas there!<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#MERMAN">THE FORSAKEN MERMAN</a><a name="FORSAKEN">°</a></h2> + +<p class="indent4"> +Come, dear children, let us away;<br /> +Down and away below!<br /> +Now my brothers call from the bay,<br /> +Now the great winds shoreward blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Now the salt tides seaward flow;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6m">6</a></span>Now the wild white horses° play,<br /> +Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.<br /> +Children dear, let us away!<br /> +This way, this way!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 10</span>Call her once before you go—<br /> +Call once yet!<br /> +In a voice that she will know:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13m">13</a></span>"Margaret°! Margaret!"<br /> +Children's voices should be dear<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>(Call once more) to a mother's ear;<br /> +Children's voices, wild with pain—<br /> +Surely she will come again!<br /><span class="left">[p.32]</span> +Call her once and come away;<br /> +This way, this way!<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>"Mother dear, we cannot stay!<br /> +The wild white horses foam and fret."<br /> +Margaret! Margaret!<br /><br /> + +Come, dear children, come away down;<br /> +Call no more!<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>One last look at the white-wall'd town,<br /> +And the little grey church on the windy shore;<br /> +Then come down!<br /> +She will not come though you call all day;<br /> +Come away, come away!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 30</span>Children dear, was it yesterday<br /> +We heard the sweet bells over the bay?<br /> +In the caverns where we lay,<br /> +Through the surf and through the swell,<br /> +The far-off sound of a silver bell?<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,<br /> +Where the winds are all asleep;<br /> +Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,<br /> +Where the salt weed sways in the stream,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#39m">39</a></span>Where the sea-beasts, ranged° all round,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;<br /> +Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42m">42</a></span>Dry their mail° and bask in the brine;<br /> +Where great whales come sailing by,<br /> +Sail and sail, with unshut eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Round the world for ever and aye? <br /> +When did music come this way?<br /> +Children dear, was it yesterday?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.33]</span> +Children dear, was it yesterday<br /> +(Call yet once) that she went away?<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Once she sate with you and me,<br /> +On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,<br /> +And the youngest sate on her knee.<br /> +She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#54m">54</a></span>When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.°<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;<br /> +She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray<br /> +In the little grey church on the shore to-day.<br /> +'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!<br /> +And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;<br /> +Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"<br /> +She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.<br /> +Children dear, was it yesterday?<br /><br /> + + Children dear, were we long alone?<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;<br /> +Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;<br /> +Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.<br /> +We went up the beach, by the sandy down<br /> +Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,<br /> +To the little grey church on the windy hill.<br /> +From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,<br /> +But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.<br /> +We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.<br /> +She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:<br /> +"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!<br /> +Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;<br /> +The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."<br /><span class="left">[p.34]</span> +<span class="right"> 80</span>But, ah, she gave me never a look,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81m">81</a></span>For her eyes were seal'd° to the holy book!<br /> +Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.<br /> +Come away, children, call no more!<br /> +Come away, come down, call no more!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 85</span>Down, down, down! <br /> +Down to the depths of the sea!<br /> +She sits at her wheel in the humming town, +Singing most joyfully.<br /> +Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>For the humming street, and the child with its toy!<br /> +For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;<br /> +For the wheel where I spun,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#93m">93</a></span>And the blessed light of the sun°!"<br /> +And so she sings her fill,<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Singing most joyfully,<br /> +Till the spindle drops from her hand,<br /> +And the whizzing wheel stands still.<br /> +She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,<br /> +And over the sand at the sea;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And her eyes are set in a stare; <br /> +And anon there breaks a sigh,<br /> +And anon there drops a tear,<br /> +From a sorrow-clouded eye,<br /> +And a heart sorrow-laden,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>A long, long sigh;<br /> +For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden<br /> +And the gleam of her golden hair.<br /><br /> + + Come away, away, children;<br /> +Come children, come down!<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>The hoarse wind blows coldly;<br /> +Lights shine in the town.<br /><span class="left">[p.35]</span> +She will start from her slumber<br /> +When gusts shake the door;<br /> +She will hear the winds howling,<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>Will hear the waves roar.<br /> +We shall see, while above us<br /> +The waves roar and whirl,<br /> +A ceiling of amber,<br /> +A pavement of pearl.<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>Singing: "Here came a mortal,<br /> +But faithless was she!<br /> +And alone dwell for ever<br /> +The kings of the sea."<br /><br /> + +But, children, at midnight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>When soft the winds blow,<br /> +When clear falls the moonlight,<br /> +When spring-tides are low;<br /> +When sweet airs come seaward<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#129m">129</a></span>From heaths starr'd with broom,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>And high rocks throw mildly<br /> +On the blanch'd sands a gloom;<br /> +Up the still, glistening beaches,<br /> +Up the creeks we will hie,<br /> +Over banks of bright seaweed<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>The ebb-tide leaves dry.<br /> +We will gaze, from the sand-hills,<br /> +At the white, sleeping town;<br /> +At the church on the hill-side—<br /> +And then come back down.<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Singing: "There dwells a loved one,<br /> +But cruel is she!<br /> +She left lonely for ever<br /> +The kings of the sea."<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.35]</span> +<h2><a href="#TRISTRAM">TRISTRAM AND ISEULT</a><a name="ISEULT">°</a></h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<h3>TRISTRAM</h3>. + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1t">1</a></span><i>Tristram</i>. Is she not come°? The messenger was sure—<br /> +Prop me upon the pillows once again—<br /> +Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.<br /> +—Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5t">5</a></span>What lights will those out to the northward be°?<br /><br /> + +<i>The Page</i>. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Soft—who is that, stands by the dying fire?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#8t">8</a></span><i>The Page</i>. Iseult.°<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Ah! not the Iseult I desire.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +What Knight is this so weak and pale,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head,<br /> +Propt on pillows in his bed, <br /> +Gazing seaward for the light<br /> +Of some ship that fights the gale<br /> +On this wild December night?<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Over the sick man's feet is spread <br /> +A dark green forest-dress;<br /> +A gold harp leans against the bed,<br /> +Ruddy in the fire's light.<br /> +I know him by his harp of gold,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#20t">20</a></span>Famous in Arthur's court° of old; <br /> +I know him by his forest-dress—<br /> +The peerless hunter, harper, knight,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23t">23</a></span>Tristram of Lyoness.°<br /><span class="left">[p.37]</span> +What Lady is this, whose silk attire<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Gleams so rich in the light of the fire?<br /> +The ringlets on her shoulders lying<br /> +In their flitting lustre vying<br /> +With the clasp of burnish'd gold<br /> +Which her heavy robe doth hold.<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Her looks are mild, her fingers slight<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31t">31</a></span>As the driven snow are white°;<br /> +But her cheeks are sunk and pale.<br /> +Is it that the bleak sea-gale<br /> +Beating from the Atlantic sea<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>On this coast of Brittany,<br /> +Nips too keenly the sweet flower?<br /> +Is it that a deep fatigue<br /> +Hath come on her, a chilly fear,<br /> +Passing all her youthful hour<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Spinning with her maidens here,<br /> +Listlessly through the window-bars<br /> +Gazing seawards many a league,<br /> +From her lonely shore-built tower,<br /> +While the knights are at the wars?<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Or, perhaps, has her young heart<br /> +Felt already some deeper smart,<br /> +Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive,<br /> +Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair?<br /> +Who is this snowdrop by the sea?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>I know her by her mildness rare,<br /> +Her snow-white hands, her golden hair;<br /> +I know her by her rich silk dress,<br /> +And her fragile loveliness—<br /> +The sweetest Christian soul alive,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Iseult of Brittany.</p> +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.38]</span> +Iseult of Brittany?—but where<br /> +Is that other Iseult fair,<br /> +That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen?<br /> +She, whom Tristram's ship of yore<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>From Ireland to Cornwall bore,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">61</a></span>To Tyntagel,° to the side<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">62</a></span>Of King Marc,° to be his bride?<br /> +She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd<br /> +With Tristram that spiced magic draught,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Which since then for ever rolls<br /> +Through their blood, and binds their souls,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#68t">67</a></span>Working love, but working teen°?—.<br /> +There were two Iseults who did sway<br /> +Each her hour of Tristram's day;<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>But one possess'd his waning time,<br /> +The other his resplendent prime.<br /> +Behold her here, the patient flower,<br /> +Who possess'd his darker hour!<br /> +Iseult of the Snow-White Hand<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Watches pale by Tristram's bed.<br /> +She is here who had his gloom,<br /> +Where art thou who hadst his bloom?<br /> +One such kiss as those of yore<br /> +Might thy dying knight restore!<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Does the love-draught work no more?<br /> +Art thou cold, or false, or dead,<br /> +Iseult of Ireland?</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain,<br /> +And the knight sinks back on his pillows again.<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>He is weak with fever and pain; <br /> +And his spirit is not clear.<br /><span class="left">[p.39]</span> +Hark! he mutters in his sleep,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88t">88</a></span>As he wanders° far from here,<br /> +Changes place and time of year,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>And his closéd eye doth sweep<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#91t">91</a></span>O'er some fair unwintry sea,°<br /> +Not this fierce Atlantic deep,<br /> +While he mutters brokenly:—</p><br /> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails;<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales,<br /> +And overhead the cloudless sky of May.—<br /> +<i class="indent4">"Ah, would I were in those green fields at play,<br /> +Not pent on ship-board this delicious day!<br /> +Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy,</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span><i class="indent4">Reach me my golden phial stands by thee,<br /> +But pledge me in it first for courtesy."</i>—<br /> +Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine?<br /> +Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine!<br /> +Iseult!...</p><br /> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Ah, sweet angels, let him dream!<br /> +Keep his eyelids! let him seem<br /> +Not this fever-wasted wight<br /> +Thinn'd and paled before his time,<br /> +But the brilliant youthful knight<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>In the glory of his prime,<br /> +Sitting in the gilded barge,<br /> +At thy side, thou lovely charge,<br /> +Bending gaily o'er thy hand,<br /> +Iseult of Ireland!<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And she too, that princess fair,<br /> +If her bloom be now less rare,<br /><span class="left">[p.40]</span> +Let her have her youth again—<br /> +Let her be as she was then!<br /> +Let her have her proud dark eyes,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And her petulant quick replies—<br /> +Let her sweep her dazzling hand<br /> +With its gesture of command,<br /> +And shake back her raven hair<br /> +With the old imperious air!<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>As of old, so let her be,<br /> +That first Iseult, princess bright,<br /> +Chatting with her youthful knight<br /> +As he steers her o'er the sea,<br /> +Quitting at her father's will<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#130t">130</a></span>The green isle° where she was bred,<br /> +And her bower in Ireland,<br /> +For the surge-beat Cornish strand<br /> +Where the prince whom she must wed<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134t">134</a></span>Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>High above the sounding sea.<br /> +And that potion rare her mother<br /> +Gave her, that her future lord,<br /> +Gave her, that King Marc and she,<br /> +Might drink it on their marriage-day,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>And for ever love each other—<br /> +Let her, as she sits on board,<br /> +Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly!<br /> +See it shine, and take it up,<br /> +And to Tristram laughing say:<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>"Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy,<br /> +Pledge me in my golden cup!"<br /> +Let them drink it—let their hands<br /> +Tremble, and their cheeks be flame,<br /> +As they feel the fatal bands<br /><span class="left">[p.41]</span> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Of a love they dare not name,<br /> +With a wild delicious pain,<br /> +Twine about their hearts again!<br /> +Let the early summer be<br /> +Once more round them, and the sea<br /> +<span class="right">155 </span>Blue, and o'er its mirror kind<br /> +Let the breath of the May-wind,<br /> +Wandering through their drooping sails,<br /> +Die on the green fields of Wales!<br /> +Let a dream like this restore<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#160t">160</a></span>What his eye must see no more!°</p> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks° are drear—<br /> +Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here?<br /> +Were feet like those made for so wild a way?<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#164t">164</a></span>The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day!<br /> +<i class="indent4">"Tristram!—nay, nay—thou must not take my hand!—<br /> +Tristram!—sweet love!—we are betray'd—out-plann'd.<br /> +Fly—save thyself—save me!—I dare not stay."</i>—<br /> +One last kiss first!—<i class="indent4">"'Tis vain—to horse—away!"</i></p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move<br /> +Faster surely than it should,<br /> +From the fever in his blood!<br /> +All the spring-time of his love<br /> +Is already gone and past,<br /><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>And instead thereof is seen<br /> +Its winter, which endureth still—<br /> +Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,<br /> +The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen,<br /><span class="left">[p.42]</span> +The flying leaves, the straining blast,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#180t">180</a></span>And that long, wild kiss—their last.°<br /> +And this rough December-night,<br /> +And his burning fever-pain,<br /> +Mingle with his hurrying dream,<br /> +Till they rule it, till he seem<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>The press'd fugitive again,<br /> +The love-desperate banish'd knight<br /> +With a fire in his brain<br /> +Flying o'er the stormy main.<br /> +—Whither does he wander now?<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>Haply in his dreams the wind<br /> +Wafts him here, and lets him find<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#192t">192</a></span>The lovely orphan child° again<br /> +In her castle by the coast;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#194t">194</a></span>The youngest, fairest chatelaine,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Whom this realm of France can boast,<br /> +Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,<br /> +Iseult of Brittany. <br /> +And—for through the haggard air,<br /> +The stain'd arms, the matted hair<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#200t">200</a></span>Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,°<br /> +There gleam'd something, which recall'd<br /> +The Tristram who in better days<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#203t">203</a></span>Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard°—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#204t">204</a></span>Welcomed here,° and here install'd,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Tended of his fever here,<br /> +Haply he seems again to move<br /> +His young guardian's heart with love<br /> +In his exiled loneliness,<br /> +In his stately, deep distress,<br /> +<span class="right">210</span>Without a word, without a tear.<br /> +—Ah! 'tis well he should retrace<br /><span class="left">[p.43]</span> +His tranquil life in this lone place;<br /> +His gentle bearing at the side<br /> +Of his timid youthful bride;<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>His long rambles by the shore<br /> +On winter-evenings, when the roar<br /> +Of the near waves came, sadly grand,<br /> +Through the dark, up the drown'd sand,<br /> +Or his endless reveries<br /> +<span class="right"> 220</span>In the woods, where the gleams play<br /> +On the grass under the trees,<br /> +Passing the long summer's day<br /> +Idle as a mossy stone<br /> +In the forest-depths alone,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>The chase neglected, and his hound<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#226t">226</a></span>Couch'd beside him on the ground.°<br /> +—Ah! what trouble's on his brow?<br /> +Hither let him wander now;<br /> +Hither, to the quiet hours<br /> +<span class="right"> 230</span>Pass'd among these heaths of ours.<br /> +By the grey Atlantic sea;<br /> +Hours, if not of ecstasy,<br /> +From violent anguish surely free!</p><br /> +<p class="indent4"><br /> +<i>Tristram</i>. All red with blood the whirling river flows,<br /> +<span class="right"> 235</span>The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows.<br /> +Upon us are the chivalry of Rome—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#237t">237</a></span>Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.°<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#238t">238</a></span>"Up, Tristram, up," men cry, "thou moonstruck knight°!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#239t">239</a></span>What foul fiend rides thee°? On into the fight!"<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#240t">240</a></span>—Above the din her° voice is in my ears;<br /> +I see her form glide through the crossing spears.—<br /> +Iseult!...</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.44]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#243t">243</a></span>Ah! he wanders forth again°;<br /> +We cannot keep him; now, as then,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#245t">245</a></span>There's a secret in his breast°<br /> +Which will never let him rest.<br /> +These musing fits in the green wood<br /> +They cloud the brain, they dull the blood!<br /> +—His sword is sharp, his horse is good;<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>Beyond the mountains will he see<br /> +The famous towns of Italy,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#252t">252</a></span>And label with the blessed sign°<br /> +The heathen Saxons on the Rhine.<br /> +At Arthur's side he fights once more<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#255t">255</a></span>With the Roman Emperor.°<br /> +There's many a gay knight where he goes<br /> +Will help him to forget his care;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#258t">258</a></span>The march, the leaguer,° Heaven's blithe air,<br /> +The neighing steeds, the ringing blows—<br /> +<span class="right"> 260</span>Sick pining comes not where these are.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#261t">261</a></span>Ah! what boots it,° that the jest<br /> +Lightens every other brow,<br /> +What, that every other breast<br /> +Dances as the trumpets blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>If one's own heart beats not light<br /> +On the waves of the toss'd fight,<br /> +If oneself cannot get free<br /> +From the clog of misery?<br /> +Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale<br /> +<span class="right"> 270</span>Watching by the salt sea-tide<br /> +With her children at her side<br /> +For the gleam of thy white sail.<br /> +Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!<br /> +To our lonely sea complain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 275</span>To our forests tell thy pain! </p> +<p class="indent4"><span class="left">[p.45]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,<br /> +But it is moonlight in the open glade;<br /> +And in the bottom of the glade shine clear<br /> +The forest-chapel and the fountain near.<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>—I think, I have a fever in my blood;<br /> +Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,<br /> +Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.<br /> +—Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light;<br /> +God! 'tis <i class="indent4">her</i> face plays in the waters bright.<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon,<br /> +At this soft hour under this sweet moon?"—<br /> +Iseult!...</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> + Ah, poor soul! if this be so,<br /> +Only death can balm thy woe.<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>The solitudes of the green wood<br /> +Had no medicine for thy mood;<br /> +The rushing battle clear'd thy blood<br /> +As little as did solitude.<br /> +—Ah! his eyelids slowly break<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>Their hot seals, and let him wake;<br /> +What new change shall we now see?<br /> +A happier? Worse it cannot be.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire!<br /> +Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright;<br /> +<span class="right"> 300</span>The wind is down—but she'll not come to-night.<br /> +Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now,<br /> +Far hence; her dreams are fair—smooth is her brow<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#303t">303</a></span>Of me she recks not,° nor my vain desire.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.46]</span> +—I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page,<br /> +<span class="right"> 305</span>Would take a score years from a strong man's age;<br /> +And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear,<br /> +Scant leisure for a second messenger.<br /><br /> + +—My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait!<br /> +To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by;<br /> +<span class="right"> 310</span>To-night my page shall keep me company.<br /> +Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me!<br /> +Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I;<br /> +This comes of nursing long and watching late.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#314t">314</a></span>To bed—good night!°</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> 315</span>She left the gleam-lit fireplace,<br /> +She came to the bed-side;<br /> +She took his hands in hers—her tears<br /> +Down on his wasted fingers rain'd.<br /> +She raised her eyes upon his face—<br /> +<span class="right"> 320</span>Not with a look of wounded pride,<br /> +A look as if the heart complained—<br /> +Her look was like a sad embrace;<br /> +The gaze of one who can divine<br /> +A grief, and sympathise.<br /> +<span class="right"> 325</span>Sweet flower! thy children's eyes<br /> +Are not more innocent than thine.<br /> + But they sleep in shelter'd rest,<br /> +Like helpless birds in the warm nest,<br /> +On the castle's southern side;<br /> +<span class="right"> 330</span>Where feebly comes the mournful roar<br /> +Of buffeting wind and surging tide<br /> +Through many a room and corridor.<br /> +—Full on their window the moon's ray<br /> +Makes their chamber as bright as day.<br /><span class="left">[p.47]</span> +<span class="right"> 335</span>It shines upon the blank white walls,<br /> +And on the snowy pillow falls,<br /> +And on two angel-heads doth play<br /> +Turn'd to each other—the eyes closed,<br /> +The lashes on the cheeks reposed.<br /> +<span class="right"> 340</span>Round each sweet brow the cap close-set<br /> +Hardly lets peep the golden hair;<br /> +Through the soft-open'd lips the air<br /> +Scarcely moves the coverlet.<br /> +One little wandering arm is thrown<br /> +<span class="right"> 345</span>At random on the counterpane,<br /> +And often the fingers close in haste<br /> +As if their baby-owner chased<br /> +The butterflies again.<br /> +<span class="right"> 350</span>This stir they have, and this alone;<br /> +But else they are so still!<br /> +—Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still;<br /> +But were you at the window now,<br /> +To look forth on the fairy sight<br /> +<span class="right"> 355</span>Of your illumined haunts by night,<br /> +To see the park-glades where you play<br /> +Far lovelier than they are by day,<br /> +To see the sparkle on the eaves,<br /> +And upon every giant-bough<br /> +<span class="right"> 360</span>Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves<br /> +Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain—<br /> +How would your voices run again!<br /> +And far beyond the sparkling trees<br /> +Of the castle-park one sees<br /> +<span class="right"> 365</span>The bare heaths spreading, clear as day,<br /> +Moor behind moor, far, far away,<br /> +Into the heart of Brittany.<br /> +And here and there, lock'd by the land,<br /><span class="left">[p.48]</span> +Long inlets of smooth glittering sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 370</span>And many a stretch of watery sand<br /> +All shining in the white moon-beams—<br /> +But you see fairer in your dreams!<br /><br /> + +What voices are these on the clear night-air?<br /> +What lights in the court—what steps on the stair?<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3><a href="#II">ISEULT OF IRELAND</a><a name="IRELAND">°</a></h3> + +<p class="indent4"> +<i>Tristram</i>. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.—<br /> + Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen!<br /> +Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever;<br /> + Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span><i>Iseult</i>. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried;<br /> + Bound I was, I could not break the band.<br /> +Chide not with the past, but feel the present!<br /> + I am here—we meet—I hold thy hand.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Thou art come, indeed—thou hast rejoin'd me;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> Thou hast dared it—but too late to save.<br /> +Fear not now that men should tax thine honour!<br /> + I am dying: build—(thou may'st)—my grave!<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly!<br /> + What, I hear these bitter words from thee?<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel—<br /> + Take my hand—dear Tristram, look on me!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.49]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage—<br /> + Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair.<br /> +But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult!<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span> And thy beauty never was more fair.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty!<br /> + I, like thee, have left my youth afar.<br /> +Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers—<br /> + See my cheek and lips, how white they are!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span><i>Tristram</i>. Thou art paler—but thy sweet charm, Iseult!<br /> + Would not fade with the dull years away.<br /> +Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight!<br /> + I forgive thee, Iseult!—thou wilt stay?<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Fear me not, I will be always with thee;<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain;<br /> +Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers,<br /> + Join'd at evening of their days again.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding<br /> + Something alter'd in thy courtly tone.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Sit—sit by me! I will think, we've lived so<br /> + In the green wood, all our lives, alone.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me,<br /> + Love like mine is alter'd in the breast;<br /> +Courtly life is light and cannot reach it—<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd!<br /><br /> + +What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers<br /> + Words by which the wretched are consoled?<br /> +What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler,<br /> + Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.50]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband—<br /> + That was bliss to make my sorrows flee!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#47t2">47</a></span>Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings°—<br /> + Those were friends to make me false to thee!<br /><br /> + +Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced,<br /> + <span class="right"> 50</span> Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown—<br /> +Thee, a pining exile in thy forest,<br /> + Me, a smiling queen upon my throne?<br /><br /> + +Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd,<br /> + Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Both have brought their anxious day to evening,<br /> + And have now short space for being glad!<br /><br /> + +Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people,<br /> + Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill,<br /> +That a former rival shares her office,<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> When she sees her humbled, pale, and still.<br /><br /> + +I, a faded watcher by thy pillow,<br /> + I, a statue on thy chapel-floor,<br /> +Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother,<br /> + Rouse no anger, make no rivals more.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>She will cry: "Is this the foe I dreaded?<br /> + This his idol? this that royal bride?<br /> +Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight!<br /> + Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side."<br /><br /> + +Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me.<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep.<br /> +Close thine eyes—this flooding moonlight blinds them!—<br /> + Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.51]</span> +<i>Tristram</i>. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something<br /> + Swells my heart, and takes my breath away.<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Through a mist I see thee; near—come nearer!<br /> + Bend—bend down!—I yet have much to say.<br /><br /> + +<i>Iseult</i>. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow—<br /> + Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail!<br /> +Call on God and on the holy angels!<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span> What, love, courage!—Christ! he is so pale.<br /><br /> + +<i>Tristram</i>. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching!<br /> + This is what my mother said should be,<br /> +When the fierce pains took her in the forest,<br /> + The deep draughts of death, in bearing me.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 85</span>"Son," she said, "thy name shall be of sorrow;<br /> + Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake."<br /> +So she said, and died in the drear forest.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88t2">88</a></span> Grief since then his home with me doth make.°<br /><br /> + +I am dying.—Start not, nor look wildly!<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span> Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save.<br /> +But, since living we were ununited,<br /> + Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave.<br /><br /> + +Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult;<br /> + Speak her fair, she is of royal blood!<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me—<br /> + She will grant it; she is kind and good.<br /><br /> + +Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee—<br /> + One last kiss upon the living shore!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.52]</span> +<i>Iseult</i>. Tristram!—Tristram!—stay—receive me with thee!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#100t2">100</a></span> Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more.°</p> + + <hr class="short" /> + +<p class="indent4"> +You see them clear—the moon shines bright.<br /> +Slow, slow and softly, where she stood,<br /> +She sinks upon the ground;—her hood<br /> +Has fallen back; her arms outspread<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Still hold her lover's hand; her head<br /> +Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed.<br /> +O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair<br /> +Lies in disorder'd streams; and there,<br /> +Strung like white stars, the pearls still are,<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare,<br /> +Flash on her white arms still.<br /> +The very same which yesternight<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#113t2">113</a></span>Flash'd in the silver sconces'° light,<br /> +When the feast was gay and the laughter loud<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>In Tyntagel's palace proud.<br /> +But then they deck'd a restless ghost<br /> +With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes,<br /> +And quivering lips on which the tide<br /> +Of courtly speech abruptly died,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And a glance which over the crowded floor,<br /> +The dancers, and the festive host,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#122t2">122</a></span>Flew ever to the door.°<br /> +That the knights eyed her in surprise,<br /> +And the dames whispered scoffingly:<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>"Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers!<br /> +But yesternight and she would be<br /> +As pale and still as wither'd flowers,<br /> +And now to-night she laughs and speaks<br /> +And has a colour in her cheeks;<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Christ keep us from such fantasy!"—<br /><span class="left">[p.53]</span> +Yes, now the longing is o'erpast,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#132t2">132</a></span>Which, dogg'd° by fear and fought by shame,<br /> +Shook her weak bosom day and night,<br /> +Consumed her beauty like a flame,<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>And dimm'd it like the desert-blast.<br /> +And though the bed-clothes hide her face,<br /> +Yet were it lifted to the light,<br /> +The sweet expression of her brow<br /> +Would charm the gazer, till his thought<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Erased the ravages of time,<br /> +Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought<br /> +A freshness back as of her prime—<br /> +So healing is her quiet now.<br /> +So perfectly the lines express<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>A tranquil, settled loveliness,<br /> +Her younger rival's purest grace.<br /><br /> + +The air of the December-night<br /> +Steals coldly around the chamber bright,<br /> +Where those lifeless lovers be;<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Swinging with it, in the light<br /> +Flaps the ghostlike tapestry.<br /> +And on the arras wrought you see<br /> +A stately Huntsman, clad in green,<br /> +And round him a fresh forest-scene.<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>On that clear forest-knoll he stays,<br /> +With his pack round him, and delays.<br /> +He stares and stares, with troubled face,<br /> +At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace,<br /> +At that bright, iron-figured door,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>And those blown rushes on the floor.<br /> +He gazes down into the room<br /> +With heated cheeks and flurried air,<br /><span class="left">[p.54]</span> +And to himself he seems to say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">"What place is this, and who are they?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span><i class="indent4">Who is that kneeling Lady fair?<br /> +And on his pillows that pale Knight<br /> +Who seems of marble on a tomb?<br /> +How comes it here, this chamber bright,<br /> +Through whose mullion'd windows clear</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span><i class="indent4">The castle-court all wet with rain,<br /> +The drawbridge and the moat appear,<br /> +And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray,<br /> +The sunken reefs, and far away<br /> +The unquiet bright Atlantic plain?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>—<i class="indent4">What, has some glamour made me sleep,<br /> +And sent me with my dogs to sweep,<br /> +By night, with boisterous bugle-peal,<br /> +Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,<br /> +Not in the free green wood at all?</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span><i class="indent4">That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer<br /> +That Lady by the bed doth kneel—<br /> +Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!"</i><br /> +—The wild boar rustles in his lair;<br /> +The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air;<br /> +But lord and hounds keep rooted there.<br /><br /> + +Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,<br /> +O Hunter! and without a fear<br /> +Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow,<br /> +And through the glades thy pastime take—<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here!<br /> +For these thou seest are unmoved;<br /> +Cold, cold as those who lived and loved<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#193t2">193</a></span>A thousand years ago.°</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3>III</h3> +<span class="left">[p.55]</span> +<h3><a href="#IB">ISEULT OF BRITTANY</a><a name="BRITTANY">°</a></h3> +<p class="indent4"> +A year had flown, and o'er the sea away,<br /> +In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay;<br /> +In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old—<br /> +There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,<br /> +Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play<br /> +In a green circular hollow in the heath<br /> +Which borders the sea-shore—a country path<br /> +Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined,<br /> +And to one standing on them, far and near<br /> +The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13t3">13</a></span>Over the waste. This cirque° of open ground<br /> +Is light and green; the heather, which all round<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass<br /> +Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass<br /> +Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18t3">18</a></span>Dotted with holly-trees and juniper.°<br /> +In the smooth centre of the opening stood<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Three hollies side by side, and made a screen,<br /> +Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#22t3">22</a></span>With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's° food.<br /> +Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands,<br /> +Watching her children play; their little hands<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#26t3">26</a></span>Of stagshorn° for their hats; anon, with screams<br /><span class="left">[p.56]</span> +Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound<br /> +Among the holly-clumps and broken ground,<br /> +Racing full speed, and startling in their rush<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush<br /> +Out of their glossy coverts;—but when now<br /> +Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow,<br /> +Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair,<br /> +In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair—<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three<br /> +Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37t3">37</a></span>Told them an old-world Breton history.°<br /><br /> + +Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there,<br /> +Under the hollies, in the clear still air—<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering<br /> +Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring.<br /> +Long they stay'd still—then, pacing at their ease,<br /> +Moved up and down under the glossy trees.<br /> +But still, as they pursued their warm dry road,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd,<br /> +And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes<br /> +Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise;<br /> +Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side,<br /> +Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away<br /> +From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay,<br /> +Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams<br /> +Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams,<br /> +Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>The fell-fares settled on the thickets near.<br /> +And they would still have listen'd, till dark night<br /> +Came keen and chill down on the heather bright;<br /> +But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold,<br /><span class="left">[p.57]</span> +And the grey turrets of the castle old<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, <br /> +Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair,<br /> +And brought her tale to an end, and found the path,<br /> +And led them home over the darkening heath.<br /><br /> + +And is she happy? Does she see unmoved<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>The days in which she might have lived and loved<br /> +Slip without bringing bliss slowly away,<br /> +One after one, to-morrow like to-day?<br /> +Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will—<br /> +Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet,<br /> +So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet<br /> +Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone<br /> +Hath yet an infantine and silver tone,<br /> +But even that comes languidly; in truth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>She seems one dying in a mask of youth.<br /> +And now she will go home, and softly lay<br /> +Her laughing children in their beds, and play<br /> +Awhile with them before they sleep; and then<br /> +She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81t3">81</a></span>Along this iron coast,° know like a star,°<br /> +And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit<br /> +Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it;<br /> +Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Her children, or to listen to the wind.<br /> +And when the clock peals midnight, she will move<br /> +Her work away, and let her fingers rove<br /> +Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound<br /> +Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground;<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes<br /><span class="left">[p.58]</span> +Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#92t3">92</a></span>And at her prie-dieu° kneel, until she have told<br /> +Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold,<br /> +Then to her soft sleep—and to-morrow'll be<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>To-day's exact repeated effigy.<br /><br /> + +Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#97t3">97</a></span>The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal,°<br /> +Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound,<br /> +Are there the sole companions to be found.<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>But these she loves; and noiser life than this<br /> +She would find ill to bear, weak as she is.<br /> +She has her children, too, and night and day<br /> +Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play,<br /> +The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails,<br /> +These are to her dear as to them; the tales<br /> +With which this day the children she beguiled<br /> +She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child,<br /> +In every hut along this sea-coast wild.<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>She herself loves them still, and, when they are told,<br /> +Can forget all to hear them, as of old.<br /><br /> + +Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,<br /> +Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear<br /> +To all that has delighted them before,<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And lets us be what we were once no more.<br /> +No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain<br /> +Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,<br /> +By what of old pleased us, and will again.<br /> +No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd<br /> +Until they crumble, or else grow like steel—<br /><span class="left">[p.59]</span> +Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring—<br /> +Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,<br /> +But takes away the power—this can avail,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>By drying up our joy in everything,<br /> +To make our former pleasures all seem stale.<br /> +This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit<br /> +Of passion, which subdues our souls to it,<br /> +Till for its sake alone we live and move—<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Call it ambition, or remorse, or love—<br /> +This too can change us wholly, and make seem<br /> +All which we did before, shadow and dream.<br /><br /> + +And yet, I swear, it angers me to see<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134t3">134</a></span>How this fool passion gulls° men potently;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest,<br /> +And an unnatural overheat at best.<br /> +How they are full of languor and distress<br /> +Not having it; which when they do possess,<br /> +They straightway are burnt up with fume and care,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#140t3">140</a></span>And spend their lives in posting here and there°<br /> +Where this plague drives them; and have little ease,<br /> +Are furious with themselves, and hard to please.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#143t3">143</a></span>Like that bold Cæsar,° the famed Roman wight,<br /> +Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>Who made a name at younger years than he;<br /> +Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150t3">147</a></span>Prince Alexander,° Philip's peerless son,<br /> +Who carried the great war from Macedon<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150t3">149</a></span>Into the Soudan's° realm, and thundered on<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>To die at thirty-five in Babylon.<br /><br /> + +What tale did Iseult to the children say,<br /> +Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day?<br /><span class="left">[p.60]</span> +She told them of the fairy-haunted land<br /> +Away the other side of Brittany,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">156</a></span>Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,°<br /> +Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps<br /> +Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">159</a></span>For here he came with the fay° Vivian,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>One April, when the warm days first began.<br /> +He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend,<br /> +On her white palfrey; here he met his end,<br /> +In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">164</a></span>This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay°<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear<br /> +Before the children's fancy him and her.<br /><br /> + +Blowing between the stems, the forest-air<br /> +Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair,<br /> +Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise.<br /> +Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat,<br /> +For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet.<br /> +A brier in that tangled wilderness<br /> +Had scored her white right hand, which she allows<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress;<br /> +The other warded off the drooping boughs.<br /> +But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes<br /> +Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize.<br /> +Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace,<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>The spirit of the woods was in her face.<br /> +She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight<br /> +Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight;<br /> +And he grew fond, and eager to obey<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">184</a></span>His mistress, use her empire° as she may.<br /><span class="left">[p.61]</span> +<span class="right"> 185</span>They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day <br /> +Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away,<br /> +In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook;<br /> +And up as high as where they stood to look<br /> +On the brook's farther side was clear, but then<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>The underwood and trees began again.<br /> +This open glen was studded thick with thorns<br /> +Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns,<br /> +Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer<br /> +Who come at noon down to the water here.<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along<br /> +Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong<br /> +The blackbird whistled from the dingles near,<br /> +And the weird chipping of the woodpecker<br /> +Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair,<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere.<br /> +Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow,<br /> +To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough<br /> +Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild.<br /> +As if to itself the quiet forest smiled.<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here<br /> +The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear<br /> +Across the hollow; white anemones<br /> +Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses<br /> +Ran out from the dark underwood behind.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>No fairer resting-place a man could find.<br /> +"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she<br /> +Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.<br /><br /> + +They sate them down together, and a sleep<br /> +Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep.<br /> +<span class="right"> 215 </span>Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose<br /> +And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws,<br /><span class="left">[p.62]</span> +And takes it in her hand, and waves it over<br /> +The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">219</a></span>Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple° round,<br /> +<span class="right"> 220</span>And made a little plot of magic ground.<br /> +And in that daised circle, as men say,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224t3">222</a></span>Is Merlin prisoner° till the judgment-day;<br /> +But she herself whither she will can rove—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#224-2t3">224</a></span>For she was passing weary of his love.° +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> +<h1>LYRICAL POEMS</h1> + +<br /><br /><span class="left">[p.63]</span> +<h2><a href="#BROU">THE CHURCH OF BROU</a><a name="CHURCH">°</a></h2> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<h3>THE CASTLE</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1cb">1</a></span>Down the Savoy° valleys sounding,<br /> + Echoing round this castle old,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3cb">3</a></span>'Mid the distant mountain-chalets°<br /> + Hark! what bell for church is toll'd?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>In the bright October morning <br /> + Savoy's Duke had left his bride.<br /> +From the castle, past the drawbridge,<br /> + Flow'd the hunters' merry tide.<br /><br /> + +Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> Gay, her smiling lord to greet,<br /> +From her mullion'd chamber-casement<br /> + Smiles the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +From Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Here she came, a bride, in spring.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Now the autumn crisps the forest;<br /> + Hunters gather, bugles ring.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.64]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17cb">17</a></span>Hounds are pulling, prickers° swearing,<br /> + Horses fret, and boar-spears glance.<br /> +Off!—They sweep the marshy forests.<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span> Westward, on the side of France.<br /><br /> + +Hark! the game's on foot; they scatter!—<br /> + Down the forest-ridings lone,<br /> +Furious, single horsemen gallop——<br /> + Hark! a shout—a crash—a groan!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Pale and breathless, came the hunters;<br /> + On the turf dead lies the boar—<br /> +God! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him,<br /> + Senseless, weltering in his gore.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> +<p class="indent4"> +In the dull October evening,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> Down the leaf-strewn forest-road,<br /> +To the castle, past the drawbridge,<br /> + Came the hunters with their load.<br /><br /> + +In the hall, with sconces blazing,<br /> + Ladies waiting round her seat,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#35cb">35</a></span>Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais°<br /> + Sate the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +Hark! below the gates unbarring!<br /> + Tramp of men and quick commands!<br /> +"—'Tis my lord come back from hunting—"<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> And the Duchess claps her hands.<br /><br /> + +Slow and tired, came the hunters—<br /> + Stopp'd in darkness in the court.<br /> +"—Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters!<br /> + To the hall! What sport? What sport?"—<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.65]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Slow they enter'd with their master;<br /> + In the hall they laid him down.<br /> +On his coat were leaves and blood-stains,<br /> + On his brow an angry frown.<br /><br /> + +Dead her princely youthful husband<br /> + <span class="right"> 50</span> Lay before his youthful wife,<br /> +Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces—<br /> + And the sight froze all her life.</p> + + <hr class="short" /> +<p class="indent4"> +In Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Kings hold revel, gallants meet.<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Gay of old amid the gayest<br /> + Was the Duchess Marguerite.<br /><br /> + +In Vienna, by the Danube,<br /> + Feast and dance her youth beguiled.<br /> +Till that hour she never sorrow'd;<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> But from then she never smiled.<br /><br /> + +'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys<br /> + Far from town or haunt of man,<br /> +Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd,<br /> + Which the Duchess Maud began;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>Old, that Duchess stern began it,<br /> + In grey age, with palsied hands;<br /> +But she died while it was building,<br /> + And the Church unfinish'd stands—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#69cb">69</a></span>Stands as erst° the builders left it,<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> When she sank into her grave;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71cb">71</a></span>Mountain greensward paves the chancel,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#72cb">72</a></span> Harebells flower in the nave.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.66]</span> +"—In my castle all is sorrow,"<br /> + Said the Duchess Marguerite then;<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>"Guide me, some one, to the mountain!<br /> + We will build the Church again."—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#77cb">77</a></span>Sandall'd palmers,° faring homeward,<br /> + Austrian knights from Syria came.<br /> +"—Austrian wanderers bring, O warders!<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span> Homage to your Austrian dame."—<br /><br /> + +From the gate the warders answer'd:<br /> + "—Gone, O knights, is she you knew!<br /> +Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess;<br /> + Seek her at the Church of Brou!"—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 85</span>Austrian knights and march-worn palmers<br /> + Climb the winding mountain-way.—<br /> +Reach the valley, where the Fabric<br /> + Rises higher day by day.<br /><br /> + +Stones are sawing, hammers ringing;<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span> On the work the bright sun shines,<br /> +In the Savoy mountain-meadows,<br /> + By the stream, below the pines.<br /><br /> + +On her palfry white the Duchess<br /> + Sate and watch'd her working train—<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders,<br /> + German masons, smiths from Spain.<br /><br /> + +Clad in black, on her white palfrey,<br /> + Her old architect beside—<br /><span class="left">[p.67]</span> +There they found her in the mountains,<br /> + <span class="right"> 100</span> Morn and noon and eventide.<br /><br /> + +There she sate, and watch'd the builders,<br /> + Till the Church was roof'd and done.<br /> +Last of all, the builders rear'd her<br /> + In the nave a tomb of stone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 105</span>On the tomb two forms they sculptured,<br /> + Lifelike in the marble pale—<br /> +One, the Duke in helm and armour;<br /> + One, the Duchess in her veil.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#109cb">109</a></span>Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork°<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span> Was at Easter-tide put on.<br /> +Then the Duchess closed her labours;<br /> + And she died at the St. John.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3>THE CHURCH</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +Upon the glistening leaden roof<br /> +Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines;<br /> + The stream goes leaping by.<br /> +The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof;<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>'Mid bright green fields, below the pines,<br /> + Stands the Church on high.<br /> +What Church is this, from men aloof?—<br /> +'Tis the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +At sunrise, from their dewy lair<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Crossing the stream, the kine are seen <br /> + Round the wall to stray—<br /><span class="left">[p.68]</span> +The churchyard wall that clips the square<br /> +Of open hill-sward fresh and green<br /> + Where last year they lay.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>But all things now are order'd fair<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17cb2">17</a></span>On Sundays, at the matin-chime,°<br /> +The Alpine peasants, two and three,<br /> + Climb up here to pray;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Burghers and dames, at summer's prime,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21cb2">21</a></span>Ride out to church from Chambery,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#22cb2">22</a></span> Dight° with mantles gay.<br /> +But else it is a lonely time<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>On Sundays, too, a priest doth come <br /> +From the wall'd town beyond the pass,<br /> + Down the mountain-way;<br /> +And then you hear the organ's hum,<br /> +You hear the white-robed priest say mass,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> And the people pray.<br /> +But else the woods and fields are dumb<br /> +Round the Church of Brou.<br /><br /> + +And after church, when mass is done,<br /> +The people to the nave repair<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span> Round the tomb to stray;<br /> +And marvel at the Forms of stone,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37cb2">37</a></span>And praise the chisell'd broideries° rare—<br /> + Then they drop away.<br /> +The princely Pair are left alone<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>In the Church of Brou.</p> + +<span class="left">[p.69]</span> +<h3>III</h3> + +<h3>THE TOMB</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair!<br /> +In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air,<br /> +Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come.<br /> +Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>From the rich painted windows of the nave,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6cb3">6</a></span>On aisle, and transept,° and your marble grave;<br /> +Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise<br /> +From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies,<br /> +On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds <br /> +To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve;<br /> +And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive,<br /> +Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,<br /> +The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Coming benighted to the castle-gate.<br /><br /> + + So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair!<br /> +Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair<br /> +On the carved western front a flood of light<br /> +Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, <br /> +In the vast western window of the nave,<br /> +And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints<br /> +A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints,<br /> +And amethyst, and ruby—then unclose<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose,<br /> +And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads,<br /> +And rise upon your cold white marble beds;<br /><span class="left">[p.70]</span> +And, looking down on the warm rosy tints,<br /> +Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Say: <i class="indent4">What is this? we are in bliss—forgiven—</i><br /> +<i class="indent4">Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!</i><br /> +Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain<br /> +Doth rustlingly above your heads complain<br /> +On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Shedding her pensive light at intervals<br /> +The moon through the clere-story windows shines,<br /> +And the wind washes through the mountain-pines.<br /> +Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#39cb3">39</a></span>The foliaged marble forest° where ye lie,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span><i class="indent4">Hush</i>, ye will say, <i class="indent4">it is eternity!</i><br /> +<i class="indent4">This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these<br /> +The columns of the heavenly palaces!</i><br /> +And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear<br /> +The passage of the Angels' wings will hear,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45cb3">45</a></span>And on the lichen-crusted leads° above <br /> +The rustle of the eternal rain of love. +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#REQUIESCAT">REQUIESCAT</a><a name="REQ">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Strew on her roses, roses,<br /> + And never a spray of yew!<br /> +In quiet she reposes;<br /> + Ah, would that I did too!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Her mirth the world required;<br /> + She bathed it in smiles of glee.<br /> +But her heart was tired, tired,<br /> + And now they let her be.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.71]</span> +Her life was turning, turning,<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> In mazes of heat and sound.<br /> +But for peace her soul was yearning,<br /> + And now peace laps her round.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13r">13</a></span>Her cabin'd,° ample spirit,<br /> + It flutter'd and fail'd for breath<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>To-night it doth inherit <br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#16r">16</a></span> The vasty° hall of death. +</p><br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#CONSOLATION">CONSOLATION</a><a name="CON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Mist clogs the sunshine.<br /> +Smoky dwarf houses<br /> +Hem me round everywhere;<br /> +A vague dejection<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Weighs down my soul.<br /><br /> + +Yet, while I languish,<br /> +Everywhere countless<br /> +Prospects unroll themselves,<br /> +And countless beings<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Pass countless moods.<br /><br /> + +Far hence, in Asia,<br /> +On the smooth convent-roofs,<br /> +On the gilt terraces,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14c">14</a></span>Of holy Lassa,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Bright shines the sun.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.72]</span> +Grey time-worn marbles<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17c">17</a></span>Hold the pure Muses°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#18c">18</a></span>In their cool gallery,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#19c">19</a></span>By yellow Tiber,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>They still look fair.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21c">21</a></span>Strange unloved uproar°<br /> +Shrills round their portal;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23c">23</a></span>Yet not on Helicon°<br /> +Kept they more cloudless<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Their noble calm.<br /><br /> + +Through sun-proof alleys<br /> +In a lone, sand-hemm'd<br /> +City of Africa,<br /> +A blind, led beggar,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Age-bow'd, asks alms.<br /><br /> + +No bolder robber<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#32c">32</a></span>Erst° abode ambush'd<br /> +Deep in the sandy waste;<br /> +No clearer eyesight<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Spied prey afar.<br /><br /> + +Saharan sand-winds<br /> +Sear'd his keen eyeballs;<br /> +Spent is the spoil he won.<br /> +For him the present<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Holds only pain.<br /><br /> + +Two young, fair lovers,<br /> +Where the warm June-wind,<br /><span class="left">[p.73]</span> +Fresh from the summer fields<br /> +Plays fondly round them,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Stand, tranced in joy.<br /><br /> + +With sweet, join'd voices,<br /> +And with eyes brimming:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48c">48</a></span>"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,°<br /> +Prolong the present!<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Time, stand still here!"<br /><br /> + +The prompt stern Goddess<br /> +Shakes her head, frowning;<br /> +Time gives his hour-glass<br /> +Its due reversal;<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Their hour is gone.<br /><br /> + +With weak indulgence<br /> +Did the just Goddess<br /> +Lengthen their happiness,<br /> +She lengthen'd also<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Distress elsewhere.<br /><br /> + +The hour, whose happy<br /> +Unalloy'd moments<br /> +I would eternalise,<br /> +Ten thousand mourners<br /> +<span class="right"> 65 </span>Well pleased see end.<br /><br /> + +The bleak, stern hour,<br /> +Whose severe moments<br /> +I would annihilate,<br /> +Is pass'd by others<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>In warmth, light, joy.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.74]</span> +Time, so complain'd of,<br /> +Who to no one man<br /> +Shows partiality,<br /> +Brings round to all men<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Some undimm'd hours. +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<h2>A <a name="DREAM">DREAM</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd,<br /> +Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream,<br /> +Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun,<br /> +On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>On the red pinings of their forest-floor, <br /> +Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines<br /> +The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change<br /> +Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees<br /> +And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes,<br /> +And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came<br /> +Notes of wild pastoral music—over all<br /> +Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow.<br /> +Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood,<br /> +Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves<br /> +Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof<br /> +Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,<br /> +Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>We shot beneath the cottage with the stream.<br /> +On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms<br /> +Came forth—Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine.<br /><span class="left">[p.75]</span> +Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;<br /> +Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue,<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd.<br /> +They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved,<br /> +And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes.<br /> +Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly,<br /> +Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed.<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat<br /> +Hung poised—and then the darting river of Life<br /> +(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life,<br /> +Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd,<br /> +Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone.<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines<br /> +Faded—the moss—the rocks; us burning plains,<br /> +Bristled with cities, us the sea received.</p> + + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#LINES">LINES</a><a name="KENSINGTON">°</a></h2> + + +<h2>WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS</h2> +<p class="indent4"> +In this lone, open glade I lie,<br /> +Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;<br /> +And at its end, to stay the eye,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4l">4</a></span>Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees° stand!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Birds here make song, each bird has his,<br /> +Across the girdling city's hum.<br /> +How green under the boughs it is!<br /> +How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.76]</span> +Sometimes a child will cross the glade<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>To take his nurse his broken toy; <br /> +Sometimes a thrush flit overhead<br /> +Deep in her unknown day's employ.<br /><br /> + +Here at my feet what wonders pass,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14l">14</a></span>What endless, active life is here°!<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!<br /> +An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.<br /><br /> + +Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod<br /> +Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,<br /> +And, eased of basket and of rod,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21l">21</a></span>In the huge world,° which roars hard by,<br /> +Be others happy if they can!<br /> +But in my helpless cradle I<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#24l">24</a></span>Was breathed on by the rural Pan.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,<br /> +Think often, as I hear them rave,<br /> +That peace has left the upper world<br /> +And now keeps only in the grave.<br /><br /> + +Yet here is peace for ever new!<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>When I who watch them am away,<br /> +Still all things in this glade go through<br /> +The changes of their quiet day.<br /><br /> + +Then to their happy rest they pass!<br /> +The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>The night comes down upon the grass,<br /> +The child sleeps warmly in his bed.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.77]</span> +Calm soul of all things! make it mine<br /> +To feel, amid the city's jar,<br /> +That there abides a peace of thine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Man did not make, and cannot mar.<br /><br /> + +The will to neither strive nor cry,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42l">42</a></span>The power to feel with others give°!<br /> +Calm, calm me more! nor let me die<br /> +Before I have begun to live.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#STRAYED">THE STRAYED REVELLER</a><a name="REVELLER">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<i>The Portico of Circe's Palace. Evening.</i><br /><br /> + +A YOUTH. <a href="#CIRCE">CIRCE</a>.°<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Faster, faster,<br /> +O Circe, Goddess,<br /> +Let the wild, thronging train,<br /> +The bright procession<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Of eddying forms,<br /> +Sweep through my soul!<br /><br /> + +Thou standest, smiling<br /> +Down on me! thy right arm,<br /> +Lean'd up against the column there,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Props thy soft cheek;<br /> +Thy left holds, hanging loosely,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12sr">12</a></span>The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,°<br /> +I held but now.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.78]</span> +Is it, then, evening<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>So soon? I see, the night-dews,<br /> +Cluster'd in thick beads, dim<br /> +The agate brooch-stones<br /> +On thy white shoulder;<br /> +The cool night-wind, too,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Blows through the portico,<br /> +Stirs thy hair, Goddess,<br /> +Waves thy white robe!<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Whence art thou, sleeper?<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. When the white dawn first<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Through the rough fir-planks<br /> +Of my hut, by the chestnuts,<br /> +Up at the valley-head,<br /> +Came breaking, Goddess!<br /> +I sprang up, I threw round me<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>My dappled fawn-skin;<br /> +Passing out, from the wet turf,<br /> +Where they lay, by the hut door,<br /> +I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff,<br /> +All drench'd in dew—<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Came swift down to join<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#36sr">36</a></span>The rout° early gather'd<br /> +In the town, round the temple,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38sr">38</a></span>Iacchus'° white fane°<br /> +On yonder hill.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 40</span>Quick I pass'd, following<br /> +The wood-cutters' cart-track<br /> +Down the dark valley;—I saw<br /> +On my left, through, the beeches,<br /><span class="left">[p.79]</span> +Thy palace, Goddess,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Smokeless, empty!<br /> +Trembling, I enter'd; beheld<br /> +The court all silent,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48sr">48</a></span>The lions sleeping,°<br /> +On the altar this bowl.<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>I drank, Goddess!<br /> +And sank down here, sleeping,<br /> +On the steps of thy portico.<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?<br /> +Thou lovest it, then, my wine?<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Wouldst more of it? See, how glows,<br /> +Through the delicate, flush'd marble,<br /> +The red, creaming liquor,<br /> +Strown with dark seeds!<br /> +Drink, then! I chide thee not,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Deny thee not my bowl.<br /> +Come, stretch forth thy hand, then—so!<br /> +Drink—drink again!<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Thanks, gracious one!<br /> +Ah, the sweet fumes again!<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>More soft, ah me,<br /> +More subtle-winding<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#67sr">67</a></span>Than Pan's flute-music!°<br /> +Faint—faint! Ah me,<br /> +Again the sweet sleep!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 70</span> <i>Circe</i>. Hist! Thou—within there! <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71sr">71</a></span>Come forth, Ulysses°!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#72sr">72</a></span>Art° tired with hunting?<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#73sr">73</a></span>While we range° the woodland,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#74sr">74</a></span>See what the day brings.°<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.80]</span> + <span class="right"> 75</span> <i>Ulysses</i>. Ever new magic!<br /> +Hast thou then lured hither,<br /> +Wonderful Goddess, by thy art,<br /> +The young, languid-eyed Ampelus,<br /> +Iacchus' darling—<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Or some youth beloved of Pan,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#81sr">81</a></span>Of Pan and the Nymphs°?<br /> +That he sits, bending downward<br /> +His white, delicate neck<br /> +To the ivy-wreathed marge<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves<br /> +That crown his hair,<br /> +Falling forward, mingling<br /> +With the dark ivy-plants—<br /> +His fawn-skin, half untied,<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he,<br /> +That he sits, overweigh'd<br /> +By fumes of wine and sleep,<br /> +So late, in thy portico?<br /> +What youth, Goddess,—what guest<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Of Gods or mortals?<br /><br /> + + <i>Circe</i>. Hist! he wakes!<br /> +I lured him not hither, Ulysses.<br /> +Nay, ask him!<br /><br /> + + <i>The Youth</i>. Who speaks? Ah, who comes forth<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>To thy side, Goddess, from within?<br /> +How shall I name him?<br /> +This spare, dark-featured,<br /> +Quick-eyed stranger?<br /> +Ah, and I see too<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>His sailor's bonnet,<br /><span class="left">[p.81]</span> +His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#107sr">107</a></span>With one arm bare°!—<br /> +Art thou not he, whom fame<br /> +This long time rumours<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#110sr">110</a></span>The favour'd guest of Circe,° brought by the waves?<br /> +Art thou he, stranger?<br /> +The wise Ulysses,<br /> +Laertes' son?<br /><br /> + +<i>Ulysses</i>. I am Ulysses.<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>And thou, too, sleeper?<br /> +Thy voice is sweet.<br /> +It may be thou hast follow'd<br /> +Through the islands some divine bard,<br /> +By age taught many things,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#120sr">120</a></span>Age and the Muses°; <br /> +And heard him delighting<br /> +The chiefs and people<br /> +In the banquet, and learn'd his songs,<br /> +Of Gods and Heroes,<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Of war and arts,<br /> +And peopled cities,<br /> +Inland, or built<br /> +By the grey sea.—If so, then hail!<br /> +I honour and welcome thee.<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 130</span><i>The Youth</i>. The Gods are happy.<br /> +They turn on all sides<br /> +Their shining eyes,<br /> +And see below them<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#134sr">134</a></span>The earth and men.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">135</a></span>They see Tiresias°<br /> +Sitting, staff in hand,<br /><span class="left">[p.82]</span> +On the warm, grassy<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">138</a></span>Asopus° bank,<br /> +His robe drawn over<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>His old, sightless head,<br /> +Revolving inly<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135sr">142</a></span>The doom of Thebes.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#143sr">143</a></span>They see the Centaurs°<br /> +In the upper glens<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#145sr">145</a></span>Of Pelion,° in the streams,<br /> +Where red-berried ashes fringe<br /> +The clear-brown shallow pools,<br /> +With streaming flanks, and heads<br /> +Rear'd proudly, snuffing<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>The mountain wind.<br /><br /> + +They see the Indian<br /> +Drifting, knife in hand,<br /> +His frail boat moor'd to<br /> +A floating isle thick-matted<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants,<br /> +And the dark cucumber.<br /> +He reaps, and stows them,<br /> +Drifting—drifting;—round him,<br /> +Round his green harvest-plot,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Flow the cool lake-waves,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#161sr">161</a></span>The mountains ring them.°<br /><br /> + +They see the Scythian<br /> +On the wide stepp, unharnessing<br /> +His wheel'd house at noon.<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal— <br /> +Mares' milk, and bread<br /><span class="left">[p.83]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#167sr">167</a></span>Baked on the embers°;—all around<br /> +The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd<br /> +With saffron and the yellow hollyhock<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>And flag-leaved iris-flowers.<br /> +Sitting in his cart,<br /> +He makes his meal; before him, for long miles,<br /> +Alive with bright green lizards,<br /> +And the springing bustard-fowl,<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>The track, a straight black line,<br /> +Furrows the rich soil; here and there<br /> +Clusters of lonely mounds<br /> +Topp'd with rough-hewn,<br /> +Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#180sr">180</a></span>The sunny waste.°<br /><br /> + +They see the ferry<br /> +On the broad, clay-laden.<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#183sr">183</a></span>Lone Chorasmian stream°;—thereon<br /> +With snort and strain,<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>Two horses, strongly swimming, tow<br /> +The ferry-boat, with woven ropes<br /> +To either bow<br /> +Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief,<br /> +With shout and shaken spear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern<br /> +The cowering merchants, in long robes,<br /> +Sit pale beside their wealth<br /> +Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,<br /> +Of gold and ivory,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,<br /> +Jasper and chalcedony,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#197sr">197</a></span>And milk-barr'd onyx-stones.°<br /><span class="left">[p.84]</span> +The loaded boat swings groaning<br /> +In the yellow eddies;<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>The Gods behold them.<br /> +They see the Heroes<br /> +Sitting in the dark ship<br /> +On the foamless, long-heaving<br /> +Violet sea,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>At sunset nearing<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#206sr">206</a></span>The Happy Islands.°<br /><br /> + + These things, Ulysses,<br /> +The wise bards also<br /> +Behold and sing.<br /> +<span class="right"> 210</span>But oh, what labour!<br /> +O prince, what pain!<br /><br /> + +They too can see<br /> +Tiresias;—but the Gods,<br /> +Who give them vision,<br /> +<span class="right"> 215</span>Added this law:<br /> +That they should bear too<br /> +His groping blindness,<br /> +His dark foreboding,<br /> +His scorn'd white hairs;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#220sr">220</a></span>Bear Hera's anger°<br /> +Through a life lengthen'd<br /> +To seven ages.<br /><br /> + +They see the Centaurs<br /> +On Pelion;—then they feel,<br /> +<span class="right"> 225</span>They too, the maddening wine<br /> +Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain<br /> +They feel the biting spears<br /><span class="left">[p.85]</span> +<span class="right">°<a href="#228sr">228</a></span>Of the grim Lapithæ,° and Theseus,° drive,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#228sr">229</a></span>Drive crashing through their bones°; they feel<br /> +<span class="right"> 230</span>High on a jutting rock in the red stream<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#231sr">231</a></span>Alcmena's dreadful son°<br /> +Ply his bow;—such a price<br /> +The Gods exact for song:<br /> +To become what we sing.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 235</span>They see the Indian<br /> +On his mountain lake; but squalls<br /> +Make their skiff reel, and worms<br /> +In the unkind spring have gnawn<br /> +Their melon-harvest to the heart.—They see<br /> +<span class="right"> 240</span>The Scythian; but long frosts<br /> +Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp,<br /> +Till they too fade like grass; they crawl<br /> +Like shadows forth in spring.<br /><br /> + +They see the merchants<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#245sr">245</a></span>On the Oxus stream°;—but care<br /> +Must visit first them too, and make them pale.<br /> +Whether, through whirling sand,<br /> +A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst<br /> +Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,<br /> +<span class="right"> 250</span>In the wall'd cities the way passes through,<br /> +Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,<br /> +On some great river's marge,<br /> +Mown them down, far from home.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#254sr">254</a></span>They see the Heroes°<br /> +<span class="right"> 255</span>Near harbour;—but they share<br /> +Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257sr">257</a></span>Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy°;<br /><span class="left">[p.86]</span> +Or where the echoing oars<br /> +Of Argo first<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#257sr">260</a></span>Startled the unknown sea.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#261sr">261</a></span>The old Silenus°<br /> +Came, lolling in the sunshine,<br /> +From the dewy forest-coverts,<br /> +This way, at noon.<br /> +<span class="right"> 265</span>Sitting by me, while his Fauns<br /> +Down at the water-side<br /> +Sprinkled and smoothed<br /> +His drooping garland,<br /> +He told me these things.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 270</span>But I, Ulysses,<br /> +Sitting on the warm steps,<br /> +Looking over the valley,<br /> +All day long, have seen,<br /> +Without pain, without labour,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#275sr">275</a></span>Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad°—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#276sr">276</a></span>Sometimes a Faun with torches°—<br /> +And sometimes, for a moment,<br /> +Passing through the dark stems<br /> +Flowing-robed, the beloved,<br /> +<span class="right"> 280</span>The desired, the divine,<br /> +Beloved Iacchus.<br /><br /> + +Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!<br /> +Ah, glimmering water,<br /> +Fitful earth-murmur,<br /> +<span class="right"> 285</span>Dreaming woods!<br /> +Ah, golden-hair'd, strangely smiling Goddess,<br /> +And thou, proved, much enduring,<br /><span class="left">[p.87]</span> +Wave-toss'd Wanderer!<br /> +Who can stand still?<br /> +<span class="right"> 290</span>Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me—<br /> +The cup again!<br /><br /> + +Faster, faster,<br /> +O Circe, Goddess,<br /> +Let the wild, thronging train,<br /> +<span class="right"> 295</span>The bright procession<br /> +Of eddying forms,<br /> +Sweep through my soul!</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a name="MOR">MORALITY</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +We cannot kindle when we will<br /> +The fire which in the heart resides,<br /> +The spirit bloweth and is still,<br /> +In mystery our soul abides.<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span> But tasks in hours of insight will'd<br /> + Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.<br /><br /> + +With aching hands and bleeding feet<br /> +We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;<br /> +We bear the burden and the heat<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.<br /> + Not till the hours of light return,<br /> + All we have built do we discern.<br /><br /> + +Then, when the clouds are off the soul,<br /> +When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,<br /><span class="left">[p.88]</span> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Ask, how <i class="indent4">she</i> view'd thy self-control,<br /> +Thy struggling, task'd morality—<br /> + Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air.<br /> + Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.<br /><br /> + +And she, whose censure thou dost dread,<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,<br /> +See, on her face a glow is spread,<br /> +A strong emotion on her cheek!<br /> + "Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine,<br /> + Whence was it, for it is not mine?<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> 25</span>"There is no effort on <i class="indent4">my</i> brow—<br /> +I do not strive, I do not weep;<br /> +I rush with the swift spheres and glow<br /> +In joy, and when I will, I sleep.<br /> + Yet that severe, that earnest air,<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> I saw, I felt it once—but where?<br /><br /> + +"I knew not yet the gauge of time,<br /> +Nor wore the manacles of space;<br /> +I felt it in some other clime,<br /> +I saw it in some other place.<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span> 'Twas when the heavenly house I trod,<br /> + And lay upon the breast of God."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#DOVER">DOVER BEACH</a><a name="BEACH">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +The sea is calm to-night.<br /> +The tide is full, the moon lies fair<br /><span class="left">[p.89]</span> +Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light<br /> +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.<br /> +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!<br /> +Only, from the long line of spray<br /> +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,<br /> +Listen! you hear the grating roar<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,<br /> +At their return, up the high strand,<br /> +Begin, and cease, and then again begin,<br /> +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring<br /> +The eternal note of sadness in.<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> °<a href="#15db">15</a></span>Sophocles° long ago<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#16db">16</a></span>Heard it on the Ægæan,° and it brought<br /> +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow<br /> +Of human misery; we<br /> +Find also in the sound a thought,<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>Hearing it by this distant northern sea.<br /><br /> + +The Sea of Faith<br /> +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore<br /> +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.<br /> +But now I only hear<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,<br /> +Retreating, to the breath<br /> +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear<br /> +And naked shingles of the world.<br /> +Ah, love, let us be true<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span>To one another! for the world, which seems<br /> +To lie before us like a land of dreams,<br /> +So various, so beautiful, so new,<br /> +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,<br /><span class="left">[p.90]</span> +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span>And we are here as on a darkling plain<br /> +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,<br /> +Where ignorant armies clash by night.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#PHILOMELA">PHILOMELA</a><a name="PHI">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Hark! ah, the nightingale—<br /> +The tawny-throated!<br /> +Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#4ph">4</a></span>What triumph! hark!—what pain°!<br /><br /> + + <span class="right"> °<a href="#5ph">5</a></span>O wanderer from a Grecian shore,°<br /> +Still, after many years, in distant lands,<br /> +Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#8ph">8</a></span>That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain°—<br /> +Say, will it never heal?<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>And can this fragrant lawn<br /> +With its cool trees, and night,<br /> +And the sweet, tranquil Thames,<br /> +And moonshine, and the dew,<br /> +To thy rack'd heart and brain<br /> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Afford no balm?<br /><br /> + +Dost thou to-night behold,<br /> +Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#18ph">18</a></span>The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild°?<br /> +Dost thou again peruse<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#21ph">21</a></span>The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame°?<br /> +Dost thou once more assay<br /><span class="left">[p.91]</span> +Thy flight, and feel come over thee,<br /> +Poor fugitive, the feathery change<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Once more, and once more seem to make resound<br /> +With love and hate, triumph and agony,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#27ph">27</a></span>Lone Daulis,° and the high Cephissian vale°?<br /> +Listen, Eugenia—<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#29ph">29</a></span>How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves°!<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span>Again—thou hearest? <br /> +Eternal passion!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#32ph">32</a></span>Eternal pain°! +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#HUMAN">HUMAN LIFE</a><a name="HUMANLIFE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +What mortal, when he saw,<br /> +Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,<br /> +Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4hl">4</a></span>"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law°; <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5hl">5</a></span>The inly-written chart° thou gavest me,<br /> +To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"?<br /><br /> + +Ah! let us make no claim,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#8hl">8</a></span>On life's incognisable° sea,<br /> +To too exact a steering of our way;<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,<br /> +If some fair coast have lured us to make stay,<br /> +Or some friend hail'd us to keep company.<br /><br /> + +Ay! we would each fain drive<br /> +At random, and not steer by rule.<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain<br /> +Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,<br /> +We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;<br /> +Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.92]</span> +No! as the foaming swath<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Of torn-up water, on the main,<br /> +Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar<br /> +On either side the black deep-furrow'd path<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#23hl">23</a></span>Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,° <br /> +And never touches the ship-side again;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Even so we leave behind,<br /> +As, charter'd by some unknown Powers<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#27hl">27</a></span>We stem° across the sea of life by night,<br /> +The joys which were not for our use design'd;—<br /> +The friends to whom we had no natural right,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>The homes that were not destined to be ours.<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#ISOLATION">ISOLATION</a><a name="ISOL">°</a></h2> + +<h2>TO MARGUERITE</h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1i">1</a></span>Yes°! in the sea of life enisled,<br /> +With echoing straits between us thrown,<br /> +Dotting the shoreless watery wild,<br /> +We mortal millions live <i class="indent4">alone</i>.<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>The islands feel the enclasping flow,<br /> +And then their endless bounds they know.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7i">7</a></span>But when the moon° their hollows lights,<br /> +And they are swept by balms of spring,<br /> +And in their glens, on starry nights,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>The nightingales divinely sing;<br /> +And lovely notes, from shore to shore,<br /> +Across the sounds and channels pour—<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.93]</span> +Oh! then a longing like despair<br /> +Is to their farthest caverns sent;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>For surely once, they feel, we were<br /> +Parts of a single continent!<br /> +Now round us spreads the watery plain—<br /> +Oh might our marges meet again!<br /><br /> + +Who order'd, that their longing's fire<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?<br /> +Who renders vain their deep desire?—<br /> +A God, a God their severance ruled!<br /> +And bade betwixt their shores to be<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#24i">24</a></span>The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.°<br /><br /> +</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#KAISER">KAISER DEAD</a><a name="DEAD">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">April</i> 6, 1887</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2k">2</a></span>Post-haste to Cobham° calls the Muse,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3k">3</a></span>From where in Farringford° she brews <br /> + The ode sublime,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5k">5</a></span>Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard° pursues<br /> + A rival rhyme.<br /> + +Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet,<br /> +Were known to all the village-street.<br /> +"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet;<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span> "A loss indeed!" <br /> +O for the croon pathetic, sweet,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#12k">12</a></span> Of Robin's reed°!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.94]</span> +Six years ago I brought him down,<br /> +A baby dog, from London town;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Round his small throat of black and brown<br /> + A ribbon blue,<br /> +And vouch'd by glorious renown<br /> + A dachshound true.<br /><br /> + +His mother, most majestic dame,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#20k">20</a></span>Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam° came;<br /> +And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same—<br /> + No lineage higher.<br /> +And so he bore the imperial name.<br /> + But ah, his sire!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Soon, soon the days conviction bring.<br /> +The collie hair, the collie swing,<br /> +The tail's indomitable ring,<br /> + The eye's unrest—<br /> +The case was clear; a mongrel thing<br /> + <span class="right"> 30</span> Kai stood confest.<br /><br /> + +But all those virtues, which commend<br /> +The humbler sort who serve and tend,<br /> +Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.<br /> + What sense, what cheer!<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>To us, declining tow'rds our end,<br /> + A mate how dear!<br /><br /> + +For Max, thy brother-dog, began<br /> +To flag, and feel his narrowing span.<br /> +And cold, besides, his blue blood ran,<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span> Since, 'gainst the classes,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#41k">41</a></span>He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man°<br /> + Incite the masses.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.95]</span> +Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad;<br /> +But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Teeming with plans, alert, and glad<br /> + In work or play,<br /> +Like sunshine went and came, and bade<br /> + Live out the day!<br /><br /> + +Still, still I see the figure smart—<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50k">50</a></span>Trophy in mouth, agog° to start,<br /> +Then, home return'd, once more depart;<br /> + Or prest together<br /> +Against thy mistress, loving heart,<br /> + In winter weather.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 55</span>I see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd,<br /> +In moments of disgrace uncurl'd,<br /> +Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd,<br /> + A conquering sign;<br /> +Crying, "Come on, and range the world,<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span> And never pine."<br /><br /> + +Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;<br /> +Thou hast thine errands, off and on;<br /> +In joy thy last morn flew; anon,<br /> + A fit! All's over;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#65k">65</a></span>And thou art gone where Geist° hath gone,<br /> + And Toss, and Rover.<br /><br /> + +Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head,<br /> +Regards his brother's form outspread;<br /> +Full well Max knows the friend is dead<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span> Whose cordial talk,<br /> +And jokes in doggish language said,<br /> + Beguiled his walk.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.96]</span> +And Glory, stretch'd at Burwood gate,<br /> +Thy passing by doth vainly wait;<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And jealous Jock, thy only hate,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#76k">76</a></span> The chiel° from Skye,°<br /> +Lets from his shaggy Highland pate<br /> + Thy memory die.<br /><br /> + +Well, fetch his graven collar fine,<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>And rub the steel, and make it shine,<br /> +And leave it round thy neck to twine,<br /> + Kai, in thy grave.<br /> +There of thy master keep that sign,<br /> + And this plain stave.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#LAST">THE LAST WORD</a><a name="WORD">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Creep into thy narrow bed,<br /> +Creep, and let no more be said!<br /> +Vain thy onset! all stands fast.<br /> +Thou thyself must break at last.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Let the long contention cease!<br /> +Geese are swans, and swans are geese.<br /> +Let them have it how they will!<br /> +Thou art tired; best be still.<br /><br /> + +They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee?<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Better men fared thus before thee;<br /> +Fired their ringing shot and pass'd,<br /> +Hotly charged—and sank at last.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.97]</span> +Charge once more, then, and be dumb!<br /> +Let the victors, when they come,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>When the forts of folly fall,<br /> +Find thy body by the wall!</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#PALLADIUM">PALLADIUM</a><a name="PAL">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1p">1</a></span>Set where the upper streams of Simois° flow<br /> +Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3p">3</a></span>And Hector° was in Ilium° far below,<br /> +And fought, and saw it not—but there it stood!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light<br /> +On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.<br /> +Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight<br /> +Round Troy—but while this stood, Troy could not fall.<br /><br /> + +So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;<br /> +Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;<br /> +We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!<br /><br /> + +We shall renew the battle in the plain<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#14p">14</a></span>To-morrow;—red with blood will Xanthus° be;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15p">15</a></span>Hector and Ajax° will be there again,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16p">16</a></span>Helen° will come upon the wall to see.<br /><br /> + +Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,<br /> +And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,<br /> +And fancy that we put forth all our life,<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>And never know how with the soul it fares.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.98]</span> +Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,<br /> +Upon our life a ruling effluence send.<br /> +And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;<br /> +And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a name="REVOLUTIONS">REVOLUTIONS</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Before man parted for this earthly strand,<br /> +While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood,<br /> +God put a heap of letters in his hand,<br /> +And bade him make with them what word he could.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece,<br /> +Rome, England, France;—yes, nor in vain essay'd<br /> +Way after way, changes that never cease!<br /> +The letters have combined, something was made.<br /><br /> + +But ah! an inextinguishable sense<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Haunts him that he has not made what he should;<br /> +That he has still, though old, to recommence,<br /> +Since he has not yet found the word God would.<br /><br /> + +And empire after empire, at their height<br /> +Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on;<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Have felt their huge frames not constructed right,<br /> +And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne.<br /><br /> + +One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear<br /> +The word, the order, which God meant should be.<br /> +Ah! we shall know <i class="indent4">that</i> well when it comes near;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>The band will quit man's heart, he will breathe free.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<span class="left">[p.99]</span> +<h2><a href="#SELF">SELF-DEPENDENCE</a><a name="DEPENDENCE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Weary of myself, and sick of asking<br /> +What I am, and what I ought to be,<br /> +At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me<br /> +Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>And a look of passionate desire<br /> +O'er the sea and to the stars I send:<br /> +"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,<br /> +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!<br /><br /> + +"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>On my heart your mighty charm renew;<br /> +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,<br /> +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"<br /><br /> + +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,<br /> +Over the lit sea's unquiet way,<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>In the rustling night-air came the answer:<br /> +"Wouldst thou <i class="indent4">be</i> as these are? <i class="indent4">Live</i> as they.<br /><br /> + +"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,<br /> +Undistracted by the sights they see,<br /> +These demand not that the things without them<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.<br /><br /> + +"And with joy the stars perform their shining,<br /> +And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;<br /> +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting<br /> +All the fever of some differing soul.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.100]</span> +<span class="right"> 25</span>"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful<br /> +In what state God's other works may be,<br /> +In their own tasks all their powers pouring,<br /> +These attain the mighty life you see."<br /><br /> + +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:<br /> +"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,<br /> +Who finds himself, loses his misery!"<br /><br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2>A SUMMER <a name="NIGHT">NIGHT</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +In the deserted, moon-blanch'd street,<br /> +How lonely rings the echo of my feet!<br /> +Those windows, which I gaze at, frown,<br /> +Silent and white, unopening down,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Repellent as the world;—but see,<br /> +A break between the housetops shows<br /> +The moon! and, lost behind her, fading dim<br /> +Into the dewy dark obscurity<br /> +Down at the far horizon's rim,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose!<br /><br /> + +And to my mind the thought<br /> +Is on a sudden brought<br /> +Of a past night, and a far different scene.<br /> +Headlands stood out into the moonlit deep<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>As clearly as at noon;<br /> +The spring-tide's brimming flow<br /> +Heaved dazzlingly between;<br /> +Houses, with long white sweep,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.101]</span> +Girdled the glistening bay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Behind, through the soft air,<br /> +The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away,<br /> +The night was far more fair—<br /> +But the same restless pacings to and fro,<br /> +And the same vainly throbbing heart was there,<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>And the same bright, calm moon.<br /><br /> + +And the calm moonlight seems to say:<br /> +<i class="indent4">Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,<br /> +Which neither deadens into rest,<br /> +Nor ever feels the fiery glow</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span><i class="indent4">That whirls the spirit from itself away,<br /> +But fluctuates to and fro,<br /> +Never by passion quite possess'd<br /> +And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?—</i><br /> +And I, I know not if to pray<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Still to be what I am, or yield and be<br /> +Like all the other men I see.<br /><br /> + +For most men in a brazen prison live,<br /> +Where, in the sun's hot eye,<br /> +With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give,<br /> +Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.<br /> +And as, year after year,<br /> +Fresh products of their barren labour fall<br /> +From their tired hands, and rest<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Never yet comes more near,<br /> +Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;<br /> +A while they try to stem<br /> +The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,<br /><span class="left">[p.102]</span> +And the rest, a few,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Escape their prison and <br /> +On the wide ocean of life anew.<br /> +There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart<br /> +Listeth, will sail;<br /> +Nor doth he know how these prevail,<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>Despotic on that sea,<br /> +Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.<br /> +Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd<br /> +By thwarting signs, and braves<br /> +The freshening wind and blackening waves<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>And then the tempest strikes him; and between<br /> +The lightning-bursts is seen<br /> +Only a driving wreck.<br /> +And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck<br /> +With anguished face and flying hair,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Grasping the rudder hard,<br /> +Still bent to make some port he knows not where,<br /> +Still standing for some false, impossible shore.<br /> +And sterner comes the roar<br /> +Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom<br /> +And he, too, disappears and comes no more.<br /><br /> + +Is there no life, but there alone?<br /> +Madman or slave, must man be one?<br /> +Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Clearness divine.<br /> +Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign<br /> +Of languor, though so calm, and though so great<br /> +Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;<br /> +Who though so noble, share in the world's toil.<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.103]</span> +I will not say that your mild deeps retain<br /> +A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain<br /> +Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain—<br /> +But I will rather say that you remain<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>A world above man's head, to let him see<br /> +How boundless might his soul's horizon be,<br /> +How vast, yet of which clear transparency!<br /> +How it were good to live there, and breathe free!<br /> +How fair a lot to fill<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Is left to each man still!<br /> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#GEIST">GEIST'S GRAVE</a><a name="GRAVE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Four years!—and didst thou stay above<br /> +The ground, which hides thee now, but four?<br /> +And all that life, and all that love,<br /> +Were crowded, Geist! into no more?<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Only four years those winning ways,<br /> +Which make me for thy presence yearn,<br /> +Call'd us to pet thee or to praise,<br /> +Dear little friend! at every turn?<br /><br /> + +That loving heart, that patient soul,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Had they indeed no longer span,<br /> +To run their course, and reach their goal,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12gg">12</a></span>And read their homily° to man?<br /><br /> + +That liquid, melancholy eye,<br /> +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs<br /><span class="left">[p.104]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15gg">15</a></span>Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,°<br /> +The sense of tears in mortal things—<br /><br /> + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled<br /> +By spirits gloriously gay,<br /> +And temper of heroic mould—<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>What, was four years their whole short day?<br /><br /> + +Yes, only four!—and not the course<br /> +Of all the centuries yet to come,<br /> +And not the infinite resource<br /> +Of Nature, with her countless sum<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 25</span>Of figures, with her fulness vast<br /> +Of new creation evermore,<br /> +Can ever quite repeat the past,<br /> +Or just thy little self restore.<br /><br /> + +Stern law of every mortal lot!<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,<br /> +And builds himself I know not what<br /> +Of second life I know not where.<br /><br /> + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go,<br /> +On us, who stood despondent by,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>A meek last glance of love didst throw,<br /> +And humbly lay thee down to die.<br /><br /> + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart—<br /> +Would fix our favourite on the scene,<br /> +Nor let thee utterly depart<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>And be as if thou ne'er hadst been.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.105]</span> +And so there rise these lines of verse<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42gg">42</a></span>On lips that rarely form them now°;<br /> +While to each other we rehearse:<br /> +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 45</span>We stroke thy broad brown paws again,<br /> +We bid thee to thy vacant chair,<br /> +We greet thee by the window-pane,<br /> +We hear thy scuffle on the stair.<br /><br /> + +We see the flaps of thy large ears<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Quick raised to ask which way we go;<br /> +Crossing the frozen lake, appears<br /> +Thy small black figure on the snow!<br /><br /> + +Nor to us only art thou dear<br /> +Who mourn thee in thine English home;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#55gg">55</a></span>Thou hast thine absent master's° tear,<br /> +Dropt by the far Australian foam.<br /><br /> + +Thy memory lasts both here and there,<br /> +And thou shalt live as long as we.<br /> +And after that—thou dost not care!<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>In us was all the world to thee.<br /><br /> + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,<br /> +Even to a date beyond our own<br /> +We strive to carry down thy name,<br /> +By mounded turf, and graven stone.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 65</span>We lay thee, close within our reach,<br /> +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,<br /> +Between the holly and the beech,<br /> +Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.106]</span> +Asleep, yet lending half an ear<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>To travellers on the Portsmouth road;—<br /> +There build we thee, O guardian dear,<br /> +Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode!<br /><br /> + +Then some, who through this garden pass,<br /> +When we too, like thyself, are clay,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Shall see thy grave upon the grass,<br /> +And stop before the stone, and say:<br /><br /> + +<i class="indent4">People who lived here long ago<br /> +Did by this stone, it seems, intend<br /> +To name for future times to know</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span><i class="indent4">The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.</i></p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#EPILOGUE">EPILOGUE</a></h2> + +<h2><a href="#EPILOGUE">TO LESSING'S LAOCOON</a><a name="LAOCOON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1el">1</a></span>One morn as through Hyde Park° we walk'd,<br /> +My friend and I, by chance we talk'd<br /> +Of Lessing's famed LAOCOON;<br /> +And after we awhile had gone<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>In Lessing's track, and tried to see<br /> +What painting is, what poetry—<br /> +Diverging to another thought,<br /> +"Ah," cries my friend, "but who hath taught<br /> +Why music and the other arts<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Oftener perform aright their parts<br /> +Than poetry? why she, than they,<br /> +Fewer fine successes can display?<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.107]</span> +"For 'tis so, surely! Even in Greece,<br /> +Where best the poet framed his piece,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#15el">15</a></span>Even in that Phœbus-guarded ground°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16el">16</a></span>Pausanias° on his travels found<br /> +Good poems, if he look'd, more rare<br /> +(Though many) than good statues were—<br /> +For these, in truth, were everywhere.<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Of bards full many a stroke divine<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21el">21</a></span>In Dante's,° Petrarch's,° Tasso's° line,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#21el">22</a></span>The land of Ariosto° show'd;<br /> +And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd<br /> +With triumphs, a yet ampler brood,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#25el">25</a></span>Of Raphael° and his brotherhood.<br /> +And nobly perfect, in our day<br /> +Of haste, half-work, and disarray,<br /> +Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#29el">29</a></span>Hath risen Goethe's,° Wordsworth's° song;<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Yet even I (and none will bow <br /> +Deeper to these) must needs allow,<br /> +They yield us not, to soothe our pains,<br /> +Such multitude of heavenly strains<br /> +As from the kings of sound are blown,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#35el">35</a></span>Mozart,° Beethoven,° Mendelssohn.°"<br /><br /> + +While thus my friend discoursed, we pass<br /> +Out of the path, and take the grass.<br /> +The grass had still the green of May,<br /> +And still the unblackan'd elms were gay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>The kine were resting in the shade,<br /> +The flies a summer-murmur made.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#42el">42</a></span>Bright was the morn and south° the air;<br /> +The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair<br /> +As those which pastured by the sea,<br /> +<span class="left">[p.108]</span> +<span class="right"> 45</span>That old-world morn, in Sicily,<br /> +When on the beach the Cyclops lay,<br /> +And Galatea from the bay<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#48el">48</a></span>Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay.°<br /> +"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere!<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>The limits of his art appear.<br /> +The passing group, the summer-morn,<br /> +The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn—<br /> +Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise,<br /> +Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes—<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>These, or much greater things, but caught<br /> +Like these, and in one aspect brought!<br /> +In outward semblance he must give<br /> +A moment's life of things that live;<br /> +Then let him choose his moment well,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>With power divine its story tell."<br /><br /> + +Still we walk'd on, in thoughtful mood,<br /> +And now upon the bridge we stood.<br /> +Full of sweet breathings was the air,<br /> +Of sudden stirs and pauses fair.<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze<br /> +Came rustling from the garden-trees<br /> +And on the sparkling waters play'd;<br /> +Light-plashing waves an answer made,<br /> +And mimic boats their haven near'd.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70el">70</a></span>Beyond, the Abbey-towers° appear'd, <br /> +By mist and chimneys unconfined,<br /> +Free to the sweep of light and wind;<br /> +While through their earth-moor'd nave below<br /> +Another breath of wind doth blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Sound as of wandering breeze—but sound<br /> +In laws by human artists bound.<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.109]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#70el">77</a></span>"The world of music°!" I exclaimed:— <br /> +"This breeze that rustles by, that famed<br /> +Abbey recall it! what a sphere<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Large and profound, hath genius here!<br /> +The inspired musician what a range,<br /> +What power of passion, wealth of change<br /> +Some source of feeling he must choose<br /> +And its lock'd fount of beauty use,<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>And through the stream of music tell<br /> +Its else unutterable spell;<br /> +To choose it rightly is his part,<br /> +And press into its inmost heart.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#89el">89</a></span>"<i class="indent4">Miserere Domine°!</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>The words are utter'd, and they flee.<br /> +Deep is their penitential moan,<br /> +Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone.<br /> +They have declared the spirit's sore<br /> +Sore load, and words can do no more.<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>Beethoven takes them then—those two<br /> +Poor, bounded words—and makes them new;<br /> +Infinite makes them, makes them young;<br /> +Transplants them to another tongue,<br /> +Where they can now, without constraint,<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>Pour all the soul of their complaint,<br /> +And roll adown a channel large<br /> +The wealth divine they have in charge.<br /> +Page after page of music turn,<br /> +And still they live and still they burn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>Eternal, passion-fraught, and free—<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#89el">106</a></span><i class="indent4">Miserere Domine°!"</i><br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#107el">107</a></span>Onward we moved, and reach'd the Ride°<br /> +Where gaily flows the human tide.<br /><span class="left">[p.110]</span> +Afar, in rest the cattle lay;<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>We heard, afar, faint music play;<br /> +But agitated, brisk, and near,<br /> +Men, with their stream of life, were here.<br /> +Some hang upon the rails, and some<br /> +On foot behind them go and come.<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>This through the Ride upon his steed<br /> +Goes slowly by, and this at speed.<br /> +The young, the happy, and the fair,<br /> +The old, the sad, the worn, were there;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#119el">119</a></span>Some vacant,° and some musing went,<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>And some in talk and merriment.<br /> +Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!<br /> +And now and then, perhaps, there swells<br /> +A sigh, a tear—but in the throng<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#124el">124</a></span>All changes fast, and hies° along.<br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Hies, ah, from whence, what native ground?<br /> +And to what goal, what ending, bound?<br /> +"Behold, at last the poet's sphere!<br /> +But who," I said, "suffices here?<br /><br /> + +"For, ah! so much he has to do;<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#130el">130</a></span>Be painter and musician too°!<br /> +The aspect of the moment show,<br /> +The feeling of the moment know!<br /> +The aspect not, I grant, express<br /> +Clear as the painter's art can dress;<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>The feeling not, I grant, explore<br /> +So deep as the musician's lore—<br /> +But clear as words can make revealing,<br /> +And deep as words can follow feeling.<br /> +But, ah! then comes his sorest spell<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#140el">140</a></span>Of toil—he must life's <i class="indent4">movement</i>° tell!<br /> +<span class="left">[p.111]</span> +The thread which binds it all in one,<br /> +And not its separate parts alone.<br /> +The <i class="indent4">movement</i> he must tell of life,<br /> +Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife;<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>His eye must travel down, at full,<br /> +The long, unpausing spectacle;<br /> +With faithful unrelaxing force<br /> +Attend it from its primal source,<br /> +From change to change and year to year<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Attend it of its mid career,<br /> +Attend it to the last repose<br /> +And solemn silence of its close.<br /><br /> + +"The cattle rising from the grass<br /> +His thought must follow where they pass;<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>The penitent with anguish bow'd<br /> +His thought must follow through the crowd.<br /> +Yes! all this eddying, motley throng<br /> +That sparkles in the sun along,<br /> +Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Master and servant, young and old,<br /> +Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife,<br /> +He follows home, and lives their life.<br /><br /> + +And many, many are the souls<br /> +Life's movement fascinates, controls;<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>It draws them on, they cannot save <br /> +Their feet from its alluring wave;<br /> +They cannot leave it, they must go<br /> +With its unconquerable flow.<br /> +But ah! how few, of all that try<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>This mighty march, do aught but die! <br /> <span class="left">[p.112]</span> +For ill-endow'd for such a way,<br /> +Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they.<br /> +They faint, they stagger to and fro,<br /> +And wandering from the stream they go;<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>In pain, in terror, in distress,<br /> +They see, all round, a wilderness.<br /> +Sometimes a momentary gleam<br /> +They catch of the mysterious stream;<br /> +Sometimes, a second's space, their ear<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>The murmur of its waves doth hear.<br /> +That transient glimpse in song they say,<br /> +But not of painter can pourtray—<br /> +That transient sound in song they tell,<br /> +But not, as the musician, well.<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>And when at last their snatches cease,<br /> +And they are silent and at peace,<br /> +The stream of life's majestic whole<br /> +Hath ne'er been mirror'd on their soul.<br /><br /> + +"Only a few the life-stream's shore<br /> +<span class="right"> 190</span>With safe unwandering feet explore;<br /> +Untired its movement bright attend,<br /> +Follow its windings to the end.<br /> +Then from its brimming waves their eye<br /> +Drinks up delighted ecstasy,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>And its deep-toned, melodious voice<br /> +For ever makes their ear rejoice.<br /> +They speak! the happiness divine<br /> +They feel, runs o'er in every line;<br /> +Its spell is round them like a shower—<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>It gives them pathos, gives them power.<br /> +No painter yet hath such a way,<br /> +Nor no musician made, as they,<br /><span class="left">[p.113]</span> +And gather'd on immortal knolls<br /> +Such lovely flowers for cheering souls.<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach <br /> +The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach.<br /> +To these, to these, their thankful race<br /> +Gives, then, the first, the fairest place;<br /> +And brightest is their glory's sheen,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#163el">210</a></span>For greatest hath their labour been.°" +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.116]</span> +<h1>SONNETS</h1> +<br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#QUIET">QUIET WORK</a><a name="WORK">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1q">1</a></span>One lesson,° Nature, let me learn of thee,<br /> +One lesson which in every wind is blown,<br /> +One lesson of two duties kept at one<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4q">4</a></span>Though the loud° world proclaim their enmity—<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!<br /> +Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4q">7</a></span>Far noisier° schemes, accomplish'd in repose,<br /> +Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!<br /><br /> + +Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, <br /> +Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,<br /><br /> + +Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;<br /> +Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,<br /> +Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#SHAKES">SHAKESPEARE</a><a name="SHAKESPEARE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Others abide our question. Thou art free.<br /> +We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,<br /> +Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,<br /> +Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,<br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.116]</span> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,<br /> +Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,<br /> +Spares but the cloudy border of his base<br /> +To the foil'd searching of mortality;<br /><br /> + +And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, <br /> +Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.—Better so!<br /><br /> + +All pains the immortal spirit must endure,<br /> +All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow<br /> +Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#YOUTH">YOUTH'S AGITATIONS</a><a name="AGITATIONS">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,<br /> +From this poor present self which I am now;<br /> +When youth has done its tedious vain expense<br /> +Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#5y">5</a></span>Shall I not joy° youth's heats° are left behind,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6y">6</a></span>And breathe more happy in an even clime°?—<br /> +Ah no, for then I shall begin to find<br /> +A thousand virtues in this hated time!<br /><br /> + +Then I shall wish its agitations back,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>And all its thwarting currents of desire;<br /> +Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#12y">12</a></span>And call this hurrying fever,° generous fire;<br /><br /> + +And sigh that one thing only has been lent<br /> +To youth and age in common—discontent.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.117]</span> +<h2><a href="#AUSTERITY">AUSTERITY OF POETRY</a><a name="POETRY">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1a">1</a></span>That son of Italy° who tried to blow,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2a">2</a></span>Ere Dante° came, the trump of sacred song,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3a">3</a></span>In his light youth° amid a festal throng<br /> +Sate with his bride to see a public show.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow<br /> +Youth like a star; and what to youth belong—<br /> +Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.<br /> +A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,<br /><br /> + +'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay!<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Shuddering, they drew her garments off—and found <br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#11a">11</a></span>A robe of sackcloth° next the smooth, white skin.<br /> + +Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,<br /> +Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground<br /> +Of thought and of austerity within.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#WORLDLY">WORLDLY PLACE</a><a name="PLACE">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<i class="indent4">Even in a palace, life may be led well!</i><br /> +So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#3w">3</a></span>Marcus Aurelius.° But the stifling den <br /> +Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Our freedom for a little bread we sell,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#6w">6</a></span>And drudge under some foolish° master's ken.°<br /><span class="left">[p.118]</span> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#7w">7</a></span>Who rates° us if we peer outside our pen— <br /> +Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?<br /><br /> + +<i class="indent4">Even in a palace!</i> On his truth sincere,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;<br /> +And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame<br /><br /> + +Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,<br /> +I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!<br /> +The aids to noble life are all within."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h2><a href="#EASTLONDON">EAST LONDON</a><a name="EASTLON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2ea">2</a></span>Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,°<br /> +And the pale weaver, through his windows seen<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#4ea">4</a></span>In Spitalfields,° look'd thrice dispirited.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>I met a preacher there I knew, and said:<br /> +"Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"—<br /> +"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been,<br /> +Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, <i class="indent4">the living bread."</i><br /><br /> + +O human soul! as long as thou canst so<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Set up a mark of everlasting light,<br /> +Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,<br /><br /> + +To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam—<br /> +Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!<br /> +Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<span class="left">[p.119]</span> +<h2><a href="#WESTLONDON">WEST LONDON</a><a name="WESTLON">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1we">1</a></span>Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square,°<br /> +A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied.<br /> +A babe was in her arms, and at her side<br /> +A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 5</span>Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there,<br /> +Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied<br /> +Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied.<br /> +The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.<br /><br /> + +Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers;<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>She will not ask of aliens but of friends, <br /> +Of sharers in a common human fate.<br /><br /> + +"She turns from that cold succour, which attends<br /> +The unknown little from the unknowing great,<br /> +And points us to a better time than ours."</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<hr /> +<br /><br /> + + <span class="left">[p.121]</span> +<h1>ELEGIAC POEMS</h1> +<br /><br /> +<h2><a href="#MEMORIAL">MEMORIAL VERSES</a><a name="VERSES">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">April</i>, 1850</h3> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1m">1</a></span>Goethe in Weimar sleeps,° and Greece,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#2m">2</a></span>Long since, saw Byron's° struggle cease.<br /> +But one such death remain'd to come;<br /> +The last poetic voice is dumb—<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.<br /><br /> + +When Byron's eyes were shut in death,<br /> +We bow'd our head and held our breath.<br /> +He taught us little; but our soul<br /> +Had <i class="indent4">felt</i> him like the thunder's roll.<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>With shivering heart the strife we saw<br /> +Of passion with eternal law;<br /> +And yet with reverential awe<br /> +We watch'd the fount of fiery life<br /> +Which served for that Titanic strife.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 15</span>When Goethe's death was told, we said:<br /> +Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#17m">17</a></span>Physician of the iron age,°<br /> +Goethe has done his pilgrimage.<br /> +He took the suffering human race,<br /><span class="left">[p.122]</span> +<span class="right"> 20</span>He read each wound, each weakness clear;<br /> +And struck his finger on the place,<br /> +And said: <i class="indent4">Thou ailest here, and here!</i><br /> +He look'd on Europe's dying hour<br /> +Of fitful dream and feverish power;<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>His eye plunged down the weltering strife,<br /> +The turmoil of expiring life—<br /> +He said: <i class="indent4">The end is everywhere,<br /> +Art still has truth, take refuge there!</i><br /> +And he was happy, if to know<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Causes of things, and far below<br /> +His feet to see the lurid flow<br /> +Of terror, and insane distress,<br /> +And headlong fate, be happiness.<br /><br /> + +And Wordsworth!—Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>For never has such soothing voice<br /> +Been to your shadowy world convey'd,<br /> +Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#38m">38</a></span>Heard the clear song of Orpheus° come<br /> +Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye,<br /> +Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!<br /> +He too upon a wintry clime<br /> +Had fallen—on this iron time<br /> +Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>He found us when the age had bound<br /> +Our souls in its benumbing round;<br /> +He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.<br /> +He laid us as we lay at birth<br /> +On the cool flowery lap of earth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>Smiles broke from us and we had ease;<br /> +The hills were round us, and the breeze<br /><span class="left">[p.123]</span> +Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;<br /> +Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.<br /> +Our youth returned; for there was shed<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>On spirits that had long been dead,<br /> +Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,<br /> +The freshness of the early world.<br /><br /> + +Ah! since dark days still bring to light<br /> +Man's prudence and man's fiery might,<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Time may restore us in his course<br /> +Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;<br /> +But where will Europe's latter hour<br /> +Again find Wordsworth's healing power?<br /> +Others will teach us how to dare,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>And against fear our breast to steel;<br /> +Others will strengthen us to bear—<br /> +But who, ah! who, will make us feel<br /> +The cloud of mortal destiny?<br /> +Others will front it fearlessly—<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>But who, like him, will put it by?<br /><br /> + +Keep fresh the grass upon his grave<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#72m">72</a></span>O Rotha,° with thy living wave!<br /> +Sing him thy best! for few or none<br /> +Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h2><a href="#SCHOLAR">THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY</a><a name="GIPSY">°</a></h2> +<p class="indent4"> +Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#2sg">2</a></span>Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes°!<br /> + No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,<br /><span class="left">[p.124]</span> +Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.<br /> + But when the fields are still,<br /> +And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,<br /> + And only the white sheep are sometimes seen;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#9sg">9</a></span>Cross and recross° the strips of moon-blanch'd green,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!<br /><br /> + +Here, where the reaper was at work of late—<br /> + In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#13sg">13</a></span>His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,°<br /> + And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,<br /> + <span class="right"> 15</span>Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—<br /> + Here will I sit and wait,<br /> + While to my ear from uplands far away<br /> + The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#19sg">19</a></span>With distant cries of reapers in the corn°—<br /> + <span class="right"> 20</span>All the live murmur of a summer's day.<br /><br /> + +Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,<br /> + And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.<br /> + Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,<br /> + And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;<br /> + And air-swept lindens yield<br /> + Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers<br /> + Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,<br /> + And bower me from the August sun with shade;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#30sg">30</a></span>And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#31sg">31</a></span>And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book°—<br /> + Come, let me read the oft-read tale again!<br /> + The story of the Oxford scholar poor,<br /><span class="left">[p.125]</span> + Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,<br /> + <span class="right"> 35</span>Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door,<br /> + One summer-morn forsook<br /> + His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,<br /> + And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood,<br /> + And came, as most men deem'd, to little good,<br /> + <span class="right"> 40</span>But came to Oxford and his friends no more.<br /><br /> + +But once, years after, in the country-lanes,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#42sg">42</a></span>Two scholars, whom at college erst° he knew,<br /> + Met him, and of his way of life enquired;<br /> + Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew,<br /> + <span class="right"> 45</span>His mates, had arts to rule as they desired<br /> + The workings of men's brains,<br /> +And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.<br /> + "And I," he said, "the secret of their art,<br /> + When fully learn'd, will to the world impart;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50sg">50</a></span>But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.°"<br /><br /> + +This said, he left them, and return'd no more.—<br /> + But rumours hung about the country-side,<br /> + That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,<br /> + Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,<br /> + <span class="right"> 55</span>In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,<br /> + The same the gipsies wore.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#57sg">57</a></span>Shepherds had met him on the Hurst° in spring;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#58sg">58</a></span>At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,°<br /> + On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors<br /> + <span class="right"> 60</span>Had found him seated at their entering.<br /><br /> + +But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.<br /> + And I myself seem half to know, thy looks,<br /> + And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace;<br /><span class="left">[p.126]</span> + And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks<br /> + <span class="right"> 65</span>I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place;<br /> + Or in my boat I lie<br /> + Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats,<br /> + 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#69sg">69</a></span>And watch the warm, green-muffled° Cumner hills,<br /> + <span class="right"> 70</span>And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.<br /><br /> + +For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground!<br /> + Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,<br /> + Returning home on summer-nights, have met<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#74sg">74</a></span>Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,°<br /> + <span class="right"> 75</span>Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,<br /> + As the punt's rope chops round;<br /> + And leaning backward in a pensive dream,<br /> + And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers<br /> + Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers<br /> + <span class="right"> 80</span>And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.<br /><br /> + +And then they land, and thou art seen no more!—<br /> + Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#83sg">83</a></span>To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,°<br /> + Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam<br /> + Or cross a stile into the public way.<br /> + <span class="right"> 85</span>Oft thou hast given them store<br /> + Of flowers—the frail-leaf'd, white anemony,<br /> + Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves<br /> + And purple orchises with spotted leaves—<br /> + <span class="right"> 90</span>But none hath words she can report of thee.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#91sg">91</a></span>And, above Godstow Bridge,° when hay-time's here<br /> + In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,<br /> + Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass<br /><span class="left">[p.127]</span> + Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#95sg">95</a></span>To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass,°<br /> + Have often pass'd thee near<br /> + Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#98sg">98</a></span>Mark'd thine outlandish° garb, thy figure spare,<br /> + Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air—<br /> + <span class="right"> 100</span>But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!<br /><br /> + +At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,<br /> + Where at her open door the housewife darns,<br /> + Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate<br /> + To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.<br /> + <span class="right"> 105</span>Children, who early range these slopes and late<br /> + For cresses from the rills,<br /> + Have known thee eying, all an April-day,<br /> + The springing pastures and the feeding kine;<br /> + And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine,<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span>Through the long dewy grass move slow away.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#111sg">111</a></span>In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood°—<br /> + Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way<br /> + Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#114sg">114</a></span>With scarlet patches tagg'd° and shreds of grey,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#115sg">115</a></span> Above the forest-ground called Thessaly°—<br /> + The blackbird, picking food,<br /> + Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;<br /> + So often has he known thee past him stray<br /> + Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray,<br /> + <span class="right"> 120</span>And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.<br /><br /> + +And once, in winter, on the causeway chill<br /> + Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,<br /><span class="left">[p.128]</span> + Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge,<br /> + Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#125sg">125</a></span>Thy face tow'rd Hinksey° and its wintry ridge?<br /> + And thou hast climb'd the hill,<br /> + And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range;<br /> + Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#129sg">129</a></span>The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall°—<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#130sg">130</a></span>Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange.<br /><br /> + +But what—-I dream! Two hundred years are flown<br /> + Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#133sg">133</a></span>And the grave Glanvil° did the tale inscribe<br /> + That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls<br /> + <span class="right"> 135</span>To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe;<br /> + And thou from earth art gone<br /> + Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid—<br /> + Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave<br /> + Tall grasses and white-flowering nettles wave<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#140sg">140</a></span>Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's° shade.<br /><br /> + +—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours!<br /> + For what wears out the life of mortal men?<br /> + 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls<br /> + 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,<br /> + <span class="right"> 145</span>Exhaust the energy of strongest souls<br /> + And numb the elastic powers.<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#147sg">147</a></span>Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,°<br /> + And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#149sg">149</a></span>To the just-pausing Genius° we remit<br /> + <span class="right"> 150</span>Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#151sg">151</a></span>Thou hast not lived,° why should'st thou perish, so?<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#152sg">152</a></span>Thou hadst <i class="indent4">one</i> aim, + <i class="indent4">one</i> business, <i class="indent4">one</i> desire°;<br /><span class="left">[p.129]</span> + Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead!<br /> + Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire!<br /> + <span class="right"> 155</span>The generations of thy peers are fled,<br /> + And we ourselves shall go;<br /> + But thou possessest an immortal lot,<br /> + And we imagine thee exempt from age<br /> + And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#160sg">160</a></span>Because thou hadst—what we, alas! have not.°<br /><br /> + +For early didst thou leave the world, with powers<br /> + Fresh, undiverted to the world without,<br /> + Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;<br /> + Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#165sg">165</a></span> Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.°<br /> + O life unlike to ours!<br /> + Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,<br /> + Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,<br /> + And each half lives a hundred different lives;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#170sg">170</a></span>Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.°<br /><br /> + +Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,<br /> + Light half-believers of our casual creeds,<br /> + Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd,<br /> + Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,<br /> + <span class="right"> 175</span>Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd;<br /> + For whom each year we see<br /> + Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;<br /> + Who hesitate and falter life away,<br /> + And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#180sg">180</a></span>Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too°<br /><br /> + +Yes, we await it!—but it still delays,<br /> + And then we suffer! and amongst us one,<br /><span class="left">[p.130]</span> + Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly<br /> + His seat upon the intellectual throne;<br /> + <span class="right"> 185</span>And all his store of sad experience he <br /> + Lays bare of wretched days;<br /> + Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs,<br /> + And how the dying spark of hope was fed,<br /> + And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#190sg">190</a></span>And all his hourly varied anodynes.°<br /><br /> + +This for our wisest! and we others pine,<br /> + And wish the long unhappy dream would end,<br /> + And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;<br /> + With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend,<br /> + <span class="right"> 195</span>Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair—<br /> + But none has hope like thine!<br /> + Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,<br /> + Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,<br /> + Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,<br /> + <span class="right"> 200</span>And every doubt long blown by time away.<br /><br /> + +O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,<br /> + And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;<br /> + Before this strange disease of modern life,<br /> + With its sick hurry, its divided aims,<br /> + <span class="right"> 205</span>Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife—<br /> + Fly hence, our contact fear!<br /> + Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#208sg">208</a></span>Averse, as Dido° did with gesture stern°<br /> + From her false friend's approach in Hades turn,<br /> + <span class="right"> 210</span>Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!<br /><br /> + +Still nursing the unconquerable hope,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#212sg">212</a></span>Still clutching the inviolable shade,°<br /><span class="left">[p.131]</span> + With a free, onward impulse brushing through,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#214sg">214</a></span>By night, the silver'd branches° of the glade—<br /> + <span class="right"> 215</span>Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,<br /> + On some mild pastoral slope<br /> + Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales<br /> + Freshen thy flowers as in former years<br /> + With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#220sg">220</a></span>From the dark dingles,° to the nightingales!<br /><br /> + +But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!<br /> + For strong the infection of our mental strife,<br /> + Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;<br /> + And we should win thee from thy own fair life,<br /> + <span class="right"> 225</span>Like us distracted, and like us unblest.<br /> + Soon, soon thy cheer would die,<br /> + Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers,<br /> + And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;<br /> + And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,<br /> + <span class="right"> 230</span>Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.<br /><br /> + +Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#232sg">232</a></span>—As some grave Tyrian° trader, from the sea,<br /> + Descried at sunrise an emerging prow<br /> + Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily,<br /> + <span class="right"> 235</span>The fringes of a southward-facing brow <br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#236sg">236</a></span>Among the Ægæan isles°;<br /> + And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#238sg">238</a></span>Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,°<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#239sg">239</a></span>Green, bursting figs, and tunnies° steep'd in brine—<br /> + <span class="right"> 240</span> And knew the intruders on his ancient home,<br /><br /> + +The young light-hearted masters of the waves—<br /> + And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail;<br /><span class="left">[p.132]</span> + And day and night held on indignantly<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#244sg">244</a></span>O'er the blue Midland waters° with the gale,<br /> + <span class="right"> 245</span>Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,<br /> + To where the Atlantic raves<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#247sg">247</a></span>Outside the western straits°; and unbent sails<br /> + There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#231sg">249</a></span>Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come°;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#250sg">250</a></span>And on the beach undid his corded bales.°</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#THYRSIS">THYRSIS</a><a name="THYR">°</a></h2> + +<h5>A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND<br /> +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861</h5> +<p class="indent4"> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#1th">1</a></span>How changed is here each spot man makes or fills°!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#2th">2</a></span>In the two Hinkseys° nothing keeps the same;<br /> + The village street its haunted mansion lacks,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#4th">4</a></span>And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,°<br /> + <span class="right"> 5</span>And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks—<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#6th">6</a></span>Are ye too changed, ye hills°?<br /> + See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men<br /> + To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!<br /> + Here came I often, often, in old days—<br /> + <span class="right"> 10</span>Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.<br /><br /> + +Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,<br /> + Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns<br /> + The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#14th">14</a></span>The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs°?<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#15th">15</a></span>The Vale,° the three lone weirs,° the youthful Thames?—,<br /> + This winter-eve is warm,<br /> + Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,<br /> + The tender purple spray on copse and briers!<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#19th">19</a></span>And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#20th">20</a></span>She needs not June for beauty's heightening,°<br /><br /> + +Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!—<br /> + Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#23th">23</a></span>Befalls me wandering through this upland dim,°<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#24th">24</a></span>Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour°;<br /> + <span class="right"> 25</span>Now seldom come I, since I came with him.<br /> + That single elm-tree bright<br /> + Against the west—I miss it! is it gone?<br /> + We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,<br /> + Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#30th">30</a></span>While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.°<br /><br /> + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,<br /> + But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;<br /> + And with the country-folk acquaintance made<br /> + By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#40th">35</a></span>Here, too, our shepherd-pipes° we first assay'd.<br /> + Ah me! this many a year<br /> + My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday!<br /> + Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart<br /> + Into the world and wave of men depart;<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#40th">40</a></span>But Thyrsis of his own will went away.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">41</a></span>It irk'd° him to be here, he could not rest.<br /> + He loved each simple joy the country yields,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">43</a></span>He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,°<br /> +For that a shadow lour'd on the fields,<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#45th">45</a></span>Here with the shepherds and the silly° sheep.<br /> + Some life of men unblest<br /> +He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.<br /> + He went; his piping took a troubled sound<br /> + Of storms° that rage outside our happy ground;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#50th">50</a></span>He could not wait their passing, he is dead.°<br /><br /> + +So, some tempestuous morn in early June,<br /> + When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,<br /> + Before the roses and the longest day—<br /> + When garden-walks and all the grassy floor<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#60th">55</a></span>With blossoms red and white of fallen May°<br /> + And chestnut-flowers are strewn—<br /> + So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,<br /> + From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,<br /> + Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#60th">60</a></span><i class="indent4">The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I°!</i><br /><br /> + +Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?<br /> + <span class="right"> °<a href="#62th">62</a></span>Soon will the high Midsummer pomps° come on,<br /> + Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,<br /> + Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,<br /> + <span class="right"> 65</span>Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,<br /> + And stocks in fragrant blow;<br /> + Roses that down the alleys shine afar,<br /> + And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,<br /> + And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>And the full moon, and the white evening-star.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#71th">71</a></span>He hearkens not! light comer,° he is flown!<br /> + What matters it? next year he will return,<br /> + And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days.<br /> +With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,<br /> +And scent of hay new-mown.<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#77th">77</a></span>But Thyrsis never more we swains° shall see;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#78th">78</a></span>See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,°<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#79th">79</a></span>And blow a strain the world at last shall heed°—<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#80th">80</a></span>For Time, not Corydon,° hath conquer'd thee!<br /><br /> + +Alack, for Corydon no rival now!—<br /> +But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,<br /> +Some good survivor with his flute would go,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#84th">84</a></span>Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#85th">85</a></span>And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,°<br /> +And relax Pluto's brow,<br /> +And make leap up with joy the beauteous head<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#88th">88</a></span>Of Proserpine,° among whose crowned hair<br /> +Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#90th">90</a></span>And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.°<br /><br /> + +O easy access to the hearer's grace<br /> +When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!<br /> +For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#94th">94</a></span>She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,°<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>She knew each lily white which Enna yields,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#96th">96</a></span>Each rose with blushing face°;<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#97th">97</a></span>She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.°<br /> +But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!<br /> +Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd;<br /> +<span class="right"> 100</span>And we should tease her with our plaint in vain!<br /><br /> + +Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,<br /> +Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour<br /> +In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill!<br /> + Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?<br /> + <span class="right"> 105</span>I know the wood which hides the daffodil,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#106th">106</a></span>I know the Fyfield tree,°<br /> + I know what white, what purple fritillaries<br /> + The grassy harvest of the river-fields,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#109th">109</a></span>Above by Ensham,° down by Sandford,° yields,<br /> + <span class="right"> 110</span>And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;<br /><br /> + +I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?—<br /> + But many a dingle on the loved hill-side,<br /> + With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees<br /> + Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried<br /> + <span class="right"> 115</span>High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises,<br /> + Hath since our day put by<br /> + The coronals of that forgotten time;<br /> + Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team,<br /> + And only in the hidden brookside gleam<br /> + <span class="right"> 120</span>Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.<br /><br /> + +Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door,<br /> + Above the locks, above the boating throng,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#123th">123</a></span>Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats,°<br /> + Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among<br /> + <span class="right"> 125</span>And darting swallows and light water-gnats,<br /> + We track'd the shy Thames shore?<br /> + Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell<br /> + Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,<br /> + Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?—<br /> + <span class="right"> 130</span>They all are gone, and thou art gone as well!<br /><br /> + +Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night<br /> + In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.<br /> + I see her veil draw soft across the day,<br /> +I feel her slowly chilling breath invade<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#135th">135</a></span>The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent° with grey; <br /> +I feel her finger light<br /> +Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;—<br /> +The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,<br /> +The heart less bounding at emotion new,<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.<br /><br /> + +And long the way appears, which seem'd so short<br /> +To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;<br /> +And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,<br /> +The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,<br /> +<span class="right"> 145</span>Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!<br /> +Unbreachable the fort<br /> +Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;<br /> +And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,<br /> +And near and real the charm of thy repose,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#150th">150</a></span>And night as welcome as a friend would fall.°<br /><br /> + +But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss<br /> +Of quiet!—Look, adown the dusk hill-side,<br /> +A troop of Oxford hunters going home,<br /> +As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#155th">155</a></span>From hunting with the Berkshire° hounds they come.<br /> +Quick! let me fly, and cross<br /> +Into yon farther field!—'Tis done; and see,<br /> +Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify<br /> +The orange and pale violet evening-sky,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!<br /><br /> + +I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,<br /> +The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,<br /> +The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,<br /> +And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out.<br /> + <span class="right"> 165</span>I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night,<br /> + Yet, happy omen, hail!<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#167th">167</a></span>Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale°<br /> + (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep<br /> + The morningless and unawakening sleep<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Under the flowery oleanders pale),<br /><br /> + +Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!—<br /> + Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,<br /> + These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,<br /> + That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#175th">175</a></span>To a boon southern country he is fled,°<br /> + And now in happier air,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#177th">177</a></span>Wandering with the great Mother's° train divine<br /> + (And purer or more subtle soul than thee,<br /> + I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)<br /> + <span class="right"> 180</span>Within a folding of the Apennine,<br /><br /> + +Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!—<br /> + Putting his sickle to the perilous grain<br /> + In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,<br /> + For thee the Lityerses-song again<br /> + <span class="right"> 185</span>Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;<br /> + Sings his Sicilian fold,<br /> + His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes—<br /> + And how a call celestial round him rang,<br /> + And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#190th">190</a></span>And all the marvel of the golden skies.°<br /><br /> + +There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">192</a></span>Sole° in these fields! yet will I not despair.<br /> + Despair I will not, while I yet descry<br /> + 'Neath the mild canopy of English air<br /> + <span class="right"> 195</span>That lonely tree against the western sky.<br /> + Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,<br /> + Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">198</a></span>Fields where soft sheep° from cages pull the hay,<br /> + Woods with anemonies in flower till May,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#200th">200</a></span>Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?°<br /><br /> + +A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,<br /> + <span class="right">°<a href="#202th">202</a></span>Shy to illumin; and I seek it too.°<br /> + This does not come with houses or with gold,<br /> + With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;<br /> + <span class="right"> 205</span>'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold—<br /> + But the smooth-slipping weeks<br /> + Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;<br /> + Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,<br /> + He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone;<br /> + <span class="right"> 210</span>Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.<br /><br /> + +Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest was bound;<br /> + Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!<br /> + Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,<br /> + If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power,<br /> + <span class="right"> 215</span>If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.<br /> + And this rude Cumner ground,<br /> + Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,<br /> + Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time,<br /> + Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!<br /> + <span class="right"> 220</span>And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.<br /><br /> + +What though the music of thy rustic flute<br /> + Kept not for long its happy, country tone;<br /> + Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note<br /> + Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,<br /> + <span class="right"> 225</span>Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat—<br /> + It fail'd, and thou wast mute!<br /> + Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light,<br /> + And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,<br /> + And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,<br /> + <span class="right"> 230</span>Left human haunt, and on alone till night.<br /><br /> + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!<br /> + 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,<br /> + Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.<br /> + Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar,<br /> + <span class="right"> 235</span>Let in thy voice a whisper often come,<br /> + To chase fatigue and fear:<br /> + <i class="indent4">Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died.<br /> + Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.<br /> + Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill,</i><br /> + <span class="right"> 240</span><i class="indent4">Our scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.</i> </p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h2><a href="#RUGBY">RUGBY CHAPEL</a><a name="CHAPEL">°</a></h2> + +<h3><i class="indent4">November 1857</i></h3> +<p class="indent4"> +Coldly, sadly descends<br /> +The autumn-evening. The field<br /> +Strewn with its dank yellow drifts<br /> +Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,<br /> +<span class="right"> 5</span>Fade into dimness apace,<br /> +Silent;—hardly a shout<br /> +From a few boys late at their play!<br /> +The lights come out in the street,<br /> +In the school-room windows;—but cold,<br /> +<span class="right"> 10</span>Solemn, unlighted, austere,<br /> +Through the gathering darkness, arise<br /> +The chapel-walls, in whose bound<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#13rc">13</a></span>Thou, my father! art laid.°<br /><br /> + +There thou dost lie, in the gloom<br /> +<span class="right"> 15</span>Of the autumn evening. But ah!<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#16rc">16</a></span>That word, <i class="indent4">gloom,°</i> to my mind<br /> +Brings thee back, in the light<br /> +Of thy radiant vigour, again;<br /> +In the gloom of November we pass'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 20</span>Days not dark at thy side;<br /> +Seasons impair'd not the ray<br /> +Of thy buoyant cheerfulness, clear.<br /> +Such thou wast! and I stand<br /> +In the autumn evening, and think<br /> +<span class="right"> 25</span>Of bygone autumns with thee.<br /><br /> + +Fifteen years have gone round<br /> +Since thou arosest to tread,<br /> +In the summer-morning, the road<br /> +Of death, at a call unforeseen,<br /> +<span class="right"> 30</span>Sudden. For fifteen years,<br /> +We who till then in thy shade<br /> +Rested as under the boughs<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#33rc">33</a></span>Of a mighty oak,° have endured<br /> +Sunshine and rain as we might,<br /> +<span class="right"> 35</span>Bare, unshaded, alone,<br /> +Lacking the shelter of thee.<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> °<a href="#37rc">37</a></span>O strong soul, by what shore°<br /> +Tarriest thou now? For that force,<br /> +Surely, has not been left vain!<br /> +<span class="right"> 40</span>Somewhere, surely, afar,<br /> +In the sounding labour-house vast<br /> +Of being, is practised that strength,<br /> +Zealous, beneficent, firm!<br /><br /> + +Yes, in some far-shining sphere,<br /> +<span class="right"> 45</span>Conscious or not of the past,<br /> +Still thou performest the word<br /> +Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live—<br /> +Prompt, unwearied, as here!<br /> +Still thou upraisest with zeal<br /> +<span class="right"> 50</span>The humble good from the ground,<br /> +Sternly repressest the bad!<br /> +Still, like a trumpet, doth rouse<br /> +Those who with half-open eyes<br /> +Tread the border-land dim<br /> +<span class="right"> 55</span>'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,<br /> +Succourest!—this was thy work,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#57rc">57</a></span>This was thy life upon earth.°<br /><br /> + +What is the course of the life<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#59rc">59</a></span>Of mortal men on the earth°?—<br /> +<span class="right"> 60</span>Most men eddy about<br /> +Here and there—eat and drink,<br /> +Chatter and love and hate,<br /> +Gather and squander, are raised<br /> +Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,<br /> +<span class="right"> 65</span>Striving blindly, achieving<br /> +Nothing; and then they die—<br /> +Perish;—and no one asks<br /> +Who or what they have been,<br /> +More than he asks what waves,<br /> +<span class="right"> 70</span>In the moonlit solitudes mild<br /> +Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,<br /> +Foam'd for a moment, and gone.<br /><br /> + +And there are some, whom a thirst<br /> +Ardent, unquenchable, fires,<br /> +<span class="right"> 75</span>Not with the crowd to be spent,<br /> +Not without aim to go round<br /> +In an eddy of purposeless dust,<br /> +Effort unmeaning and vain.<br /> +Ah yes! some of us strive<br /> +<span class="right"> 80</span>Not without action to die <br /> +Fruitless, but something to snatch<br /> +From dull oblivion, nor all<br /> +Glut the devouring grave!<br /> +We, we have chosen our path—<br /> +<span class="right"> 85</span>Path to a clear-purposed goal,<br /> +Path of advance!—but it leads<br /> +A long, steep journey, through sunk<br /> +Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.<br /> +Cheerful, with friends, we set forth—<br /> +<span class="right"> 90</span>Then, on the height, comes the storm.<br /> +Thunder crashes from rock<br /> +To rock, the cataracts reply,<br /> +<span class="right"> °<a href="#93rc">93</a></span>Lightnings dazzle our eyes.°<br /> +Roaring torrents have breach'd<br /> +<span class="right"> 95</span>The track, the stream-bed descends<br /> +In the place where the wayfarer once<br /> +Planted his footstep—the spray<br /> +Boils o'er its borders! aloft<br /> +The unseen snow-beds dislodge<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#100rc">100</a></span>Their hanging ruin°; alas,<br /> +Havoc is made in our train!<br /><br /> + +Friends, who set forth at our side,<br /> +Falter, are lost in the storm.<br /> +We, we only are left!<br /> +<span class="right"> 105</span>ith frowning foreheads, with lips<br /> +Sternly compress'd, we strain on,<br /> +On—and at nightfall at last<br /> +Come to the end of our way,<br /> +To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;<br /> +<span class="right"> 110</span>Where the gaunt and taciturn host<br /> +Stands on the threshold, the wind<br /> +Shaking his thin white hairs—<br /> +Holds his lantern to scan<br /> +Our storm-beat figures, and asks:<br /> +<span class="right"> 115</span>Whom in our party we bring?<br /> +Whom we have left in the snow?<br /><br /> + +Sadly we answer: We bring<br /> +Only ourselves! we lost<br /> +Sight of the rest in the storm.<br /> +<span class="right"> 120</span>Hardly ourselves we fought through,<br /> +Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.<br /> +Friends, companions, and train,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#123rc">123</a></span>The avalanche swept from our side.°<br /><br /> + +But thou would'st not <i class="indent4">alone</i><br /> +<span class="right"> 125</span>Be saved, my father! <i class="indent4">alone</i> <br /> +Conquer and come to thy goal,<br /> +Leaving the rest in the wild.<br /> +We were weary, and we<br /> +Fearful, and we in our march<br /> +<span class="right"> 130</span>Fain to drop down and to die.<br /> +Still thou turnedst, and still<br /> +Beckonedst the trembler, and still<br /> +Gavest the weary thy hand.<br /><br /> + +If, in the paths of the world,<br /> +<span class="right"> 135</span>Stones might have wounded thy feet,<br /> +Toil or dejection have tried<br /> +Thy spirit, of that we saw<br /> +Nothing—to us thou wast still<br /> +Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!<br /> +<span class="right"> 140</span>Therefore to thee it was given<br /> +Many to save with thyself;<br /> +And, at the end of thy day,<br /> +O faithful shepherd! to come,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#144rc">144</a></span>Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.°<br /><br /> + +<span class="right"> 145</span>And through thee I believe<br /> +In the noble and great who are gone;<br /> +Pure souls honour'd and blest<br /> +By former ages, who else—<br /> +Such, so soulless, so poor,<br /> +<span class="right"> 150</span>Is the race of men whom I see—<br /> +Seem'd but a dream of the heart,<br /> +Seem'd but a cry of desire.<br /> +Yes! I believe that there lived<br /> +Others like thee in the past,<br /> +<span class="right"> 155</span>Not like the men of the crowd<br /> +Who all round me to-day<br /> +Bluster or cringe, and make life<br /> +Hideous, and arid, and vile;<br /> +But souls temper'd with fire,<br /> +<span class="right"> 160</span>Fervent, heroic, and good,<br /> +Helpers and friends of mankind.<br /><br /> + +Servants of God!—or sons<br /> +Shall I not call you? becaus<br /> +Not as servants ye knew<br /> +<span class="right"> 165</span>Your Father's innermost mind,<br /> +His, who unwillingly sees<br /> +One of his little ones lost—<br /> +Yours is the praise, if mankind<br /> +Hath not as yet in its march<br /> +<span class="right"> 170</span>Fainted, and fallen, and died!<br /><br /> + +<span class="right">°<a href="#171rc">171</a></span>See! In the rocks° of the world<br /> +Marches the host of mankind,<br /> +A feeble, wavering line.<br /> +Where are they tending?—A God<br /> +<span class="right"> 175</span>Marshall'd them, gave them their goal.<br /> +Ah, but the way is so long!<br /> +Years they have been in the wild!<br /> +Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,<br /> +Rising all round, overawe;<br /> +<span class="right"> 180</span>Factions divide them, their host<br /> +Threatens to break, to dissolve.<br /> +—Ah, keep, keep them combined!<br /> +Else, of the myriads who fill<br /> +That army, not one shall arrive;<br /> +<span class="right"> 185</span>Sole they shall stray: in the rocks<br /> +Stagger for ever in vain,<br /> +Die one by one in the waste.<br /><br /> + +Then, in such hour of need<br /> +Of your fainting, dispirited race,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#190rc">190</a></span>Ye,° like angels, appear,<br /> +Radiant with ardour divine!<br /> +Beacons of hope, ye appear!<br /> +Languor is not in your heart,<br /> +Weakness is not in your word,<br /> +<span class="right"> 195</span>Weariness not on your brow.<br /> +Ye alight in our van! at your voice,<br /> +Panic, despair, flee away.<br /> +Ye move through the ranks, recall<br /> +The stragglers, refresh the outworn,<br /> +<span class="right"> 200</span>Praise, re-inspire the brave!<br /> +Order, courage, return.<br /> +Eyes rekindling, and prayers,<br /> +Follow your steps as ye go.<br /> +Ye fill up the gaps in our files,<br /> +<span class="right"> 205</span>Strengthen the wavering line,<br /> +Stablish, continue our march,<br /> +On, to the bound of the waste,<br /> +<span class="right">°<a href="#208rc">208</a></span>On, to the City of God.°</p> + + <br /><br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /> +<h2><a name="NOTES">NOTES</a></h2><span class="left">[p.149]</span> + + <br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#SOHRAB">SOHRAB AND RUSTUM</a>°</h3> +<p> +"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than +anything I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I +shall not ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments +instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a +letter to Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.)</p> +<p> +"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just +finished and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, +and I think it will be generally liked; though one can never be +sure of this. I have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a +rare thing with me, and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure +what you write is likely to afford to others. But the story is a +very noble and excellent one." (Arnold, in a letter to his mother, +May, 1853.)</p> +<p> +The following synopsis of the story of Sohrab and Rustum the +"tale replete with tears," is gathered from several sources, chiefly +Benjamin's <i>Persia</i>, in <i>The Story of the Nations</i>, Sir John Malcolm's +<i>History of Persia</i>, and the great Persian epic poem, <i>Shah Nameh</i>. +The <i>Shah Nameh</i> the original source of the story, and which purports +to narrate the exploits of Persia's kings and champions over +a space of thirty-six centuries, bears the same relation to Persian +literature as the <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i> to the Greek, and the <i>Aeneid</i> to +the Latin, though in structure it more nearly resembles <i>Morte d'Arthur</i>, <span class="left">[p.150]</span> +which records in order the achievements of various heroes. +In it the native poet Mansur ibn Ahmad, afterwards known to +literature as Firdausi, the Paradisaical, has set down the early +tales and traditions of his people with all the vividness and color +common to oriental writers. The principal hero of the poem is the +mighty Rustum, who, mounted on his famous horse Ruksh, performed +prodigies of valor in defence of the Persian throne. Of all +his adventures his encounter with Sohrab is the most dramatic. +The poem was probably written in the latter half of the tenth +century. As will be seen, the incidents narrated in Arnold's poem +form but an episode in the complete story of the two champions.</p> +<p> +Rustum (or Rustem), having killed a wild ass while hunting on +the Turanian frontier, and having feasted on its flesh, composed +himself to sleep, leaving his faithful steed, Ruksh (or Raksh), to +graze untethered. On awakening, he found his horse had disappeared, +and believing it had been stolen, the warrior proceeded +towards Semenjan, a near-by city, in hopes of recovering his property. +On the way, he learned that Ruksh had been found by the +servants of the king and was stabled at Semenjan, as he had surmised. +Upon Rustum's demand, the steed was promptly restored +to him, and he was about to depart when he was prevailed upon to +accept the king's invitation to tarry awhile and rest himself in +feasting and idleness.</p> +<p> +Now the king of Semenjan had a fair daughter named Tahmineh, +who had become enamoured of Rustum because of his mighty +exploits. Susceptible as she was beautiful, she made her attachment +so evident that the young hero, who was as ardent as he was +brave, readily yielded to the power of her fascination. The consent +of the king having been obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were +married with all the rites prescribed by the laws of the country. +A peculiar feature of this alliance lay in the fact that the king of +Semenjan was feudatory to Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, +while Rustum was her greatest champion. At this time, however, <span class="left"><a name="p.151">[p.151]</a></span> +the two countries were at peace.</p> +<p> +For a time all went happily, then Rustum found it necessary to +leave his bride, as he thought, for only a short time. At parting +he gave her an onyx, which he wore on his arm, bidding her, if a +daughter should be born to their union, to twine the gem in her hair +under a fortunate star; but if a son, to bind it on his arm, and he +would be insured a glorious career. Rustum then mounted Ruksh +and rode away—as time proved, never to return.</p> +<p> +The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous +son, whom, because of his comely features, she named +Sohrab. Fearing Rustum would send for the boy when he grew +older, and thus rob her of her treasure, Tahmineh sent word to +him that the child was a girl—"no son," and Rustum took no +further interest in it.</p> +<p> +While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble +lineage. He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of +ten years, according to the tradition, was large and handsome and +highly accomplished in the use of arms. Realizing at length that +he was of lofty descent, he insisted that his mother, who had concealed +the fact, should inform him of the name of his father. Being +told that it was the renowned Rustum, he exclaimed, "Since he is +my father, I shall go to his aid; he shall become king of Persia +and together we shall rule the world." After this the youth caused +a horse worthy of him to be found, and with the aid of his grandfather, +the king of Semenjan, he prepared to go on the quest, +attended by a mighty host.</p> +<p> +When Afrasiab, the Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was +going to war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after +counselling with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his +enterprises, with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab +would fall in battle and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly +sent an army of auxiliaries to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute <span class="left">[p.152]</span> +courtiers, Houman and Barman, who, under the guise of friendship, +were to act as counsellors to the young leader. These he +ordered to keep the knowledge of their relationship from father +and son and to seek to bring about an encounter between them, +in the hope that Sohrab would slay Rustum, Afrasiab's most +dreaded foeman, after which the unsuspecting youth might easily +be disposed of by treachery.</p> +<p> +Sohrab, with his army and that of Afrasiab, set out, intending to +fight his way until Rustum should be sent against him, when he +would reveal himself to his father and form an alliance with him +that would place the line of Seistan on the throne. On the way +southward, Sohrab overthrew and captured the Persian champion, +Hujir, and the same day conquered the warrior maiden Gurdafrid, +whose beauty and tears, however, prevailed upon him to release +her. Guzdehern, father of Gurdafrid, recognizing Sohrab's prowess, +and alarmed for the safety of the Persian throne, secretly despatched +a courier to the king Kai Kaoos to warn him of the young +Tartar's approach. Kaoos, in great terror, sent for Rustum to +hurry to his aid. Regardless of the king's request, Rustum spent +eight days in feasting, then presented himself at the court. Kaoos, +angered at the delay, ordered both the champion and the messenger +to be executed forthwith; but Rustum effected his escape on +Ruksh, and returned to Seistan, leaving Persia to her fate. The +king's wrath, however, soon gave place to fear; and recognizing +the danger of his throne unsupported by Rustum's valor, he despatched +messengers to him with humble petitions and apologies. +After much protesting, Rustum finally yielded and accompanied +the Persian army, under the king Kai Kaoos, which at once set +forth to encounter Sohrab.</p> +<p> +The morning before the opening of hostilities, Sohrab, taking the +Persian Hujir, whom he still held a prisoner, to the top of a rocky +eminence, ordered him to point out the tents of the chief warriors <span class="left">[p.153]</span> +of the Persian army, particularly Rustum's. But Hujir, fearing +lest Sohrab should attack Rustum unexpectedly and so overcome +him, declared that the great chieftain's tent was not among those +on the plain below. Disappointed at his failure to find his father, +Sohrab led his army in a fierce onslaught on the Persians, driving +them in confusion before him. In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos +sent for Rustum, who was somewhat apart from the main troop. +Exclaiming that the king never sent for him except when he had +got himself into trouble, the warrior armed, mounted Ruksh, and +rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the two champions withdrew +to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they might fight out +their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each other, +Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried to +dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. +Sohrab, filled with sudden hope,—an instinctive feeling that the +father whom he was seeking stood before him,—eagerly demanded +whether this were Rustum. But Rustum, fearing treachery, said +he was only an ordinary man, having neither palace nor princely +kingdom—not Rustum.</p> +<p> +They marked off the lists, and, mounted on their powerful horses, +fought first with javelins, then with swords, clubs, and bows and +arrows. After several hours of fighting both were exhausted, and +by tacit consent they retired to opposite sides of the lists for rest. +When the combat was renewed, Sohrab gained a slight advantage. +A truce was then made for the night, and the warriors returned to +their tents to prepare for the morrow.</p> +<p> +With daybreak the struggle was renewed. To prevent the +armies from intervening or engaging in battle, they were removed +to a distance of several miles. Midway between, Sohrab and Rustum +met in the midst of a lonely, treeless waste. More convinced +than before that his adversary was Rustum, Sohrab sought to bring +about a reconciliation, but Rustum refused. This time they fought <span class="left">[p.154]</span> +on foot. From morning till afternoon they fought, neither gaining +any decided advantage. At last Sohrab succeeded in felling Rustum +to the earth, and was about to slay him, when the Persian +called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous warfare to +slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. Sohrab, +generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again father and +son parted.</p> +<p> +Rustum, scarcely believing himself alive after such an escape, +purified himself with water, and prayed that his wounds might be +healed and his accustomed strength restored to him. Never before +had he been so beset in battle.</p> +<p> +With morning came the renewal of the combat, both champions +determining to end it that day. Late in the evening Rustum, by a +supreme effort, seized Sohrab around the waist and hurled him to +the ground. Then, fearing lest the youth prove too strong for him +in the end, he drew his blade and plunged it into Sohrab's bosom.</p> +<p> +Sohrab forgave Rustum, but warned him to beware the vengeance +of his father, the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that +he had slain his son Sohrab. "I went out to seek my father," +cried the dying youth, "for my mother had told me by what tokens +I should know him, and I perish for longing after him.... Yet +I say unto thee, if thou shouldst become a fish that swimmeth in +the depths of the ocean, if thou shouldst change into a star that is +concealed in the farthest heaven, my father would draw thee forth +from thy hiding-place, and avenge my death upon thee, when he +shall learn that the earth is become my bed. For my father is +Rustum the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him, how that Sohrab +his son perished in the quest after his face." These words were as +death to the aged hero, who fell senseless at the side of his wounded +son. When he had recovered he called in despair for proofs of +what Sohrab had said. The now dying youth tore open his mail +and showed his father the onyx which his mother had bound on his <span class="left">[p.155]</span> +arm as directed.</p> +<p> +The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he +cursed himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for +the efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his +tents and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and +buried it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, +was permitted to return home unmolested. When the tidings +of Sohrab's death reached his mother, she was inconsolable, +and died in less than a year.</p> +<p> +In the main the story as told by Arnold follows the original narrative. +A careful investigation of the alterations made, and the +effect thus produced, will lend added interest to the study of the +poem and give ample theme for composition work.</p> +<br /><br /> +<p> +<b><a name="1">1</a> And the first grey of morning fill'd the east.</b> Note the +abrupt opening. What is gained by its use? At what point in +the story as told in the introductory note does the poem take up +the narrative? Be sure to get a clear mental picture of the initiative +scene. <i>And</i> is here used in a manner common in the Scriptures. +Cf. "And the Lord spake unto Moses," etc.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2">2</a> Oxus.</b> The chief river of Central Asia, which separated Turan +from Iran or the Persian Empire, called Oxus by the Greeks and +Romans, and the Jihun or Amu by the Arabs and Persians. It +takes its source in Lake Sir-i-Kol, in the Pamir table-land, at a +height of 15,600 feet, flows northwest, and empties into the Aral +Sea on the south. Its length is about 1300 miles.</p> +<p> +"The introduction of the tranquil pictures of the Oxus, both at +the beginning and close of the poem (ll. 875-892), flowing steadily +on, unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, +forms one of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3">3</a> Tartar camp.</b> The Tartars were nomadic tribes of Central +Asia and southern Russia. The so-called Black Tartars, identified +with the Scythians of the Greek historians, inhabited the basin of <span class="left">[p.156]</span> +the Aral and Caspian Seas, and are the tribe referred to in the +poem. They are a fierce, warlike people; hence our expression, +"caught a Tartar."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11">11.</a> Peran-Wisa.</b> A celebrated Turanian chief, here in command +of Afrasiab's army, which was composed of representatives +of many Tartar tribes, as indicated in ll. 119-134.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15">15.</a> Pamere</b>, or Pamir. An extensive plateau region of Central +Asia, called by the natives the "roof of the world." Among the +rivers having their source in this plateau are the Oxus, l. 2, and the +Jaxartes, l. 129.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38">38.</a> Afrasiab.</b> The king of the Tartars, and one of the principal +heroes of the <i>Shah Nameh</i>, the Persian "Book of Kings." He is +reputed to have been strong as a lion and to have had few equals +as a warrior.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40">40.</a> Samarcand.</b> A city in the district of Serafshan, Turkestan, +to the east of Bokhara; now a considerable commercial and manufacturing +centre, and a centre of Mohammedan learning.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42">42.</a> Ader-baijan.</b> The northwest province of Persia, on the +Turanian frontier.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="45">45.</a> At my boy's years.</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="60">60.</a> common fight.</b> In the sense of a general engagement. Be +sure to catch the reason why Sohrab makes his request.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="61">61.</a> sunk.</b> That is, lost sight of.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="67">67.</a> common chance.</b> See note, l. 60. Which would be the +more dangerous, a "single" or "common" combat? Why?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="70">70.</a> To find a father thou hast never seen.</b> See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="82">82.</a> Seistan.</b> A province of southwest Afghanistan bordering +on the Persian province of Yezd. It is intersected by the Helmund +River (l. 751), which flows into the Hamoon Lake, now scarcely +more than a morass. On an island in this lake are ruins of fortifications +called Fort Rustum. This territory was long held by Rustum's <span class="left">[p.157]</span> +family, feudatory to the Persian kings. <br /> +<b>Zal.</b> Rustum's +father, ruler of Seistan. See note, l. <a href="#232">232</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="83">83-85.</a> Whether that ... or in some quarrel</b>, etc. Either +because his mighty strength ... or because of some quarrel, etc.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="85">85.</a> Persian King.</b> That is, Kai Kaoos (or Kai Khosroo). See +introductory note to poem; also note, l. <a href="#223">223</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="86">86-91.</a> There go!</b> etc. The touching solicitation of these lines +is wholly Arnold's.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="99">99.</a> Why ruler's staff, no sword?</b></p> +<p> +<b><a name="101">101.</a> Kara Kul.</b> A district some thirty miles southwest of +Bokhara, noted for the excellence of its pasturage, and for its fleeces.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107">107.</a> Haman.</b> Next to Peran-Wisa in command of Tartar army. +See Houman, in introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="113"></a><a name="114"></a>113-114. Casbin.</b> A fortified city in the province of +Irak-Ajemi, +Persia, situated on the main route from Persia to Europe, +and at one time the capital of the Iranian empire. Just to the +north of the city rise the <br /> +<b>Elburz Mountains</b> (l. 114), which separate +the Persian Plateau from the depression containing the +Caspian and Aral Seas.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="115">115.</a> frore.</b> Frozen, from the Anglo-Saxon <i>froren</i>.</p> +<p class="indent"> + "... the parching air<br /> +Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ll. 594-595, Book II.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="119">119.</a> Bokhara.</b> Here the state of Bokhara, an extensive region +of Central Asia, touching the Aral Sea to the north, the Oxus to +the south, and Khiva to the west. It has an estimated area of +235,000 square miles, and contains nineteen cities of considerable +size, of which the capital, Bokhara, is most important.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="120">120.</a> Khiva.</b> A khanate situated in the valley of the lower +Oxus, bordering Bokhara on the southeast. <b>ferment the milk +of mares.</b> An intoxicating drink, <i>Koumiss</i>, made of camel's or <span class="left">[p.158]</span> +mare's milk, is in wide use among the steppe tribes.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="121">121.</a> Toorkmuns.</b> A branch of the Turkish race found chiefly +in northern Persia and Afghanistan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="122">122.</a> Tukas.</b> From the province of Azer-baijan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123">123.</a> Attruck.</b> A river of Khorassan, near the frontier of +Khiva; it has a west course, and enters the Caspian Sea on the +east side.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="128">128.</a> Ferghana.</b> A khanate of Turkestan, north of Bokhara, in +the upper valley of the Sir Daria.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129">129.</a> Jaxartes.</b> The ancient name of the Sir Daria River. It +takes its source in the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the Pamir +Plateau ranges, and flows with a general direction north, emptying +into the Aral Sea on the east side.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="131">131.</a> Kipchak.</b> A khanate some seventy miles below Khiva on +the Oxus.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="132">132.</a> Kalmucks.</b> A nomadic branch of the Mongolian race, +dwelling in western Siberia. <br /> +<b>Kuzzaks.</b> Now commonly called +Cossacks; a warlike people inhabiting the steppes of southern +Russia and extensive portions of Asia. Their origin is uncertain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="133">133.</a> Kirghizzes.</b> A rude nomadic people of Mongolian-Tartar +race found in northern Turkestan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="138">138. </a>Khorassan.</b> (That is, the region of the sun.) A province +of northeastern Persia, largely desert. The origin of the name is +prettily suggested by Moore in the opening poem of <i>Lalla Rookh</i>:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"In the delightful province of the sun<br /> +The first of Persian lands he shines upon," etc. +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="147">147.</a> fix'd.</b> Stopped suddenly, halted.</p> +<p> +<b>154-169.</b> Note the effect the challenge has on the two armies.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="156">156. </a>corn.</b> Here used with its European sense of "grain." It +is only in America that the word signifies Indian corn or "maize."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160">160.</a> Cabool.</b> Capital of northern Afghanistan, and an important <span class="left">[p.159]</span> +commercial city.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161">161.</a> Indian Caucasus.</b> A lofty mountain range north of Cabool, +which forms the boundary between Turkestan and Afghanistan.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="173">173.</a> King.</b> See note, l. <a href="#85">85</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="177">177.</a> lion's heart.</b> Explain the line. Why are the terms here +used so forcible in the mouth of Gudurz?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="178">178-183.</a> Aloof he sits, etc.</b> One is reminded by Rustum's deportment +here, of Achilles sulking in his tent and nursing his wrath +against Agamemnon.—<i>Iliad</i>, Book I.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="199">199.</a> sate.</b> Old form of "sat," common in poetry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200">200.</a> falcon.</b> A kind of hawk trained to catch game birds.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="217">217.</a> Iran.</b> The official name of Persia.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="221">221.</a> Go to!</b> Hebraic expression. Frequently found in Shakespeare.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="223">223.</a> Kai Khosroo.</b> According to the <i>Shah Nameh</i>, the thirteenth +Turanian king. He reigned in the sixth century B.C., and has +been identified with Cyrus the Great.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="230">230.</a> Not that one slight helpless girl, etc.</b> See ll. 609-611, also +<a href="#p.151">introduction</a> to the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="232">232.</a> snow-haired Zal.</b> According to tradition, Zal was born +with snow-white hair. His father Lahm, believing this an ill +omen, doomed the unfortunate babe to be exposed on the loftiest +summit of the Elburz Mountains. The Simurgh, a great bird or +griffin, found him and cared for him till grown, then restored him +to his repentant parent. He subsequently married the Princess +Rudabeh of Seistan, by whom he became father of Rustum.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="248">243-248.</a> He spoke ... men.</b> Note carefully Gudurz's argument. +Why so effective with Rustum?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="257">257.</a> But I will fight unknown and in plain arms.</b> The shields +and arms of the champions were emblazoned with mottoes and +devices. Why does Rustum determine to lay aside his accustomed +arms and fight incognito? What effect does this determination <span class="left">[p.160]</span> +have upon the ultimate outcome of the situation? Read the story +of the arming of Achilles (Book XIX., Homer's <i>Iliad</i>), and compare +with Rustum's preparation for battle.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="266">266.</a> device.</b> See note, l. 257.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="277">277.</a> Dight.</b> Adorned, dressed.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"The clouds in thousand liveries dight."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>L'Allegro,</i> l. 62.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="286">286.</a> Bahrein</b> or Aval. A group of islands in the Persian Gulf, +celebrated for its pearl fisheries.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="288">288. </a>tale.</b> Beckoning, number.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"And every shepherd tells his <i>tale</i>,<br /> +Under the hawthorn in the dale."<br /> + + +—MILTON. <i>L'Allegro,</i> ll. 67-68.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="306">306.</a> flowers.</b> Decorates, beautifies with floral designs.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="311">311.</a> perused.</b> Studied, observed closely.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="318">318.</a></b> In a letter dated November, 1852, Mr. Arnold speaks of the +figures in his poem as follows: "I can only say that I took a great +deal of trouble to orientalize them, because I thought they looked +strange, and jarred, if western." What is gained by their use?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="325">325.</a> vast.</b> Large, mighty.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="326">326.</a> tried.</b> Proved, experienced.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="328">328.</a> Never was that field lost or that foe saved.</b> Note the +power gained in this line by the use of the alliteration.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="330">330.</a> Be govern'd.</b> Be influenced, persuaded.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="343">343.</a> by thy father's head!</b> Such oaths are common to the +extravagant speech of the oriental peoples.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="344">344.</a> Art thou not Rustum?</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="367">367.</a> vaunt.</b> Boast implied in the challenge.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="380">380.</a> Thou wilt not fright me so!</b> That is, by such talk.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="401">401. </a>tower'd.</b> Remained stationary, poised.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="406">406.</a> full struck.</b> Struck squarely.</p> <span class="left">[p.161]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="412">412.</a> Hyphasis, Hydaspes.</b> Two of the rivers of the Punjab in +northern India, now known as the Beas and Jhylum. In 326 B.C. +Alexander defeated Porus on the banks of the latter stream.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="414">414.</a> wrack.</b> Ruin, havoc. (Poetical.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="418">418.</a> glancing.</b> In the sense of darting aside.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="435">435.</a> hollow.</b> Unnatural in tone.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="452">452.</a> like that autumn-star.</b> Probably Sirius, the Dog Star, +under whose ascendency, according to ancient beliefs, epidemic +diseases prevailed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="454">454.</a> crest.</b> That is, helmet and plume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="466">466.</a> Remember all thy valour.</b> That is, summon up all your +courage.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="469">469.</a> girl's wiles.</b> Explain the line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="470">470.</a> kindled.</b> Roused, angered.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="481">481.</a> unnatural.</b> because of the kinship of the combatants.</p> +<p> +<b>481-486. for a cloud</b>, etc. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. +the cloud that enveloped Paris—Book III., ll. 465-469, of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="489">489.</a> And the sun sparkled</b>, etc. Why this reference to the clear +Oxus stream at this moment of intense tragedy?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="495">495.</a> helm.</b> Helmet; defensive armor for the head.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="497">497.</a> shore.</b> Past tense of <i>shear</i>, to cut.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="499">499.</a> bow'd his head:</b> because of the force of the blow.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="508">508. </a>curdled.</b> Thickened as with fear.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="516">516.</a> Rustum!</b> Why did this word so affect Sohrab? Note the +author's skill in working up to this climax in the narrative.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="527">527-539.</a> Then with a bitter smile</b>, etc. Compare these words +of the victor, Rustum, with the words of Sohrab, ll. 427-447, when +the advantage was with him.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="536">536.</a> glad.</b> Make happy.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"That which <i>gladded</i> all the warrior train."<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="538">538.</a> Dearer to the red jackals</b>, etc. <span class="left">[p.162]</span> +Cf. I. Sam. xvii. 44: "Come +to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the +beasts of the field." Careful investigation will show the poem to +abound with Biblical as well as classical parallelisms.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="556">556-575.</a> As when some hunter, etc.</b> One of the truly great +similes in the English language.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="563">563.</a> sole.</b> Alone, solitary. From the Latin <i>solus</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="570">570.</a> glass.</b> Reflect as in a mirror.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="596">596.</a> bruited up.</b> Noised abroad.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="613">613.</a> the style.</b> The name or title.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="625">625. </a>that old king.</b> The king of Semenjan. See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="632">632.</a> Of age and looks</b>, etc. That is, of such age as he (Sohrab) +would be, if born of his (Rustum's) union with Tahmineh.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="658">658-660.</a> I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm</b>, etc. This is Arnold's +conception. In the original story Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an +amulet. The onyx was supposed to incite the wearer to deeds of +valor.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="664">664.</a> corselet.</b> Protective armor for the body.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="672">672.</a> cunning.</b> Skilful, deft.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="679">679.</a> griffin.</b> In the natural history of the ancients, an imaginary +animal, half lion and half eagle. Here the Simurgh. See +note, l. <a href="#232">232</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="710">708-710.</a> unconscious hand.</b> Note how the dying Sohrab seeks +to console the grief-stricken Rustum.</p> +<p class="indent"> +"Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune.<br /> +It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father."<br /> + + + + +—<i>Shah Nameh</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="717">717.</a> have found</b> (him). Note the ellipsis.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="724">723-724.</a> I came ... passing wind.</b> The <i>Shah Nameh</i> has—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="736">736.</a> caked the sand.</b> Hardened into cakes.</p> <span class="left">[p.163]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="751">751.</a> Helmund.</b> See note, l. <a href="#82">82</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="752">752.</a> Zirrah.</b> Another lake in Seistan, southeast of Hamoon, +now almost dry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="765">763-765.</a><a name="763"></a> Moorghab, Tejend and Kohik.</b> Rivers of Turkestan +which lose themselves in the deserts to the south of Bokhara. The +northern Sir is the Sir Daria, or Jaxartes. See note, l. <a href="#129">129</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="788">788.</a> And heap a stately mound</b>, etc. Persian tradition says that +a large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed +over the spot where Sohrab was buried.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="830">830.</a> on that day.</b> Shortly after the death of Afrasiab, the Persian +monarch Kai Khosroo, accompanied by a large number of +his nobles, went to a spring far to the north, the location fixed +upon as a place for their repose. Here the king died, and those +who went with him afterward perished in a tempest. Sohrab +predicted Rustum would be one of those lost, but tradition does +not have it so.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="861">861.</a> Persepolis.</b> An ancient capital of Persia, the ruins of which +are known as "the throne of Jemshid," after a mythical king.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="878">878.</a> Chorasma.</b> A region of Turkestan, the seat of a powerful +empire in the twelfth century, but now greatly reduced. Its +present limits are about the same as those of Khiva. See note, +l. <a href="#120">120</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="880">880. </a>Right for the polar star.</b> That is, due north. <b>Orgunje.</b> +A village on the Oxus some seventy miles below Khiva, and near +the head of its delta.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="890">890.</a> luminous home.</b> The Aral Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="891">891.</a> new bathed stars.</b> As the stars appear on the horizon, +they seem to have come up out of the sea.</p> +<p> +<b>875-892.</b> Discuss the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these closing lines of the poem. See also note, +ll. <a href="#231sg">231-250</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i> +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#BRANDAN">SAINT BRANDAN</a><a name="SAINT">°</a></h3><span class="left">[p.164]</span> +<p> +In this poem Arnold has vividly presented a quaint legend of +Judas Iscariot, popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Brandan (490-577) +was a celebrated Irish monk, famous for his voyages. "According +to the legendary accounts of his travels, he set sail with +others to seek the terrestrial paradise which was supposed to exist +in an island of the Atlantic. Various miracles are related of the +voyage, but they are always connected with the great island where +the monks are said to have landed. The legend was current in +the time of Columbus and long after, and many connected St. +Brandan's island with the newly discovered America. He is commemorated +on May 16."—<i>The Century Cyclopedia of Names</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7b">7.</a> Hebrides.</b> A group of islands off the northwestern coast of +Scotland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11b">11.</a> hurtling Polar lights.</b> A reference to the rapid, changing +movements of the Aurora Borealis.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18b">18.</a> Of hair that red.</b> According to tradition, Judas Iscariot's +hair was red.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21b">21.</a> sate.</b> See note, l. <a href="#199">199</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. +(Old form of "sat," common in poetry.) +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31b">31.</a> self-murder.</b> After betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself. +See Matt, xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38b">38.</a> The Leper recollect.</b> There is no scriptural authority for +this incident.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40b">40.</a> Joppa</b>, or Jaffa. A small maritime town of Palestine—the +ancient port of Jerusalem. There is also a small village called +Jaffa in Galilee, some two miles southwest of Nazareth, which +may have been the place the poet had in mind.</p> + + <br /><hr /><br /> +<p> +Image the situation as presented in the first several stanzas. +Why locate in the sea without a "human shore," l. 12? Is there +any especial reason for having the time Christmas night? Note +the dramatic introduction of Judas. What effect did his appearance <span class="left">[p.165]</span> +have on the saint? How was the latter reassured? Give +reasons why Judas felt impelled to tell his story. Tell the story. +Does he praise or belittle his act of charity? Why does he say +"that <i>chance</i> act of good"? How was it rewarded? Explain +his last expression. Was he about to say more? If so, what? +What effect did Judas's story have on Saint Brandan? Why? +What is the underlying thought in the poem? Discuss the form +of verse used and its appropriateness to the theme.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#FORSAKEN">THE FORSAKEN MERMAN</a><a name="MERMAN">°</a></h3> +<p> +"The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's +two poems, <i>The Merman</i> and <i>The Mermaid</i>. A comparison will +show that, in this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched +his subject not less melodiously and with finer and deeper +feeling.—Margaret will not listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with +pain';—dearer to her is the selfish desire to save her own soul +than is the light in the eyes of her little Mermaiden, dearer than +the love of the king of the sea, who yearns for her with sorrow-laden +heart. Here is there an infinite tenderness and an infinite +tragedy."</p> +<p> +—L. DUPONT SYLE, <i>From Milton to Tennyson</i>.</p> +<p> +Legends of this kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and +Cymric people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more +pleasing and touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note +carefully the dramatic manner in which the pathos of the story is +presented and developed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6m">6.</a> wild white horses.</b> Breakers, whitecaps.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13m"></a>13. Margaret.</b> A favorite name with Arnold. See <i>Isolation</i> +and <i>A Dream</i> in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="39m">39.</a> ranged.</b> See note, l. <a href="#73sr">73</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>. +(wander aimlessly about.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42m">42.</a> mail.</b> Protective covering.</p> <span class="left">[p.166]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="54m">54.</a></b> Why "down swung the sound of a far-off bell"?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81m">81.</a> seal'd.</b> Fastened; fixed intently upon, as though spellbound.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="93m">89-93.</a> Hark ... sun.</b> In her song Margaret shows she is still +keenly alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The +priest, bell, and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here +Roman Catholic. The bell is used in the Roman Church to call +especial attention to the more important portions of the service; +the well is the holy-water font.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129m">129.</a> heaths starr'd with broom.</b> The flower of the broom plant, +common in England, is yellow; hence, <i>starr'd</i>.</p> +<p> +In his work on Matthew Arnold, George Saintsbury speaks of +this poem as follows: "It is, I believe, not so 'correct' as it +once was to admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to +correctness, at least the correctness which varies with fashion. <i>The +Forsaken Merman</i> is not a perfect poem—it has <i>tongueurs</i>, though +it is not long; it has its inadequacies, those incompetences of +expression which are so oddly characteristic of its author; and his +elaborate simplicity, though more at home here than in some other +places, occasionally gives a dissonance. But it is a great poem,—one +by itself,—one which finds and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained +gallery or museum, with which every true lover of poetry +is provided, though he inherits it by degrees. None, I suppose, +will deny its pathos; I should be sorry for any one who fails to +perceive its beauty. The brief picture of the land, and the fuller +one of the sea, and that (more elaborate still) of the occupations +of the fugitive, all have their charm. But the triumph of the +piece is in one of those metrical coups, which give the triumph +of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden change from the slower +movements of the earlier stanzas, or strophes, to the quicker sweep +of the famous conclusions."</p> +<p> +What is the opening situation in the poem? Have the merman <span class="left">[p.167]</span> +and his children just reached the shore, or have they been there +some time? Why so? Why does the merman still linger, when +he is convinced that further delay will count for nothing? Why +does he urge the children to call? What is shown by his repeated +question—"was it yesterday"? Tell the story of Margaret's +departure for the upper world, and discuss the validity of her +reason for going. Do you think she intended to return? What +is the significance of her smile just before departing? Give a +word picture of what the sea-folk saw as they lingered in the +churchyard. Will Margaret ever grieve for the past? If so, +when? Why? Who has your sympathy most, Margaret, the +forsaken merman, or the children? Why? Do you condemn +Margaret for the way she has done, or do you feel she was justified +in her actions? Discuss the versification, giving special attention +to its effect on the movement of the poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#ISEULT">TRISTRAM AND ISEULT</a><a name="TRISTRAM">°</a></h3> +<p> +The story of Tristram and Iseult is one of the most vivid and +passionate of the Arthurian cycle of legends, and is a favorite with +the poets. The following version is abridged from Dunlop's <i>History +of Fiction</i>.</p> +<p> +"In the court of his uncle, King Marc, the king of Cornwall, +who at this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became +expert in all knightly exercises.... The king of Ireland, at Tristram's +solicitation, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage +on King Marc.... The mother of Iseult gave to her +daughter's confidante a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered +on the night of her nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult +unfortunately partook. Its influence, during the remainder of their +lives, regulated the affections and destiny of the lovers.</p> +<p> +"After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the <span class="left">[p.168]</span> +nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance +is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews +... Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the +displeasure of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult +with the White Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude +than love. Afterwards he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur +which became the theatre of unnumbered exploits.</p> +<p> +"Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany and +to his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was +soon reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation he despatched a +confidant to the queen of Cornwall to try if he could induce her to +follow him to Brittany.</p> +<p> +"Meanwhile Tristram awaited the arrival of the queen with such +impatience that he employed one of his wife's damsels to watch at +the harbor. Through her, Iseult learned Tristram's secret, and +filled with jealousy, flew to her husband as the vessel which bore +the queen of Cornwall was wafted toward the harbor, and reported +that the sails were black (the signal that Iseult, Marc's queen, had +refused Tristram's request to come to him). Tristram, penetrated +with inexpressible grief, died. The account of Tristram's death +was the first intelligence which the queen of Cornwall heard on +landing. She was conducted to his chamber, and expired holding +him in her arms."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1t">1.</a> Is she not come?</b> That is, Iseult of Ireland. Arnold's poem +takes up the story at the point where Tristram, now on his death-bed, +is watching eagerly for the coming of Iseult, Marc's queen, for +whom he had sent his confidant to Cornwall. Evidently he has +just awakened and is still somewhat confused; see l. 7. Surely +none will fail to appreciate so dramatic a situation.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5t">5.</a> What ... be?</b> That is, what lights are those to the northward, +the direction from which Iseult would come?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8t">8.</a> Iseult.</b> Here Iseult of the White Hands, <span class="left">[p.169]</span> +daughter of King Hoel of Brittany and wife of Tristram.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="20t">20.</a> Arthur's court.</b> Arthur, the half-mythical king of the Britons, +set up his court at Camelot, which Caxton locates in Wales +and Malory near Winchester. Here was gathered the famous +company of champions known as the "Knights of the Round +Table," whose feats have been extensively celebrated in song and +story. Among these knights Tristram held high rank, both as a +warrior and a harpist. See ll. 17-19.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23t">23.</a> Lyoness.</b> A mythical region near Cornwall, the home country +of Arthur and Tristram.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31t">30-31.</a></b> Hence the name, Iseult of the White Hands.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="68t">56-68.</a></b> See introductory note to poem for explanation.<br /> +<b>Tyntagel.</b> A village in Cornwall near the sea. Near it is the ruined +Tyntagel Castle, the reputed birthplace of Arthur. In the romance +of Sir Tristram it is the castle of King Marc, the cowardly and +treacherous king of Cornwall, the southwest county of England.<br /> +<b>teen</b>. See note, l. <a href="#147sg">147</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.<br /> +(Grief, sorrow; from the old English <i>teona</i>, meaning +injury.)</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="88t">88.</a> wanders</b>, in fancy. Note how the wounded knight's mind +flits from scene to scene, always centring around Iseult of Ireland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="91t">91.</a> O'er ... sea.</b> The Irish Sea. He is dreaming of his return +trip from Ireland with Iseult, "under the cloudless sky of May" +(l. 96).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="130t">129-132.</a></b> See introductory note to poem. The green isle, Ireland +is noted for its green fields; hence the name, Emerald (green) +Isle.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134t">134.</a> on loud Tyntagel's hill.</b> A high headland on the coast of +Wales. Discuss the force of the adjective "loud" in this connection.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160t">137-160.</a> And that ... more.</b> See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161t">161.</a> pleasaunce-walks.</b> A pleasure garden, screened by trees, +shrubs, and close hedges—here a trysting-place. <span class="left">[p.170]</span> +After the marriage of Iseult to King Marc, she and Tristram contrived to continue +their relationship in secret.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="164t">164.</a> fay.</b> Faith. (Obsolete except in poetry.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180t">180.</a></b> Tristram, having been discovered by King Marc in his +intrigues with Iseult, was forced to leave Cornwall; hence his visit +to Brittany and subsequent marriage to Iseult of the White Hands. +See introductory note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="192t">192.</a> lovely orphan child.</b> Iseult of Brittany.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="194t">194.</a> chatelaine.</b> From the French, meaning the mistress of a +château—a castle or fortress.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200t">200.</a> stranger-knight, ill-starr'd.</b> That is, Tristram, whose many +mishaps argued his being born under an unlucky star. See also the +account of his birth, note, ll. <a href="#88t2">81-88</a>, Part II.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="203t">203.</a> Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard.</b> Prior to his visit to +Brittany, Tristram had imprisoned his uncle, King Marc, and +eloped with Iseult to the domains of King Arthur. While there +he resided at Joyous Gard, the favorite castle of Launcelot, which +that knight assigned to the lovers as their abode.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="204t">204.</a> Welcomed here.</b> That is, in Brittany, where he was nursed +back to health by Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory +note to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="226t">215-226.</a> His long rambles ... ground.</b> Account for Tristram's +discontent, as indicated in these lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="237t">234-237.</a> All red ... bathed in foam.</b> The kings of Britain +agreed with Arthur to make war upon Rome. Arthur, leaving +Modred in charge of his kingdom, made war upon the Romans, and, +after a number of encounters, Lucius Tiberius was killed and the +Britons were victorious.—GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Book IV, +Chapter XV; Book X, Chapters I-XIII. According to Malory, +Arthur captured many French and Italian cities (see ll. 250-251); +during this continental invasion, and was finally crowned king at +Rome. It seems that he afterward despatched a considerable number <span class="left">[p.171]</span> +of his knights to carry the Christian faith among the heathen +German tribes. See ll. 252-253.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="238t">238.</a> moonstruck knight.</b> A reference to the mystical influence +the ancients supposed the moon to exert over men's minds and +actions.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="239t">239.</a> What foul fiend rides thee?</b> What evil spirit possesses you +and keeps you from the fight?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="240t">240.</a> her.</b> That is, Iseult of Ireland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="243t">243.</a> wanders forth again</b>, in fancy.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245t">245.</a> secret in his breast.</b> What secret?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="252t">250-253.</a></b> See note, ll. <a href="#237t">234-237</a>. +<b>blessed sign.</b> The cross.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="255t">255.</a> Roman Emperor.</b> That is, Lucius Tiberius. See note, +ll. <a href="#237t">234-237</a></p> +<p> +<b><a name="258t">258.</a> leaguer.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="261t">261.</a> what boots it?</b> That is, what difference will it make?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="303t">303.</a> recks not.</b> Has no thought of (archaic).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="314t">308-314.</a> My princess ... good night.</b> Are Tristram's words +sincere, or has he a motive in thus dismissing Iseult?</p> +<p> +<b>373-374.</b> From a dramatic standpoint, what is the purpose of +these two lines?</p> +<br /><br /> + +<h4><a href="#IRELAND">PART II</a><a name="II">°</a></h4> +<p> +With the opening of Part II the lovers are restored to each +other. The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with +long waiting, unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having +come to him with greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, +quickly dispel his doubts as to her loyalty to her former +vows. A complete reconciliation takes place, and they die in each +other's embrace. The picture of the Huntsman on the arras is one +of the most notable in English poetry.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="47t2">47.</a> honied nothings</b>. Explain. Compare with</p> <span class="left">[p.172]</span> + <p class="indent"> + "his tongue<br /> + Dropt manna."<br /> + + —<i>Paradise Lost</i>, ll. 112-113, Book II.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="88t2">81-88</a></b>. Tristram was born in the forest, where his mother Isabella, +sister to King Marc, had gone in search of her recreant +husband.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="100t2">97-100</a></b>. Tennyson, in <i>The Last Tournament</i>, follows Malory in +the story of Tristram's and Iseult's death. "That traitor, King +Mark, slew the noble knight, Sir Tristram, as he sat harping before +his lady, La Beale Isoud, with a trenchant glaive, for whose death +was much bewailing of every knight that ever was in Arthur's +days ... and La Beale Isoud died swooning upon the cross of Sir +Tristram, whereof was great pity."—Malory's <i>Morte d' Arthur.</i></p> +<p> + <b><a name="113t2">113.</a> sconce</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="122t2">116-122</a></b>. Why this restlessness on the part of Iseult? Why her +frequent glances toward the door?</p> +<p> + <b><a name="132t2">132.</a> dogg'd</b>. Worried, pursued. Coleridge uses the epithet +"star-dogged moon," l. 212, Part III, <i>The Ancient Mariner.</i></p> +<p> + <b><a name="193t2">147-193</a></b>. For the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these lines, see notes on the Tyrian trader, ll. <a href="#231sg">231-250</a>, 232, +<i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i> +</p> + +<br /><br /> + +<h4><a href="#BRITTANY">PART III</a><a name="IB">°</a></h4> + +<p> +After the death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland, our thoughts +inevitably turn to Iseult of the White Hands. The infinite pathos +of her life has aroused our deepest sympathy, and we naturally +want to know further concerning her and Tristram's children.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="13t3">13.</a> cirque</b>. A circle (obsolete or poetical). See l. 7, Part III.</p> +<p> + <b><a name="18t3">18.</a> holly-trees and juniper</b>. Evergreen trees common in Europe +and America.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="22t3">22.</a> fell-fare</b> (or field-fare). <span class="left">[p.173]</span> +A small thrush found in Northern Europe.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="26t3">26.</a> stagshorn.</b> A common club-moss.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37t3">37.</a> old-world Breton history.</b> That is, the story of Merlin and +Vivian, ll. 153-224, Part III.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81t3">79-81</a></b>. Compare with the following lines from Wordsworth's +<i>Michael</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"This light was famous in its neighborhood.<br /> +... For, as it chanced,<br /> +Their cottage on a plot of rising ground<br /> +Stood single....<br /> +And from this constant light so regular<br /> +And so far seen, the House itself, by all<br /> +Who dwelt within the limits of the vale<br /> +... was named <i>The Evening Star</i>."</p> + +<p> +<b> iron coast.</b> This line inevitably calls to mind a stanza from +Tennyson's <i>Palace of Art</i>:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.<br /> +You seemed to hear them climb and fall<br /> +And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves,<br /> +Beneath the windy wall."</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="92t3">92.</a> prie-dieu.</b> Praying-desk. From the French <i>prier</i>, pray; +<i>dieu</i>, God.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="97t3">97.</a> seneschal.</b> A majordomo; a steward. Originally meant +<i>old</i> (that is, <i>chief) servant</i>; from the Gothic <i>sins</i>, old, and <i>salks</i>, +a servant.—SKEAT.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134t3">134.</a> gulls.</b> Deceives, tricks.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"The vulgar, <i>gulled</i> into rebellion, armed,"<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140t3">140.</a></b> posting here and there. That is, restlessly changing from +place to place and from occupation to occupation.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="143t3">143-145.</a> Like that bold Cæsar</b>, etc. Julius Cæsar (100?-44 +B.C.). The incident here alluded to Is mentioned in Suetonius' <span class="left">[p.174]</span> +<i>Life of the Deified Julius</i>, Chapter VII. "Farther Spain fell to +the lot of Cæsar as questor. When, at the command of the Roman +people, he was holding court and had come to Cadiz, he noticed in +the temple of Hercules a statue of Alexander the Great. At sight +of this statue he sighed, as if disgusted at his own lack of achievement, +because he had done nothing of note by the time in life +(Cæsar was then thirty-two) that Alexander had conquered the +world." (Free translation.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="150t3">146-150.</a> Prince Alexander, etc.</b> Alexander III., surnamed +"The Great" (356-323 B.C.), was the most famous of Macedonian +generals and conquerors, and the first in order of time of the +four most celebrated commanders of whom history makes mention. +In less than fifteen years he extended his domain over the known +world and established himself as the universal emperor. He died +at Babylon, his capital city, at the age of thirty-three, having +lamented that there were no more worlds for him to conquer. +(For the boundaries of his empire, see any map of his time.) Pope +spoke of him as "The youth who all things but himself subdued."<br /> +<b>Soudan</b> (l. 149). An obsolete term for Sultan, the Turkish ruler.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="224t3">153-224</a></b>. The story of Merlin, King Arthur's court magician, +and the enchantress Vivian is one of the most familiar of the +Arthurian cycle of legends. <br /> +<b>Broce-liande</b> (l. 156). In Cornwall. +See l. 61, Part I. <br /> +<b>fay</b> (l. 159). Fairy, <br /> +<b>empire</b> (l. 184). That is, +power; here supernatural power. <br /> +<b>wimple</b> (l. 220). A covering +for the head. <br /> +<b>Is Merlin prisoner</b>, etc. (l. 223). Merlin, the magician, +is thus entrapped by means of a charm he had himself communicated +to his mistress, the enchantress Vivian. Malory has +Merlin imprisoned under a rock; Tennyson, in an oak:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"And in the hollow oak he lay as dead<br /> +And lost to life and use and name and fame."<br /> + + +—<i>Merlin and Vivian</i>. +</p> + +<b><a name="224-2t3">224</a></b>. For she was passing weary, etc. <span class="left">[p.175]</span> + +<p class="indent"> +"And she was ever passing weary of him."<br /> + + + +—MALORY. +</p> +<br /><br /> +<p> +<b>PART I</b>. What is the opening situation in the poem? Why have +it a stormy night? What does Tristram's question (l. 7) reveal +of his condition physically and mentally? What is the office of +the parts of the poem coming between the intervals of conversation? +How is the wounded knight identified? How the lady? +Follow the wanderings of the sleeping Tristram's mind. Are +the incidents he speaks of in the order of their occurrence? +Explain ll. 102-103; ll. 161-169. Tell the story of Tristram and +Iseult of the White Hands. What is shown by the fact that +Tristram's mind dwells on Iseult of Ireland even at the time of +battle? How account for his wanderings? For his morose frame +of mind? What change has come over nature when Tristram +awakes? Why this change? What is his mood now? Account +for his addressing Iseult of Brittany as he does. Why his order for +her to retire? What is her attitude toward him? Note the manner +in which the children are introduced into the story (ll. 324-325)<br /> +<b>PART II</b>. Give the opening situation. Discuss the meeting +of Tristram and Iseult. What is revealed by their conversation? +What is the purpose in introducing the Huntsman on the arras?<br /> +<b>PART III</b>. What is the purpose of ll. 1-4? Give the opening situation +in Part III. How is Iseult trying to entertain her children? +What kind of a life does she lead? Discuss ll. 112-150 as to meaning +and connection with the theme of the poem. Tell the story of +Merlin and Vivian. Why introduced? Compare Arnold's version +of the story of Tristram and Iseult with the version given in the +introductory note to the poem. + +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#CHURCH">THE CHURCH OF BROU</a><a name="BROU">°</a></h3> + <br /> <span class="left">[p.176]</span> + +<h4>I. THE CASTLE</h4> +<p> +The church of Brou is actually located in a treeless Burgundian +plain, and not in the mountains, as stated by the poet.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1cb">1.</a> Savoy</b>. A mountainous district in eastern France; formerly +one of the divisions of the Sardinian States.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3cb">3.</a> mountain-chalets</b>. Properly, herdsmen's huts in the mountains +of Switzerland.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17cb">17.</a> prickers</b>. Men sent into the thickets to start the game.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="35cb">35.</a> dais</b>. Here, a canopy or covering.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="69cb">69.</a> erst</b>. See note, l. <a href="#42sg">42</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>. +( Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.))</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71cb">71.</a> chancel</b>. The part of a church in which the altar is placed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72cb">72.</a> nave</b>. See note, ll. <a href="#70el">70-76</a>, <i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="77cb">77.</a> palmers</b>. Wandering religious votaries, especially those +who bore branches of palm as a token that they had visited the +Holy Land and its sacred places.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="109cb">109.</a> fretwork</b>. Representing open woodwork.</p> +<br /><br /> +<h4>II. THE CHURCH</h4> +<p> +<b><a name="17cb2">17.</a> matin-chime</b>. Bells for morning worship.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21cb2">21.</a> Chambery</b>. Capital of the department of Savoy Proper, on +the Leysse.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="22cb2">22.</a> Dight</b>. See l. <a href="#Dight">277</a>, and <a href="#277">note</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>. +(Adorned, dressed.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37cb2">37.</a> chisell'd broideries</b>. The carved draperies of the tombs.</p> +<br /><br /> +<h4>III. THE TOMB</h4> +<p> +<b><a name="6cb3">6.</a> transept</b>. The transversal part of a church edifice, which +crosses at right angles between the nave and the choir (the upper +portion), thus giving to the building the form of a cross.</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="39cb3">39.</a> foliaged marble forest</b>. Note the epithet.</p> <span class="left">[p.177]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="45cb3">45.</a> leads</b>. That is, the leaden roof. See l. 1, Part II. +(Upon the glistening leaden roof). +</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#REQ">REQUIESCAT</a><a name="REQUIESCAT">°</a></h3> +<p> +This poem, one of Arnold's best-known shorter lyrics, combines +with perfect taste, simplicity and elegance, with the truest pathos. +It has been said there is not a false note in it.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13r">13.</a> cabin'd</b>. Used in the sense of being cramped for space.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16r">16.</a> vasty</b>. Spacious, boundless.</p> +<p> +What is the significance of strewing on the roses? Why "never +a spray of yew"? (See note, l.<a href="#140sg">140</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.)</i> What +seems to be the author's attitude toward death? (Read his poem, +<i>A Wish</i>.) Discuss the poem as to its lyrical qualities.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#CON">CONSOLATION</a><a name="CONSOLATION">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="14c">14.</a> Holy Lassa</b> (that is, Land of the Divine Intelligence), the +capital city of Thibet and residence of the Dalai, or Grand Lama, +the pontifical sovereign of Thibet and East Asia. Here is located +the great temple of Buddha, a vast square edifice, surmounted by a +gilded dome, the temple, together with its precincts, covering an +area of many acres. Contiguous to it, on its four sides, are four +celebrated monasteries, occupied by four thousand recluses, and +resorted to as schools of the Buddhic religion and philosophy. +There is, perhaps, no other one place in the world where so much +gold is accumulated for superstitious purposes.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17c">17.</a> Muses.</b> See note, l. <a href="#120sr">120</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18c">18.</a> In their cool gallery</b>. That is, in the Vatican art gallery at +Rome.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="19c">19.</a> yellow Tiber.</b> So called by the ancients because of the +yellowish, muddy appearance of its waters.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21c">21.</a> Strange unloved uproar.</b> At the time this poem was <span class="left">[p.178]</span> +written,—1849,—the French army was besieging Rome.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23c">23.</a> Helicon.</b> A high mountain in Boeotia, the legendary home of the Muses.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="32c">32.</a> Erst.</b> See note, l. <a href="#42sg">42</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48c">48.</a> Destiny.</b> That is, Fate, the goddess of human destiny.</p> +<p> +In what mood is the author at the opening of the poem? How +does he seek consolation? How does the calm of the Muses affect +him? Can you see how he might find help in dwelling on the +pictures of the blind beggar and happy lovers? What is the final +thought of the poem? Can you think of any other poem that has +this as its central thought? What do you think of the author's +philosophy of life as set forth in this poem? Discuss the verse +form used.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a name="LINES">LINES</a></h3> + +<h3><a href="#KENSINGTON">WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS</a>°</h3> +<p> +The Kensington Gardens form one of the many beautiful public +parks of London. They are located in the Kensington parish, a +western suburb of the city, lying north of the Thames and four +miles west-southwest of St. Paul's. In his poem Arnold contrasts +the serenity of nature with the restlessness of modern life. +"Not Lucan, not Vergil, only Wordsworth, has more beautifully +expressed the spirit of Pantheism."—HERBERT W. PAUL.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4l">4.</a></b> The pine trees here mentioned are since dead.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="14l">14.</a> What endless active life!</b> Compare with Arnold's sonnet +of this volume, entitled <i>Quiet Work</i>, ll. 4-7 and 11-12.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21l">21.</a> the huge world.</b> London.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24l">24.</a> Was breathed on by rural Pan.</b> Note Arnold's classic way +of accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature +god. See note, l. <a href="#67sr">67</a>, <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42l">37-42.</a></b> Compare the thought here presented with the + <span class="left">[p.179]</span> +following lines from Wordsworth:—</p> +<p class="indent"> + +"These beauteous forms,<br /> +... have not been to me<br /> +As is a landscape to a blind man's eye.<br /> +But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din<br /> +Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,<br /> +... sensations sweet<br /> +Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;<br /> +And passing even into my purer mind,<br /> +With tranquil restoration."</p> + +<p> +Read also Wordsworth's <i>Lines to the Daffodil</i>.</p> +<p> +What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently +brought it to the author's mind? How does he show his interest +in nature? In human beings? What inspiration does the author +seek from nature, ll. 37-42? Explain the meaning of the last two +lines.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#REVELLER">THE STRAYED REVELLER</a><a name="STRAYED">°</a></h3> +<p> +"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, +that perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, +which saves me from being entirely <i>ennuyx</i>, professorial and pedantic." +(Matthew Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, +1858.)</p> +<p> +<a name="CIRCE"><b>Circe</b></a>, according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who +dwelt in the island of Ææa, and who possessed the power to transform +men into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' +wanderings.) In Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic +potion, by which this transformation is accomplished, affects not +the body, but the mind of the youth.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12sr">12.</a> ivy-cinctured.</b> That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, +the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned <span class="left">[p.180]</span> +with ivy. See also l. 33.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="36sr">36.</a> rout.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="38sr">38.</a> Iacchus.</b> In the Eleusinian mysteries, Bacchus bore the +name of Iacchus. <b>fane.</b> A temple. From the Latin <i>fanum</i>, a +place of worship dedicated to any deity.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48sr">48.</a> The lions sleeping.</b> As Ulysses' companions approached +Circe's palace, following their landing on her island, they found +themselves "surrounded by lions, tigers, and wolves, not fierce +but tamed by Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="67sr">67.</a> Pan's flute music!</b> Pan, the god of pastures and woodlands, +was the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's flute, with which he +accompanied himself and his followers in the dance.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71sr">71.</a> Ulysses.</b> The celebrated hero of the Trojan war; also +famous for his wanderings. One of his chief adventures, on his +return voyage from Troy, was with the enchantress Circe, with +whom he tarried a year, forgetful of his faithful wife, Penelope, at +home.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72sr">72.</a> Art.</b> That is, are you. (Now used only in solemn or poetic +style.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="73sr">73.</a> range.</b> Wander aimlessly about.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="74sr">74.</a> See what the day brings.</b> That is, the youth. See ll. 24-52</p> +<p> +<b><a name="81sr">81.</a> Nymphs.</b> Goddesses of the mountains, forests, meadows, or +waters, belonging to the lower rank of deities.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107sr">102-107.</a></b> Compare in thought with Tennyson's poem, <i>Ulysses</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="110sr">110.</a> The favour'd guest of Circe.</b> Ulysses. See note, l. 71.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="120sr">120.</a> Muses.</b> Daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne, nine in +number. According to the earliest writers the Muses were only +the inspiring goddesses of song; but later they were looked to as +the divinities presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and +over the arts and sciences.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="134sr">130-135.</a></b> Note the poet's device for presenting a <span class="left">[p.181]</span> +series of mental pictures. Compare with Tennyson's plan in his <i>Palace of Art</i>. +Does Arnold's plan seem more or less mechanical than Tennyson's?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="135sr">135-142.</a> Tiresias.</b> The blind prophet of <b>Thebes</b> (l. 142), the +chief city in Boeotia, near the river <b>Asopus</b> (l. 138). In his youth, +Tiresias unwittingly came upon Athene while she was bathing, and +was punished by the loss of sight. As a recompense for this misfortune, +the goddess afterward gave him knowledge of future +events. The inhabitants of Thebes looked to Tiresias for direction +in times of war.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="143sr">143.</a> Centaurs.</b> Monsters, half man, half horse.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="145sr">145.</a> Pelion.</b> A mountain in eastern Thessaly, famous in Greek +mythology. In the war between the giants and the gods, the former, +in their efforts to scale the heavens, piled Ossa upon Olympus and +Pelion upon Ossa.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="161sr">151-161.</a></b> What in these lines enables you to determine the people +and country alluded to?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="167sr">162-167.</a> Scythian ... embers.</b> The ancient Greek term for +the nomadic tribes inhabiting the whole north and northeast +Europe and Asia. As a distinct people they built no cities, and +formed no general government, but wandered from place to place +by tribes, in their rude, covered carts (see l. 164), living upon the +coarsest kind of food (ll. 166-167).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180sr">177-180.</a> Clusters of lonely mounds, etc.</b> That is, ruins of +ancient cities.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="183sr">183.</a> Chorasmian stream.</b> See note, l. <a href="#878">878</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="197sr">197.</a> milk-barr'd onyx-stones.</b> A reference to the white streaks, +or bars, common to the onyx.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="206sr">206.</a> Happy Islands.</b> Mythical islands lying far to the west, the +abode of the heroes after death.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="220sr">220.</a> Hera's anger.</b> Hera (or Juno), wife to Jupiter, was noted +for her violent temper and jealousy. She is here represented as +visiting punishment upon the bard, perhaps out of jealousy of the <span class="left">[p.182]</span> +gods who had endowed him with poetic power, and his life, thus +afflicted, seems lengthened to seven ages.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="228sr">228-229.</a> Lapithæ.</b> In Greek legends, a fierce Thessalian race, +governed by Pirothous, a half-brother to the Centaurs. <b>Theseus.</b> +The chief hero of Attica, who, according to tradition, united the +several tribes of Attica into one state, with Athens as the capital. +His life was filled with adventure. The reference here is to the +time of the marriage of Pirothous and Hippodamia, on which +occasion the Centaurs, who were among the guests, became intoxicated, +and offered indignities to the bride. In the fight that followed, +Theseus joined with the Lapithæ, and many of the Centaurs +were slain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="231sr">231.</a> Alcmena's dreadful son.</b> Hercules. On his expedition to +capture the Arcadian boar, his third labor, Hercules became involved +in a broil with the Centaurs, and in self-defence slew several +of them with his arrows.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245sr">245.</a> Oxus stream.</b> See note, l. <a href="#2">2</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="254sr">254.</a> Heroes.</b> The demigods of mythology.</p> +<p> +<b>257. Troy.</b> The capital of Troas, Asia Minor; the seat of the +Trojan war.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="257sr">254-260.</a></b> Shortly after the close of the Trojan war, a party of +heroes from all parts of Greece, many of whom had participated in +the expeditions against <b>Thebes</b> and <b>Troy</b>, set out under the leadership +of Jason to capture the Golden Fleece. Leaving the shores +of Thessaly, the adventurers sailed eastward and finally came to +the entrance of the <b>Euxine Sea</b> (the <b>unknown sea</b>, l. 260), which +was guarded by the Clashing Islands. Following the instructions +of the sage Phineus, Jason let fly a dove between the islands, and +at the moment of rebound the expedition passed safely through. +The ship in which the adventurers sailed was called the Argo, after +its builder, Argus; hence our term Argonauts.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="261sr">261.</a> Silenus.</b> A divinity of Asiatic origin; <span class="left">[p.183]</span> +foster-father to Bacchus and leader of the <b>Fauns</b> (l. 265), satyr-like +divinities, half man, half goat, sometimes represented in art as bearing torches +(l. 274).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="275sr">275.</a> Mænad.</b> A bacchante,—a priestess or votary of Bacchus.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="276sr">276.</a> Faun with torches.</b> See note, l. 261.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +What is the situation at the beginning of the poem? What +effect does the "liquor" have upon the youth? Why is the presence +of Ulysses so much in harmony with the situation? How does +he greet Circe; how the youth? What does his presence suggest +to the latter? Why? Note the vividness of the pictures he describes; +also the swiftness with which he changes from one to another. +What power is ascribed to the poet? Why his "pain"? +What effect is gained by closing the poem with the same words with +which it is opened? Why the irregular verse used?</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#BEACH">DOVER BEACH</a><a name="DOVER">°</a></h3> +<p> +In this poem is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, +at once religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is +one of his most passionate interpretations of life.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15db">15.</a> Sophocles</b> (495-406 B.C.). One of the three great tragic +poets of Greece. His rivals were Æschylus (526-456 B.C.) and +Euripides (486-406 B.C.).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16db">16.</a> Ægean Sea.</b> See note, l. <a href="#236sg">236</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +Image the scene in the opening stanzas. What is the author's +mood? Why does he call some one to look on the scene with him? +What is the "eternal note of sadness"? Why connect it in +thought with the sea? Why does this thought suggest Sophocles? +What thought next presents itself to the author's mind? From <span class="left">[p.184]</span> +what source must one's help and comfort then be drawn? Why so? +Why the irregular versification? State the theme of the poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h3><a href="#PHI">PHILOMELA</a><a name="PHILOMELA">°</a></h3> +<p> +"Philomela unites the sensibilities and intellectual experience +of modern Englishmen with the luminousness and simplicity of +Greek poetry."—SAINTSBURY.</p> +<p> +The myth of the nightingale has long been a favorite with the +poets, who have variously interpreted the bird's song. See Coleridge's, +Keats's, and Wordsworth's poems on the subject. The +most common version of the myth, the one followed by Arnold, +is as follows:—</p> +<p> +"Pandion (son of Erichthonius, special ward to Minerva) had two +daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in +marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). +This ruler, after his wife had borne him a son, Itys (or Itylus), +wearied of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to insure her +silence, and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the +other sister, Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which +she wove her story, informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In +revenge upon Tereus, the sisters killed Itylus, and served up the +child as food to the father; but the gods, in indignation, transformed +Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, forever +bemoaning the murdered Itylus, and Tereus into a hawk, forever +pursuing the sisters."—GAYLEY'S <i>Classic Myths</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4ph">4.</a></b> Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5ph">5.</a> O wanderer from a Grecian shore.</b> See note, l. <a href="#27ph">27</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8ph">8.</a></b> Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not +one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="18ph">18.</a> Thracian wild.</b> Thrace was the name used by the early +Greeks for the entire region north of Greece.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21ph">21.</a> The too clear web</b>, etc. <span class="left">[p.185]</span> +See introductory note to poem for +explanation of this and the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="27ph">27.</a> Daulis.</b> A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of +Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. <b>Cephessian vale.</b> +The valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through +Doris, Phocis, and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="29ph">29.</a> How thick the bursts</b>, etc. Compare with the following +lines from Coleridge:—</p> +<p class="indent"> + + +"'Tis the merry nightingale<br /> +That crowds and hurries and precipitates<br /> +With fast, thick warble his delicious notes,<br /> +As he were fearful that an April night<br /> +Would be too short for him to utter forth<br /> +His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul<br /> +Of all its music!"<br /> + + +—<i>The Nightingale</i>.</p> +<p> +Also</p> +<p class="indent"> +"O Nightingale! thou surely art<br /> +A creature of a 'fiery heart':—<br /> +These notes of thine—they pierce and pierce;<br /> +Tumultuous harmony and fierce!<br /> +Thou sing'st as if the god of wine<br /> +Had helped thee to a Valentine."<br /> + + +—WORDSWORTH.</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="32ph">31-32.</a> Eternal passion!<br /> + Eternal pain!</b> Compare:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains."<br /> + + +—COLERIDGE, <i>To a Nightingale</i>.</p> +<p> +and</p> +<p class="indent"> + + "Sweet bird ...<br /> +Most musical, most melancholy!"<br /> + + +—MILTON, <i>Il Penseroso</i>.</p> +<br /> + <hr /><br /><br /> +<p> +Image the scene in the poem. How does the author secure the +proper atmosphere for the theme of the poem? Account for the +note of triumph in the nightingale's song; note of pain. What <span class="left">[p.186]</span> +is shown by the poet's question, ll. 10-15? What new qualities +are added to the nightingale's song, l. 25? Account for them. +Why <i>eternal</i> passion, <i>eternal</i> pain? Do you feel the form of +verse used (Pindaric blank) to be adapted to the theme?</p> + + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#HUMANLIFE">HUMAN LIFE</a><a name="HUMAN">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="4hl">4.</a> kept uninfringed my nature's law.</b> That is, have lived a +perfect life.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5hl">5.</a> inly-written chart.</b> The conscience.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="8hl">8.</a> incognisable.</b> Not to be comprehended by finite mind.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23hl">23.</a> prore.</b> Poetical word for <i>prow</i>, the fore part of a ship.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="27hl">27.</a> stem.</b> Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +What important incident in the destiny of the soul is alluded to +in stanza 1? Interpret ll. 13-14, and apply to your own experience. +Why cannot we live "chance's fool"? Is there any hint +of fatalism in the poem, or are we held accountable for our own +destiny?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#ISOL">ISOLATION</a><a name="ISOLATION">°</a></h3> + +<h3>TO MARGUERITE, ON RETURNING A VOLUME OF THE +LETTERS OF ORTIS</h3> + +<p> +This poem, the fifth in a loosely connected group of lyrics, +under the general name <i>Switzerland</i>, is a continuation of the +preceding poem, <i>Isolation—to Marguerite</i>, and is properly entitled, +<i>To Marguerite—Continued</i>. When printed separately, the +above title is used.</p> +<p> +Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. +His <i>Ultime Lettere di Ortis</i> was translated into the English in 1818.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1i">1.</a> Yes!</b> Used in answer to the closing thought of <span class="left">[p.187]</span> +the preceding poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7i">7.</a> moon.</b> Note the frequency with which reference to the +moon, with its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you +give any reason for this?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24i">24.</a></b> Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: +"<i>Isolation</i> winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the +century—one of the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of +English verse—a phrase complete and final, with epithets in +unerring cumulation."</p> +<p> +Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? +Discuss l.2 as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," +l.4? Why "endless bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling +of despair, l.13? Answer the questions asked in the last stanza. +In what frame of mind does the poem leave you?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#DEAD">KAISER DEAD</a><a name="KAISER">°</a></h3> + +<h4>APRIL 6, 1887</h4> +<p> +Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was +most sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in +the minor key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just +lost our dear, dear mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated +from his home in Cobham, Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very +sad." The poem was written the following July, and was published +in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> for that month.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2k">2.</a> Cobham.</b> See note above.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3k">3.</a> Farringford,</b> in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord +Tennyson.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5k">5.</a> Pen-bryn's bold bard.</b> Sir Lewis Morris, author of the <i>Epic +of Hades</i>, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12k">11-12.</a></b> In Burns's poem, <i>Poor Mailie's Elegy</i>, <span class="left">[p.188]</span> +occur the following +lines:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Come, join the melancholious croon +O' Robin's reed."</p> + +<p> +<b><a name="20k">20.</a> Potsdam.</b> The capital of the government district of Potsdam, +in the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's +name, <i>Kaiser</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="41k">41.</a> the Grand Old Man.</b> Gladstone.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50k">50.</a> agog.</b> In a state of eager excitement.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="65k">65.</a> Geist.</b> Also remembered in a poem entitled <i>Geist's Grave</i>, +included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="76k">76.</a> chiel.</b> A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Buirdly <i>chiels</i> an clever hizzies."<br /> + + + +—BURNS, <i>The Twa Dogs</i>.</p> +<p> +<b>Skye.</b> The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. <a href="#7b">7</a>, +<i>Saint Brandan</i>.</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> +<h3><a href="#WORD">THE LAST WORD</a><a name="LAST">°</a></h3> +<p> +In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a +hopeless struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too +strong for him.</p> +<p> +State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? +What is the <i>narrow bed</i>, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With +whom has it been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied +in l. 6? What is meant by <i>ringing shot</i>, l. 11? Who are the +victors, l. 14? What would they probably say on finding the body +near the wall? Can you think of any historical characters of +whom the poem might aptly have been written? +</p> +<br /><br /><br /><span class="left">[p.189]</span> + +<h3><a href="#PAL">PALLADIUM</a><a name="PALLADIUM">°</a></h3> +<p> +At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy +a celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was +reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the +belief was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue +remained within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek +champions, succeeded in entering the city in disguise, stole the +Palladium and carried it off to the besiegers' camp at Argos. It +was some time, however, before the city fell.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1p">1.</a> Simois.</b> A small river of the Troad which takes its rise in +the rocky, wooded eminence which, according to Greek tradition, +formed the acropolis of Troy. The Palladium was set up on its +banks near its source, in a temple especially erected for it (l. 6), +and from this lofty position was supposed to watch over the safety +of the city and her defenders on the plains below.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3p">3.</a> Hector.</b> Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy (Ilium), and his +wife, Hecuba, was the leader and champion of the Trojan armies. +He distinguished himself in numerous single combats with the +ablest of the Greek heroes; and to him was principally due the +stubborn defence of the Trojan capital. He was finally slain by +Achilles, aided by Athene, and his body dragged thrice around +the walls of Troy behind the chariot of his conqueror.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="14p">14.</a> Xanthus.</b> The Scamander, the largest and most celebrated +river of the Troad, near which Troy was situated, was presided +over by a deity known to the gods as Xanthus. His contest with +Achilles, whom he so nearly overwhelmed, forms a notable incident +of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15p">15.</a> Ajax, or Aiax.</b> One of the leading Greek heroes in the siege +of Troy, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. In +bravery and feats of valor he was second only to Achilles. Not +being awarded the armor of Achilles after that hero's death, he <span class="left">[p.190]</span> +slew himself.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16p">16.</a></b> Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated +for her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to +her by both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in +the second part of <i>Faust</i>, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that +name, addresses her thus:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air<br /> +Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." +</p> +<p> +Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3), was the +cause of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek +mythology, which forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, +the <i>Iliad</i>.</p> +<p> +What is the central thought of the poem? Of what is the Palladium +typical? Explain the thought in stanza 3. What is the +force of the references of stanza 4? Discuss the use of the words +"rust" and "shine," l. 17. Just what is meant by "soul" as +the word is used in the poem?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#DEPENDENCE">SELF-DEPENDENCE</a><a name="SELF">°</a></h3> +<p> +<i>Self-Dependence</i> is a poem in every respect characteristic of its +author. In it Arnold exhorts mankind to seek refuge from human +troubles in the example of nature.</p> +<p> +Picture the situation in the poem. What is the poet's mood as +shown in the opening stanzas? From what source does he seek +aid? Why? What answer does he receive? What is the source +of nature's repose? Where and how must the human soul find +its contentment?</p> + +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#GRAVE">GEIST'S GRAVE</a><a name="GEIST">°</a></h3><span class="left">[p.191]</span> + +<p> +This poem appeared in the January number of the <i>Fortnightly +Review</i> for 1881.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12gg">12.</a> homily.</b> Sermon.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15gg">15.</a>the Virgilian cry.</b> <i>Sunt lacrimæ rerum!</i> These words are +interpreted in the following line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42gg">42.</a> On lips that rarely form them now.</b> Arnold wrote but little +poetry after 1867.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="55gg">55-56.</a> thine absent master.</b> Richard Penrose Arnold, the +poet's only surviving son.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#LAOCOON">EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOON</a><a name="EPILOGUE">°</a></h3> +<p> +Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a celebrated German +dramatist and critic. For a time he studied theology at Leipsic, +then turned his attention to the stage, and later to criticism. His +greatest critical work (1766) is a treatise on Art, the famous Greek +statuary group, the LAOCOON, which gives the work its name, forming +the basis for a comparative discussion of Sculpture, Poetry, +Painting, and Music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1el">1.</a> Hyde Park.</b> The largest park in London, and the principal +recreation ground of that city.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15el">15.</a> Phœbus-guarded ground.</b> Greece. Phœbus, a name often +given Apollo, the sun god.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16el">16.</a> Pausanias.</b> A noted Greek geographer and writer on art +who lived in the second century. "His work, <i>The Gazetteer of +Hellas</i>, is our best repertory of information for the topography, +local history, religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of +the different states of Greece."—K.O. MÜLLER, <i>History of the +Literature of Ancient Greece</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="21el">21-22.</a> Dante</b> (1265-1321), <b>Petrarch</b> (1304-1374),<span class="left">[p.192]</span> +<b>Tasso</b> (1544-1595), <b>Ariosto</b> (1475-1533). Celebrated Italian poets.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="25el">25.</a> Raphael</b> (1483-1520). The famous Italian painter.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="29el">29.</a> Goethe</b> (1749-1832). The greatest name in German literature. +His works include poetry, dramas, and criticisms. <b>Wordsworth</b> +(1770-1850). See the poem, <i><a href="#VERSES">Memorial Verses</a></i>, of this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="35el">35.</a> Mozart</b> (1766-1791), <b>Beethoven</b> (1770-1827), <b>Mendelssohn</b> +(1809-1847). Noted musicians and composers.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42el">42.</a> south.</b> Warm.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="48el">43-48.</a></b> Cyclops Polyphemus, famous in the story of Ulysses, +was a persistent and jealous suitor of Galatea, the fairest of sea +divinities. So ardent was he in his wooings, that he would leave +his flocks to wander at will, while he sang his uncouth lays from +the hilltops to Galatea in the bay below. Her only answers were +words of scorn and mockery. See Andrew Lang's translation of +Theocritus, Idyl VI, for further account.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="70el">70-76.</a> Abbey towers.</b> That is, Westminster Abbey, a mile's +distance to the south and east of Hyde Park. The abbey is built +in the form of a cross, the body or lower part of which is termed +the nave (l. 73). The upper portion is occupied by the choir, +the anthems of which, with their organ accompaniments, are +alluded to in ll. 74-77.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="89el">89-106.</a> Miserere Domine!</b> <i>Lord, have mercy!</i> These words are +from the service of the Church of England. The meaning in +these lines is that Beethoven, in his masterpieces, has transferred +the thoughts and feelings, above inadequately expressed in words, +into another and more emotional tongue; that is, music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="107el">107.</a> Ride.</b> A famous driveway in Hyde Park, commonly called +Rotten Row. (Possibly from 'Route du Roi')</p> +<p> +<b><a name="119el">119.</a> vacant.</b> Thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"For oft, when on my couch I lie<br /> +In <i>vacant</i> or in pensive mood."<br /> + + + +—WORDSWORTH'S <i>Lines to the Daffodils</i>, ll. 19-20.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="124el">124.</a> hies.</b> Hastens (poetical).</p> <span class="left">[p.193]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="130el">130.</a> painter and musician too!</b> Arnold held poetry to be equal +to painting and music combined.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140el">140.</a> movement.</b> Activities. Explained in the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="163el">163-210.</a></b> Note carefully the argument used to prove that poetry +interprets life more accurately and effectively than any of the other +arts. <b>Homer</b>, the most renowned of all Greek poets. The time in +which he lived is not definitely known. <b>Shakespeare</b> (1504-1616).</p> +<p> +Give the setting of the story. What was the topic of conversation? +What stand did the poet's friend take regarding poetry? +Why turn to Greece in considering the arts? What limitations of +the painter's art are pointed out by the poet? What is his attitude +toward music? What finally is "the poet's sphere," l. 127? +Wherein then is poetry superior to the other arts? Does the +author prove his point by his poem? Discuss the poem as to +movement, diction, etc.</p> +<br /> +<hr /><br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#WORK">QUIET WORK</a><a name="QUIET">°</a></h3> +<p> +No poet, not even Wordsworth, was more passionately fond of +nature than Arnold. Note his attitude in the poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1q">1.</a> One lesson.</b> What lesson?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4q">4.</a></b> Discuss the use of the adjective "loud"; also "noisier," l. 7.</p> + +<p> +Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme +formula, and number of lines. See the introduction to Sharp's +<i>Sonnets of this Century</i>.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h3><a href="#SHAKESPEARE">SHAKESPEARE</a><a name="SHAKES">°</a></h3> +<p> +Despite this tribute, Arnold considered Homer Shakespeare's +equal, if not his superior. +What do Shakespeare's smile and silence imply on his part? <span class="left">[p.194]</span> +Explain in full the figure used. Do you consider it apt? Why +"Better so," l. 10? What is there in the poem that helps you +to see wherein lay Shakespeare's power to interpret life? Select +the lines which most impress you, and tell why.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#AGITATIONS">YOUTH'S AGITATIONS</a><a name="YOUTH">°</a></h3> +<p> +This sonnet was written in 1852, when the poet was in his thirtieth +year.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="5y">5.</a> joy.</b> Be glad. <b>heats.</b> Passions.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6y">6.</a> even clime.</b> That is, in the less emotional years of maturity.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="12y">12.</a> hurrying fever.</b> See note, l. 6.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#POETRY">AUSTERITY OF POETRY</a><a name="AUSTERITY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="1a">1.</a> That son of Italy.</b> Giacopone di Todi.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2a">2.</a> Dante</b> (1265-1321). Best known as the author of <i>The Divine +Comedy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="3a">3.</a> In his light youth.</b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="11a">11.</a> sackcloth.</b> Symbolic of mourning or mortification of the +flesh.</p> + + <p> +Tell the story of the poem and make the application. Explain +Arnold's idea of poetry as set forth in ll. 12-14.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#PLACE">WORLDLY PLACE</a><a name="WORLDLY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="3w">3.</a> Marcus Aurelius</b> (121-180 A.D.), commonly called "the +philosopher." A celebrated Roman emperor, prominent among +the ethical teachers of his time. Arnold himself has been aptly +styled by Sharp an "impassioned Marcus Aurelius, wrought by <span class="left">[p.195]</span> +poetic vision and emotion to poetic music."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6w">6.</a> foolish.</b> In the sense of unreasonable. <b>ken.</b> The Scotch +word meaning sight.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="7w">7.</a> rates.</b> Berates, reproves.</p> + +<p> +Give the poem's theme. What is implied by the word "even," +l. 1? Does the author agree with the implication? Why so? +Discuss l. 5 as to its meaning. Interpret the expressions "ill-school'd +spirit," l. 11, and "Some nobler, ampler stage of life," +l. 12. Where finally are the aids to a nobler life to be found? +Do you agree with this philosophy of life?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#EASTLON">EAST LONDON</a><a name="EASTLONDON">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="2ea">2.</a> Bethnal Green.</b> An eastern suburb of London.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="4ea">4.</a> Spitalfields.</b> A part of northeast London, comprising the +parishes of Bethnal Green and Christchurch.</p> + +<p> +Image the scene. What is the purpose of the first four lines? +Discuss l. 6. What is the import of the preacher's response? +What are the poet's conclusions drawn in ll. 9-14?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#WESTLON">WEST LONDON</a><a name="WESTLONDON">°</a></h3> +<p> +<b><a name="1we">1.</a> Belgrave Square.</b> An important square in the western part +of London.</p> + +<p> +Tell the situation and the story of the poem. Why did the +woman solicit aid from the laboring men? Why not from the +wealthy? Explain ll. 9-11. What is the poet's final conclusion? +</p> +<br /> +<hr /><br /><br /><br /><span class="left">[p.196]</span> + +<h3><a href="#VERSES">MEMORIAL VERSES</a><a name="MEMORIAL">°</a></h3> + +<h4>APRIL, 1850</h4> +<p> +Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in the Lake, District, April +23, 1850. These verses, dedicated to his memory, are among +Arnold's best-known lines. For adequacy of meaning and charm +of expression, they are almost unsurpassed; they also contain +some of the poet's soundest poetical criticism. The poem was +first published in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i> for June, 1850, and bore +the date of April 27.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1m">1.</a> Goethe in Weimar sleeps.</b> The tomb of Goethe, the celebrated +German author (see note, l. <a href="#29el">29</a>, <i>Epilogue to Lessing's +LAOCOON</i>), is in Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of +Saxe-Weimar. Weimar is noted as the literary centre of Germany, and +for this reason is styled the German Athens.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2m">2.</a> Byron.</b> George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated English +poet of the French Revolutionary period, died at Missolonghi, +Greece, where he had gone to help the Greeks in their struggle to +throw off the Turkish yoke. He was preëminently a poet of passion, +and, as such, exerted a marked influence on the literature of +his day. His petulant, bitter rebellion against all law has become +proverbial; hence the term "Byronic." The <b>Titans</b> (l. 14) were +a race of giants who warred against the gods. The aptness of +the comparison made here is at once evident. In Arnold's sonnet, +<i>A Picture at Newstead</i>, also occur these lines:—</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry<br /> + Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="17m">17.</a> iron age.</b> In classic mythology, "The last of the four great +ages of the world described by Hesiod. Ovid, etc. It was supposed +to be characterized by abounding oppression, vice, and misery."— +<i>International Dictionary</i>. The preceding ages, in order, were the <span class="left">[p.197]</span> +age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="34m">34-39</a><a name="38m"></a></b>. Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was stung to death by a +serpent, and passed to the realm of the dead—Hades. Thither +Orpheus descended, and, by the charm of his lyre and song, persuaded +Pluto to restore her to life. This he consented to do on +condition that she walk behind her husband, who was not to look +at her until they had arrived in the upper world. Orpheus, however, +looked back, thus violating the conditions, and Eurydice was +caught back into the infernal regions.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "The ferry guard<br /> +Now would not row him o'er the lake again."<br /> + + + +—LANDOR.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="72m">72.</a> Rotha</b>. A small stream of the English Lake Region, on +which Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's burial-place, is situated.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#GIPSY">THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY</a><a name="SCHOLAR">°</a></h3> +<p> +"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford who +was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there and at last to +join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these +extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he +quickly got so much of their love and esteem that they discovered +to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised +in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars +who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied +out their old friend among the gipsies, and he gave them an account +of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and +told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as +they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning +among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, +their fancy binding that of others; that himself had learned +much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, <span class="left">[p.198]</span> +he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world +an account of what he had learned."—GLANVIL'S <i>Vanity of +Dogmatizing</i>, 1661.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2sg">2.</a> wattled cotes</b>. Sheepfolds. Probably suggested by Milton's +<i>Comus</i>, l. 344:—</p> +<p class="indent"> +"The folded flocks, penned in their <i>wattled cotes</i>." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="9sg">9.</a> Cross and recross</b>. Infinitives depending upon seen, l. 8.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13sg">13.</a> cruse</b>. Commonly associated in thought with the story of +Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, 1 <i>Kings</i>, xvii: 8-16.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="19sg">19.</a> corn</b>. See note, l. <a href="#156">156</a>, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="30sg">30.</a> Oxford towers</b>. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire +and the seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities +in Europe, is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence +of the Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course +the Isis). It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the +tops of which command a fine view of the city with its domes +and towers."—BAEDEKER'S <i>Great Britain</i>, in his <i>Handbooks for +Travellers</i>. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, +surely, has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see +such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime, and +more than one, to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily." See +also note, l. <a href="#19th">19</a>, <i>Thyrsis</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="31sg">31.</a> Glanvil's book</b>. See <a href="#SCHOLAR">introductory note</a> to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="42sg">42.</a> erst</b>. Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.)</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50sg">44-50</a></b>. See <a href="#SCHOLAR">introductory note</a> to poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="57sg">57. </a>Hurst</b>. Cumner (or Cumnor) Hurst, one of the Cumnor +range of hills, some two or three miles south and west of Oxford, +is crowned with a clump of cedars; hence the name "Hurst."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="58sg">58.</a> Berkshire moors</b>. Berkshire is the county, or shire, on the +south of Oxford County.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="69sg">69.</a> green-muffled</b>. Explain the epithet.</p><span class="left">[p.199]</span> +<p> +<b><a name="74sg">74.</a> Bablockhithe</b>. A small town some four miles west and a +little south of Oxford, on the Thames, which at that point is a mere +stream crossed by a ferry. This and numerous other points of +interest in the vicinity of Oxford are frequented by Oxford students; +hence Arnold's familiarity with them and his reference to +them in this poem and <i>Thyrsis</i>. See any atlas.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="79sg">79.</a> Wychwood bowers</b>. That is, Wychwood Forest, ten or +twelve miles north and west of Oxford. See note, l. 74.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="83sg">83.</a> To dance around the Fyfield elm in May</b>. Fyfield, a parish +in Berkshire, about six miles southwest of Oxford. The reference +here is to the "May-day" celebrations formerly widely observed +in Europe, but now nearly disappeared. The chief features of the +celebration in Great Britain are the gathering of hawthorn blossoms +and other flowers, the crowning of the May-queen and +dancing around the May-pole—here the Fyfield elm. See note, +l. 74. Read Tennyson's poem, <i>The Queen o' the May</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="91sg">91.</a> Godstow Bridge</b>. Some two miles up the Thames from +Oxford.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="95sg">95.</a> lasher pass</b>. An English term corresponding to our <i>mill +race</i>. The <i>lasher</i> is the dam, or weir.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="98sg">98.</a> outlandish</b>. Analyze the word and determine meaning.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="111sg">111.</a> Bagley Wood</b>. South and west of Oxford, beyond South +Hinksey. See note, l. <a href="#125sg">125</a>; also note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="114sg">114.</a> tagg'd</b>. That is, marked; the leaves being colored by frost.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="115sg">115.</a> Thessaly</b>. The northeastern district of ancient Greece, +celebrated in mythology. Here a forest ground near Bagley +Wood. See note, l. 111; also note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="125sg">125</a>. Hinksey</b>. North and South Hinksey are unimportant +villages a short distance out from Oxford in the Cumnor Hills. +See note, l. <a href="#74sg">74</a>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="129sg">129</a>. Christ Church hall</b>. The largest and most fashionable college +in Oxford; founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. The chapel <span class="left">[p.200]</span> +of Christ Church is also the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="130sg">130</a>. grange</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="133sg">133</a>. Glanvil</b>. Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. A noted English +divine and philosopher; author of a defence of belief in witchcraft.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="140sg">140</a>. red-fruited yew tree</b>. The yew tree is very common in +English burial-grounds. It grows slowly, lives long, has a dark, +thick foliage, and yields a red berry. See Wordsworth's celebrated +poem, <i>The Yew-Tree</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="170sg">141-170</a></b>. "This note of lassitude is struck often—perhaps too +often—in Arnold's poems."—DU PONT SYLE. See also <i>The Stanzas +in Memory of the Author of Obermann</i>. For the author's less +despondent mood, see his <i>Rugby Chapel</i>, included in this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="147sg">147.</a> teen</b>. Grief, sorrow; from the old English <i>teona</i>, meaning +injury.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="149sg">149.</a> the just-pausing Genius</b>. Does the author here allude to +death?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="151sg">151.</a> Thou hast not lived</b> (so). That is, as described in preceding +stanza.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="152sg">152.</a> Thou hadst one aim</b>, etc. What was the Scholar-Gipsy's +<i>one</i> motive in life?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="160sg">157-160.</a> But thou possessest an immortal lot</b>, etc. Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="165sg">165.</a> Which much to have tried</b>, etc. Which many attempts and +many failures bring.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="180sg">180.</a> do not we ... await it too</b>? That is, the spark from +heaven. See l. 171.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190sg">182-190</a></b>. Possibly Carlyle, although the author may have had +in mind a type rather than an individual.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="208sg">208-209.</a> Averse, as Dido did</b>, etc. Dido, the mythical queen of +Carthage, being deserted by her lover Æneas, slew herself. She +afterward met him on his journey through Hades, but turned from +him in scorn.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + "In vain he thus attempts her mind to move<br /> <span class="left">[p.201]</span> + With tears and prayers and late repenting love;<br /> + Disdainfully she looked, then turning round<br /> + But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground,<br /> + And what he says and swears regards no more<br /> + Than the deaf rocks when the loud billows roar."<br /> + + + +—DRYDEN'S <i>Translation</i>.</p> +<p> +For entire episode, see <i>Æneid</i>, vi, 450-476.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="212sg">212.</a> inviolable shade</b>. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. +Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this +and the preceding line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="214sg">214</a>.</b> Why "silver'd" branches?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="220sg">220.</a></b> dingles. Wooded dells.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="231sg">231-250</a>.</b> Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained +image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days +of sick unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. +In the course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt +Hutton says of this poem and this closing picture: "That most +beautiful and graceful poem on the <i>Scholar-Gipsy</i> (the Oxford student +who is said to have forsaken academic study in order to learn, +if it might be, those potent secrets of nature, the traditions of +which the gypsies are supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a +digression of the most vivid beauty.... Nothing could illustrate +better than this [closing] passage Arnold's genius and his art.... +His whole drift having been that care and effort and gain +and pressure of the world are sapping human strength, he ends +with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, which exhibits +human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could quote +poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant +digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of +melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is +still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to +say, but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the<span class="left">[p.202]</span> +human spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources +still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to +feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does +not teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="232sg">232.</a> As some grave Tyrian trader, etc</b>. Tyre, the second oldest +and most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a +strong competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="236sg">236.</a> Ægean Isles</b>. The Ægean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean +lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the +north, and Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small +islands, many of which are famous in Greek mythology.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="238sg">238.</a> Chian wine</b>. Chios, or Scio, an island in the Ægean Sea +(see note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="239sg">239.</a> tunnies</b>. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in +the Mediterranean Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="244sg">244.</a> Midland waters</b>. The Mediterranean Sea.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="245sg">245.</a> Syrtes</b>. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, +the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, <b>soft Sicily</b>. Sicily +is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="247sg">247.</a> western straits</b>. Strait of Gibraltar.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="250sg">250.</a> Iberians</b>. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by +Portugal and Spain.</p> +<p> +What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What +quest is to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join +himself to the gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, +then, did he continue with them till his death? Why would he +avoid others than members of the gipsy crew? Why his pensive +air? To what truth does the author suddenly awake? How does +the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain fully lines 180-200. +Note carefully the author's contrast between the life led by the<span class="left">[p.203]</span> +Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better? Why? Make +an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it apt? Why +used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted to +the theme of the poem?</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + +<h3><a href="#THYR">THYRSIS</a><a name="THYRSIS">°</a></h3> +<p> +A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh +Clough, who died at Florence, 1861.</p> +<p> +Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection, +<i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a +sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English +language.</p> +<p> +Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. +In the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in +the Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has +come to mean any rustic.</p> +<p> +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin +in spirit to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He +studied at both Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately +associated and became fast friends. In 1869 his health +began to fail, and two years later he died in Florence, Italy, where +he had gone in the hope of being benefited by the climate.</p> +<p> +Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his +poem: "Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the +Thyrsis was modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been +much reading during the two years this poem has been forming +itself, and that I meant the diction to be so artless as to be almost +heedless. However, there is a mean which must not be passed, +and before I reprint this I will consider well all objections. The +images are all from actual observation.... The cuckoo in the +wet June morning, I heard in the garden at Woodford, and all<span class="left">[p.204]</span> +those three stanzas, which you like, are reminiscences of Woodford. +Edward has, I think, fixed on the two stanzas I myself like +best: 'O easy access,' and 'And long the way appears.' I also +like 'Where is the girl,' and the stanza before it; but that is because +they bring certain places and moments before me.... It +is probably too quiet a poem for the general taste, but I think it +will stand wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold +wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I +think, solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had +long been in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, +and, when I began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You +say, truly, that there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic +side, in fact) which one cannot deal with in this way.... Still, +Clough had the idyllic side, too; to deal with this suited my desire +to deal again with that Cumner country. Anyway, only so could +I treat the matter this time. <i>Valeat quantum</i>."</p> +<p> +<b><a name="1th">1.</a></b> Note how the tone of the poem is struck in the first line.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="2th">2.</a>In the two Hinkseys.</b> That is, North and South Hinksey. +See note, l. <a href="#125sg">125</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="4th">4.</a> Sibylla's name.</b> In ancient mythology the Sibyls were certain +women reputed to possess special powers of prophecy, or divination, +and who claimed to make special intercession with the gods +in behalf of those who resorted to them. Do you see why their +"name" would be used on signs as here mentioned?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="6th">6.</a> ye hills.</b> See note, l. <a href="#30sg">30</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="14th"></a>14. Ilsley Downs.</b> The surface of East and West Ilsley parishes, +in Berkshire, some twelve or fourteen miles south of Oxford, is +broken by ranges of plateau-like hills, known in England as <i>downs</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="15th">15.</a> The Vale.</b> White Horse Vale; the upper valley of the +River Ock, westward from Oxford. <b>weirs</b>. See note, l. <a href="#95sg">95</a>, <i>The +Scholar-Gipsy.</i></p> +<p> +<b><a name="19th">19.</a> And that sweet city with her dreaming spires.</b><span class="left">[p.205]</span> +Arnold's intense love for Oxford and the surrounding country appears in +many of his essays and poems. In the introduction to his <i>Essays +on Criticism</i>, Vol. I, occurs the following tribute: "Beautiful +city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual +life of our century, so serene!</p> + +<p class="indent"> +'There are our young barbarians all at play!' +</p> +<p> +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments +to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment +of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable +charm, keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the +ideal, to perfection—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen +from another side?... Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs +and unpopular names and impossible loyalties! what example could +ever so inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what +teacher could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all +prone, that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the +death of Schiller, makes it his friend's highest praise ... to have +left miles out of sight behind him: the bondage of 'was uns alle +bändigt, Das Gemeine'?"</p> +<p> +<b><a name="20th">20.</a></b> Compare with Lowell's lines on June, in <i>The Vision of Sir +Launfal</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="23th">22-23.</a></b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="24th">24.</a> Once pass'd I blindfold here.</b> That is, at one time I could +have passed here blindfolded, being so familiar with the country. +Can you think of any other possible interpretation?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="30th">26-30.</a></b> Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="40th">31-40.</a></b> Compare the thought here to that of Milton's <i>Lycidas</i>, +ll. 23-38. A comparison of the two poems entire, in thought and +structure, will be found to be both interesting and profitable. +<b>Shepherd-pipe</b> (l. 35). The term <b>pipe</b>, also <b>reed</b> (l. 78), is +continually used in pastoral verse as symbolic of poetry and<span class="left">[p.206]</span> +song. </p> +<p> +<b><a name="45th">38-45.</a> Needs must I lose them</b>, etc. That is, I must lose them, +etc. Arnold's great ambition was to devote his life to literature, +which circumstances largely prevented; while Clough was eager to +take a more active part in life, not being content with the uneventful +career of a poet, <b>irk'd</b> (l. 40). Annoyed; worried. <b>keep</b> +(l. 43). Here used in the sense of remain, <b>silly</b> (l. 45). Harmless; +senseless. The word has an interesting history.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="50th">46-50</a></b>. Like Arnold, Clough held lofty ideals of life, and grieved +to see men living so far below their privileges. This, with his loss +of faith in God, tinged his poetry with sadness. The storms (l. 49) +allude to the spiritual, political, and social unrest of the last of the +first half, and first of the last half, of the nineteenth century.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="60th">51-60.</a> So ... So....</b> Just as the cuckoo departs with the +bloom of the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. <b>With blossoms +red and white</b> (l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common +in English gardens.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="62th">62.</a> high Midsummer pomps</b>. Explained in the following lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="71th">71.</a> light comer</b>. That is, the cuckoo. Compare</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"O blithe New-comer."<br /> + +—WORDSWORTH, <i>Lines to the Cuckoo</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="77th">77. </a>swains</b>. Consult dictionary.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="78th">78.</a> reed</b>. See note, l. <a href="#40th">35</a> of poem.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="79th">79.</a> And blow a strain the world at last shall heed</b>. On the +whole, Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by +the reviewers.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="80th">80.</a> Corydon</b>. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis, +shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="84th">84.</a> Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate</b>. Bion of Smyrna, Asia +Minor, a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent +the later years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was <span class="left">[p.207]</span> +poisoned. His untimely death was lamented by his follower and +pupil, Moschus of Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and +genuine pathos. <b>ditty</b>. In a general sense, any song; usually +confined, however, to a song narrating some heroic deed.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="85th">85.</a> cross the unpermitted ferry's flow</b>. That is, cross the river +of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to +Hades. Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry +being passed by mortals. See note, ll. <a href="#34m">34-39</a>, <i>Memorial Verses</i>; +also ll. 207-210, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>, of this volume.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="88th">88-89.</a> Proserpine</b>, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the underworld, +was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as the +goddess of the spring.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="90th">90.</a> And flute his friend like Orpheus</b>, etc. See note, ll. <a href="#34m">34-39</a>, +<i>Memorial Verses</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="94th">94.</a> She knew the Dorian water's gush divine</b>. The river +Alpheus, in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus—the +country of the Dorians—disappears from the surface and flows in +subterranean channels for some considerable part of its course to +the sea. In ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again +to the surface in central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite +haunt of Proserpine, as the fountain of Arethusa.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="96th">95-96.</a> She knew each lily white which Enna yields</b>, etc. +According to Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers +in the vale of Enna when carried off by Pluto.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="97th">97.</a> She loved the Dorian pipe</b>, etc. What reason or reasons +can you give for Proserpine's love of things Dorian?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="106th">106.</a> I know the Fyfield tree</b>. See l. <a href="#83sg">83</a>, <i>The +Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="109th">109.</a> Ensham, Sandford</b>. Small towns on the Thames; the former, +some four miles above Oxford; the latter, a like distance below.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123th">123.</a> Wytham flats</b>. Some three miles above Oxford, along the +Thames.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="135th">135.</a> sprent. Sprinkled</b>. The preterit or <span class="left">[p.208]</span> +past participle of <i>spreng</i> (obsolete or archaic).</p> +<p> +<b><a name="150th">141-150</a></b>. Explain.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="155th">155.</a> Berkshire</b>. See note, l. <a href="#58sg">58</a>, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="167th">167.</a> Arno-vale</b>. The valley of the Arno, a river in Tuscany, +Italy, on which Florence is situated.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="175th">175.</a> To a boon ... country he has fled</b>. That is, to Italy.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="177th">177.</a>the great Mother</b>. Ceres, the earth goddess.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190th">181-190</a></b>. Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral +poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, +who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the +power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make +strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them +to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save +Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping contest with Lityerses, +overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with +this tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early, plaintive +strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by the corn +reapers. Other traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a +nymph, who exacted from him an oath to love no one else. He +fell in love with a princess, and was struck blind by the jealous +nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him to heaven, and +made a fountain spring up in the place from which he ascended. +At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. See Servius, +<i>Comment, in Vergil. Bucol</i>., V, 20, and VIII, 68.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="200th">191-200</a></b>. Explain the lines. <b>Sole</b> (l. 192). See l. 563, <i>Sohrab +and Rustum</i>. <b>soft sheep</b> (l. 198). Note the use of the adjective +<i>soft</i>. Cf. <i>soft Sicily</i>, l. 245, <i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="202th">201-202.</a> A fugitive and gracious light</b>, etc. What is the light +sought by the Scholar-Gipsy and by the poet? Beginning with +l. 201, explain the succeeding stanzas, sentence by sentence, to +the close of the poem. Then sum up the thought in a few words.</p> +<p> +What is the author's mood, as shown by the first stanza? What <span class="left">[p.209]</span> +is his purpose in recalling the haunts once familiar to him about +Oxford? Why the mention of the Scholar-Gipsy? What is +the significance of the "tree" so frequently alluded to in the +poem? Discuss stanzas 4 and 5 as to meaning. To what is +Thyrsis (Clough) likened in stanzas 6, 7, and 8? Where, however, +is there a difference? Apply ll. 81-84 to Clough and +Arnold. How do you explain the "easy access" of the Dorian +shepherds to Proserpine, l. 91? What digression is made in ll. +131-150? What is the poet's attitude toward life? Why will he +not despair so long as the "lonely tree" remains? What comparison +does he make between Clough and the Scholar-Gipsy? +What is the "gracious light," l. 201? Where found? What +voice whispers to him amid the "heart-wearying roar" of the +city? What effect does it have upon him? Does it give him +courage or fortitude? Discuss the verse form and diction of the +poem.</p> +<br /><br /><br /> + + +<h3><a href="#CHAPEL">RUGBY CHAPEL</a><a name="RUGBY">°</a></h3> +<p> +<i>Rugby Chapel</i> (1857), one of Arnold's best-known and most characteristic +productions, was written in memory of his father, Dr. +Thomas Arnold, famous as the great head-master at Rugby. Dr. +Arnold was born at East Cowes in the Isle of Wight, June 13, +1795, and as a boy was at school at Warminster and Winchester. +In 1811 he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and having +won recognition as a scholar, was awarded a fellowship of the Oriel +in 1815. Three years later he settled at Laleham, where, in 1820, +he married Mary Penrose, daughter of Justice Penrose, and where, +two years later, was born Matthew, who was destined to win +marked distinction among English men of letters. In 1827 he was +elected head-master at Rugby, and shortly afterward began those +important reforms which have placed him among the greatest<span class="left">[p.210]</span> +educators of his century. Chief among his writings is his <i>History +of Rome</i>, published in several volumes. In 1841 he was appointed +Regius Professor of History at Oxford. He died very suddenly on +Sunday, June 12, 1842, and on the following Friday his remains +were interred in the chancel of Rugby Chapel, immediately under +the communion table.</p> +<p> +In his poem Arnold has drawn a vivid picture of a strong, helpful, +hopeful, unselfish soul, cheering and supporting his weaker +comrades in their upward and onward march—a picture of the +guide and companion of his earlier years; and in so doing he has +preserved his father's memory to posterity in a striking and an +abiding way.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="13rc">1-13.</a></b> Note carefully the tone of these introductory lines, and +determine the poet's purpose in opening the poem in this mood. +The picture inevitably calls to mind Bryant's lines, <i>The Death of +Flowers</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="16rc">16.</a> gloom.</b> The key-word to the preceding lines. Explain why +it calls to mind the poet's father. Keats makes a similar use of the +word <i>forlorn</i> in his <i>Ode to the Nightingale</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "... forlorn.<br /> +Forlorn! the very word is like a bell<br /> +To toll me back from thee to my sole self." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="33rc">30-33.</a></b> Discuss the figure as to its aptness.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="37rc">37.</a> shore</b>. A word common to hymns.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="57rc">38-57.</a></b> Discuss the poet's idea of the future life as set forth in +these lines. Can you think of any other author or authors who have +held a like view?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="59rc">58-59.</a></b> The poet asks this question only to answer it in the lines +following. Compare and contrast the two classes of men spoken +of; their aims in life and their achievements. Why is the path of +those who have chosen a "clear-purposed goal" pictured so difficult?<span class="left">[p.211]</span> +Who are they that start well, but fall out by the wayside?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="93rc">90-93.</a></b> Compare with Byron's description of a storm in the Alps, +Canto III, <i>Childe Harold</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> + + "Far along,<br /> +From peak to peak, the rattling crags among<br /> +Leaps the live thunder." +</p> +<p> +<b><a name="100rc">98-101.</a></b> So unstable is the hold of the "snow-beds" on the +mountain sides that travellers passing beneath them are forbidden +by the guides to speak, lest their voices precipitate an avalanche. +See ll. 160-169, <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i>.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="123rc">117-123.</a></b> What human frailties are indicated in the answer to +the host's question? Note the contrast in the succeeding lines.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="144rc">124-144.</a></b> The imagery of these lines is drawn from Dr. Arnold's +life at Rugby. Under his care frequent excursions were made into +the neighboring Westmoreland Hills. Nothing perhaps gives a +better idea of the man than the description of his "delight in those +long mountain walks, when they would start with their provisions +for the day, himself the guide and life of the party, always on the +lookout how best to break the ascent by gentle stages, comforting +the little ones in their falls and helping forward those who were +tired, himself always keeping with the laggers, that none might +strain their strength by trying to be in front with him; and then, +when his assistance was not wanted, the liveliest of all—his step +so light, his eye so quick in finding flowers to take home to those +who were not of the party."—ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="171rc">171.</a> In the rocks</b>. That is, among the rocks.</p> +<p> +<b><a name="190rc">190.</a> Ye</b>. Antecedent?</p> +<p> +<b><a name="208rc">208.</a> City of God</b>.</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the <i>city of +God</i>."<br /> + + + + + +—<i>Psalms</i>, xlvi: 4.</p> + + + <br /><br /> + <hr /><br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a name="INDEX">INDEX TO NOTES</a></h2><span class="left">[p.213]</span> + + +<table width="100%" summary="Index, A"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#70el">Abbey towers</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#42">Ader-baijan</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#236sg">Ægean Isles</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#38">Afrasiab</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#50k">Agog</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#15p">Ajax</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#231sr">Alcmena's dreadful son</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#237t">All red ... bathed in foam</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#178">Aloof he sits, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#160t">And that ... more</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Ariosto</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#167th">Arno-vale</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#72sr">Art</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#20t">Arthur's court</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#344">Art thou not Rustum?</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Asopus</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#232sg">As some grave Tyrian trader, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#556">As when some hunter, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#45">At my boy's years</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#123">Attruck</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#AUSTERITY"><i>Austerity of Poetry</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#208sg">Averse, as Dido did, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, B"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#74sg">Bablockhithe</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#111sg">Bagley Wood</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#286">Bahrein</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#35el">Beethoven</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#330">Be govern'd</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#1we">Belgrave Square</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#93m">Bell</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#58sg">Berkshire moors</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#2ea">Bethnal Green</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#252t">Blessed sign</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#79th">Blow a strain the world at last shall heed</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#119">Bokhara</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#499">Bow'd his head</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#24l">Breathed on by rural Pan</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Broce-liande</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#596">Bruited up</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#2m">Byron</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#343">By thy father's head</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, C"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#13r">Cabin'd</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#160">Cabool</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#736">Caked the sand</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#113">Casbin</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#143sr">Centaurs</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb2">Chambery</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#71cb">Chancel</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#194t">Chatelaine</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#238sg">Chian wine</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#76k">Chiel</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#37cb2">Chisell'd broideries</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#878">Chorasma</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#183sr">Chorasmian stream</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#129sg">Christ Church hall</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#13t3">Cirque</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#208rc">City of God</a><span class="invisible">, 211</span><br /> +<a href="#180sr">Clusters of lonely mounds</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#2k">Cobham</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#67">Common chance</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /><span class="left">[p.214]</span> +<a href="#60">Common fight</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#CONSOLATION"><i>Consolation</i></a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#18c">Cool gallery</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#156">Corn</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#664">Corselet</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#80th">Corydon</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#454">Crest</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#9sg">Cross and recross</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#85th">Cross the unpermitted ferry's flow</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#13sg">Cruse</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#672">Cunning</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#508">Curdled</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, D"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"><a href="#35cb">Dais</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#83sg">Dance around the Fyfield elm in May</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Dante</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#190th">Daphnis</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#27ph">Daulis</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#538">Dearer to the red jackals, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#48c">Destiny</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#266">Device</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#277">Dight</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#220sg">Dingles</a><span class="invisible">, 201</span><br /> +<a href="#84th">Ditty</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#132t2">Dogg'd</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#180sg">Do not we ... await it too?</a><span class="invisible"> 200</span><br /> +<a href="#DOVER"><i>Dover Beach</i></a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, E"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#EASTLONDON"><i>East London</i></a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Empire</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#109th">Ensham</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#EPILOGUE"><i>Epilogue to Lessing's LAOCOON</i></a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#42sg">Erst</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#32ph">Eternal passion! eternal pain!</a><span class="invisible"> 185</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#34m">Eurydice</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#6y">Even clime</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, F"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#200">Falcon</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#38sr">Fane</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#3k">Farringford</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#276sr">Faun with torches</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#110sr">Favour'd guest of Circe</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#164t">Fay</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Fay</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#22t3">Fell-fare</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#128">Ferghana</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#120">Ferment the milk of mares</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#257">Fight unknown and in plain arms</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#70">Find a father thou hast never seen</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#1">First grey of morning fill'd the east</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#147">Fix'd</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#306">Flowers</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#90th">Flute his friend, like Orpheus, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#39cb3">Foliaged marble forest</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#6w">Foolish</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#481">For a cloud, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#109cb">Fretwork</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#115">Frore</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#202th">Fugitive and gracious light, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#406">Full struck</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, G"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#65k">Geist</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#GEIST"><i>Geist's Grave</i></a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#469">Girl's wiles</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#536">Glad</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#418">Glancing</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#133sg">Glanvil</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#31sg">Glanvil's book</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#570">Glass</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#16rc">Gloom</a><span class="invisible">, 210</span><br /> +<a href="#91sg">Godstow Bridge</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#29el">Goethe</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /><span class="left">[p.215]</span> +<a href="#1m">Goethe in Weimar sleeps</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#221">Go to!</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#41k">Grand Old Man</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#130sg">Grange</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#177th">Great Mother</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#130t">Green isle</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#69sg">Green-muffled</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#679">Griffin</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#134t3">Gulls</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, H"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#18b">Hair that red</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#107">Haman</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#206sr">Happy Islands</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Hark ... sun</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#717">Have found</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#788">Heap a stately mound, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#129m">Heaths starr'd with broom</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#5y">Heats</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#7b">Hebrides</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#3p">Hector</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#16p">Helen</a><span class="invisible">, 190</span><br /> +<a href="#495">Helm</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#751">Helmund</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#220sr">Hera's anger</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#254sr">Heroes</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#248">He spoke ... men</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#124el">Hies</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#62th">High Midsummer pomps</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#125sg">Hinksey</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#226t">His long rambles ... ground</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#435">Hollow</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#18t3">Holly trees and juniper</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#14c">Holy Lassa</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Holy well</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#163el">Homer</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#12gg">Homily</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#47t2">Honied nothings</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#29ph">How thick the bursts, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#21l">Huge world</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#HUMAN"><i>Human Life</i></a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#12y">Hurrying fever</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#57sg">Hurst</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#11b">Hurtling Polar lights</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#412">Hydaspes</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#1el">Hyde Park</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#412">Hyphasis</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, I"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#38sr">Iacchus</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#250sg">Iberians</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#724">I came ... passing wind</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#106th">I know the Fyfield tree</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#14th">Ilsley Downs</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#8hl">Incognisable</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#161">Indian Caucasus</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#3a">In his light youth</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#5hl">Inly-written chart</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#212sg">Inviolable shade</a><span class="invisible">, 201</span><br /> +<a href="#217">Iran</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Irk'd</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#17m">Iron age</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#81t3">Iron coast</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#8t">Iseult</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Is Merlin prisoner, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#ISOLATION"><i>Isolation</i></a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#1t">Is she not come?</a><span class="invisible">, 168</span><br /> +<a href="#12sr">Ivy-cinctured</a><span class="invisible">, 179</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, J"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#129">Jaxartes</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#40b">Joppa</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#5y">Joy</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#149sg">Just-pausing Genius</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, K"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#223">Kai Khosroo</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#KAISER"><i>Kaiser Dead</i></a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#132">Kalmucks</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#101">Kara Kul</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Keep</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#6w">Ken</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /><span class="left">[p.216]</span> +<a href="#4hl">Kept uninfringed my nature's law</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#120">Khiva</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#138">Khorassan</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#470">Kindled</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#68t">King Marc</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#131">Kipchak</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#133">Kirghizzes</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Kohik</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#132">Kuzzaks</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, L"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#228sr">Lapithæ</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#95sg">Lasher pass</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#203t">Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#45cb3">Leads</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#258t">Leaguer</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#38b">Leper recollect</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#71th">Light comer</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#452">Like that autumn star</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#143t3">Like that bold Cæsar</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#LINES"><i>Lines Written in Kensington Gardens</i></a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#177">Lion's heart</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#48sr">Lions sleeping</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#42gg">Lips that rarely form them now</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#190th">Lityerses</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#134t">Loud Tyntagel's hill</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#192t">Lovely orphan child</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#890">Luminous home</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#23t">Lyoness</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, M"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#275sr">Mænad</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#42m">Mail</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#3w">Marcus Aurelius</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#13m">Margaret</a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb2">Matin-chime</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#MEMORIAL"><i>Memorial Verses</i></a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#35el">Mendelssohn</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#244sg">Midland waters</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#197sr">Milk-barr'd onyx-stones</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#89el">Miserere Domine</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#7i">Moon,</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +<a href="#238t">Moonstruck knight</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#765">Moorghab</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#3cb">Mountain-chalets</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#140el">Movement</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#35el">Mozart</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#120sr">Muses</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#314t">My princess ... good night</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, N"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#45th">Needs must I lose them, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#328">Never was that field lost or that foe saved</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#891">New bathed stars</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Northern Sir</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#81sr">Nymphs</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, O"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#91t">O'er ... sea</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#632">Of age and looks, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#37t3">Old-world Breton history</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#24th">Once pass'd I blindfold here</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#1q">One lesson</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#230">One slight helpless girl</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#830">On that day</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#880">Orgunje</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#34m">Orpheus</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#98sg">Outlandish</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#30sg">Oxford towers</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#2">Oxus</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#5ph">O wanderer from a Grecian shore</a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, P"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#130el">Painter and musician too</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#PALLADIUM"><i>Palladium</i></a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#77cb">Palmers</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#15">Pamere</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /><span class="left">[p.217]</span> +<a href="#67sr">Pan's flute music</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#224-2t3">Passing weary</a><span class="invisible">, 175</span><br /> +<a href="#16el">Pausanias</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#145sr">Pelion</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#5k">Pen-bryn's bold bard</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#11">Peran-Wisa</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#861">Persepolis</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#85">Persian King</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#311">Perused</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Petrarch</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#PHILOMELA"><i>Philomela</i></a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /> +<a href="#15el">Phoebus-guarded ground</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#84th">Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#161t">Pleasaunce-walks</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#140t3">Posting here and there</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#20k">Potsdam</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#658">Prick'd upon this arm, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#17cb">Prickers</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#92t3">Prie-dieu</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#93m">Priest</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Prince Alexander</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#23hl">Prore</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#88th">Proserpine</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Q"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#QUIET"><i>Quiet Work</i></a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, R"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#73sr">Range</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#25el">Raphael</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#7w">Rates</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#303t">Recks not</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#140sg">Red-fruited yew tree</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#40th">Reed</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#466">Remember all thy valour</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#REQUIESCAT"><i>Requiescat</i></a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +<a href="#107el">Ride</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#880">Right for the polar star</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#255t">Roman Emperor</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#72m">Rotha</a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#36sr">Rout</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#RUGBY"><i>Rugby Chapel</i></a><span class="invisible">, 209</span><br /> +<a href="#516">Rustum!</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, S"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#11a">Sackcloth</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#SAINT"><i>Saint Brandan</i></a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#40">Samarcand</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#109th">Sandford</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#199">Sate</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#1cb">Savoy</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#113t2">Sconce</a><span class="invisible">, 172</span><br /> +<a href="#167sr">Scythian ... embers</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#81m">Seal'd</a><span class="invisible">, 166</span><br /> +<a href="#245t">Secret in his breast</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +<a href="#74sr">See what the day brings</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#82">Seistan</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#SELF"><i>Self-Dependence</i></a><span class="invisible">, 190</span><br /> +<a href="#31b">Self-murder</a><span class="invisible">, 164</span><br /> +<a href="#97t3">Seneschal</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#163el">Shakespeare</a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#SHAKES"><i>Shakespeare</i></a><span class="invisible">, 193</span><br /> +<a href="#96th">She knew each lily white which Enna yields, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#94th">She knew the Dorian water's gush divine</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#97th">She loved the Dorian pipe, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /> +<a href="#40th">Shepherd-pipe</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#497">Shore</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#4th">Sibylla's name</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#261sr">Silenus</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#45th">Silly</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#1p">Simois</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /> +<a href="#76k">Skye</a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +<a href="#232">Snow-haired Zal</a><span class="invisible">, 159</span><br /> +<a href="#200th">Soft sheep</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#245sg">Soft Sicily</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#NOTES"><i>Sohrab and Rustum</i></a><span class="invisible">, 149</span><br /> +<a href="#563">Sole</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#1a">Son of Italy</a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><span class="left">[p.218]</span> +<a href="#15db">Sophocles</a><span class="invisible">, 183</span><br /> +<a href="#60th">So ... So ...</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#150t3">Soudan</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#42el">South</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#4ea">Spitalfields</a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#135th">Sprent</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#26t3">Stagshorn</a><span class="invisible">, 173</span><br /> +<a href="#27hl">Stem</a><span class="invisible">, 186</span><br /> +<a href="#200t">Stranger-knight, ill-starr'd</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#21c">Strange unloved uproar</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#613">Style</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#61">Sunk</a><span class="invisible">, 156</span><br /> +<a href="#489">Sun sparkled, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#77th">Swains</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#245sg">Syrtes</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, T"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#114sg">Tagg'd</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#288">Tale</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#3">Tartar camp</a><span class="invisible">, 155</span><br /> +<a href="#21el">Tasso</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#147sg">Teen</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#765">Tejend</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span><br /> +<a href="#625">That old king</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +<a href="#19th">That sweet city with her dreaming spires</a><span class="invisible">, 205</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Thebes</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +<a href="#BROU"><i>The Church of Brou</i></a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#MERMAN"><i>The Forsaken Merman</i></a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#LAST"><i>The Last Word</i></a><span class="invisible">, 188</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#86">There, go! etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#SCHOLAR"><i>The Scholar-Gipsy</i></a><span class="invisible">, 197</span><br /> +<a href="#115sg">Thessaly</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#STRAYED"><i>The Strayed Reveller</i></a><span class="invisible">, 179</span><br /> +<a href="#55gg">Thine absent master</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /> +<a href="#152sg">Thou had'st one aim, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#151sg">Thou hast not lived</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#160sg">Thou possessest an immortal lot etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#380">Thou wilt not fright me so</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#18ph">Thracian wild</a><span class="invisible">, 184</span><br /> +<a href="#THYRSIS"><i>Thyrsis</i></a><span class="invisible">, 203</span><br /> +<a href="#135sr">Tiresias</a><span class="invisible">, 181</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#2m">Titans</a><span class="invisible">, 196</span><br /> +<a href="#175th">To a boon ... country he has fled</a><span class="invisible">, 208</span><br /> +<a href="#21ph">Too clear web, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 185</span><br /> +<a href="#121">Toorkmuns</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#401">Tower'd</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#6cb3">Transept</a><span class="invisible">, 176</span><br /> +<a href="#326">Tried</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#TRISTRAM"><i>Tristram and Iseult</i></a><span class="invisible">, 167</span><br /> +<a href="#257sr">Troy</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +<a href="#122">Tukas</a><span class="invisible">, 158</span><br /> +<a href="#239sg">Tunnies</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#68t">Tyntagel</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, U"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#71sr">Ulysses</a><span class="invisible">, 180</span><br /> +<a href="#710">Unconscious hand</a><span class="invisible">, 162</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#257sr">Unknown sea</a><span class="invisible">, 182</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#481">Unnatural</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, V"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#119el">Vacant</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#15th">Vale</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#325">Vast</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#16r">Vasty</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#367">Vaunt</a><span class="invisible">, 160</span><br /> +<a href="#15gg">Virgilian cry</a><span class="invisible">, 191</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, W"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#88t">Wanders</a><span class="invisible">, 169</span><br /> +<a href="#2sg">Wattled cotes</a><span class="invisible">, 198</span><br /> +<a href="#15th">Weirs</a><span class="invisible">, 204</span><br /> +<a href="#204t">Welcomed here</a><span class="invisible">, 170</span><br /> +<a href="#247sg">Western straits</a><span class="invisible">, 202</span><br /> +<a href="#WESTLONDON"><i>West London</i></a><span class="invisible">, 195</span><br /> +<a href="#261t">What boots it</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#14l">What endless active life</a><span class="invisible">, 178</span><br /> +<a href="#239t">What foul fiend rides thee?</a><span class="invisible">, 171</span><br /><span class="left">[p.219]</span> +<a href="#83">Whether that ... or in some quarrel</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +<a href="#165sg">Which much to have tried, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 200</span><br /> +<a href="#6m">Wild white horses</a><span class="invisible">, 165</span><br /> +<a href="#224t3">Wimple</a><span class="invisible">, 174</span><br /> +<a href="#527">With a bitter smile, etc.</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#60th">With blossoms red and white</a><span class="invisible">, 206</span><br /> +<a href="#29el">Wordsworth</a><span class="invisible">, 192</span><br /> +<a href="#WORLDLY"><i>Worldly Place</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /> +<a href="#414">Wrack</a><span class="invisible">, 161</span><br /> +<a href="#79sg">Wychwood bowers</a><span class="invisible">, 199</span><br /> +<a href="#123th">Wytham flats</a><span class="invisible">, 207</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, X"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#14p">Xanthus</a><span class="invisible">, 189</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Y"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#19c">Yellow Tiber</a><span class="invisible">, 177</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#1i">Yes</a><span class="invisible">, 187</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +<a href="#YOUTH"><i>Youth's Agitations</i></a><span class="invisible">, 194</span><br /><br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<table width="100%" summary="Index, Z"> +<tr> + <td width="33%" valign="top"> +<a href="#82">Zal</a><span class="invisible">, 157</span><br /> +</td> + <td width="37%" valign="top"> +<a href="#752">Zirrah</a><span class="invisible">, 163</span> +</td> + <td width="30%" valign="top"> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<!-- + <p> + <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer"><img + src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10" + alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" height="31" width="88" /></a> + </p> +--> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and +Other Poems, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 13364-h.htm or 13364-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/6/13364/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems + +Author: Matthew Arnold + +Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD'S + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + + +EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES + +BY + +JUSTUS COLLINS CASTLEMAN + +HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SOUTH DIVISION +HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE + + + + +1905 + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE + + INTRODUCTION + A Short Life of Arnold + Arnold the Poet + Arnold the Critic + Chronological List of Arnold's Works + Contemporary Authors + Bibliography + + SELECTIONS FROM ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS + + NARRATIVE POEMS + + Sohrab and Rustum + Saint Brandan + The Forsaken Merman + Tristram and Iseult + + + LYRICAL POEMS + + The Church of Brou + Requiescat + Consolation + A Dream + Lines written in Kensington Gardens + The Strayed Reveller + Morality + Dover Beach + Philomela + Human Life + Isolation--To Marguerite + Kaiser Dead + The Last Word + Palladium + Revolutions + Self-Dependence + A Summer Night + Geist's Grave + Epilogue--To Lessing's Laocooen + + + SONNETS + + Quiet Work + Shakespeare + Youth's Agitations + Austerity of Poetry + Worldly Place + East London + West London + + + ELEGIAC POEMS + + Memorial Verses + The Scholar-Gipsy + Thyrsis + Rugby Chapel + + + NOTES + + INDEX + + * * * * * + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD + +Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham, +Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr. +Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby and +in later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of Mary +Penrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect. + +Devoid of stirring incident, and, on the whole, free from the +eccentricities so common to men of genius, the story of Arnold's life +is soon told. As a boy he lived the life of the normal English lad, +with its healthy routine of task and play. He was at school at both +Laleham and Winchester, then at Rugby, where he attracted attention +as a student and won a prize for poetry. In 1840 he was elected to +an open scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, and the next year +matriculated for his university work. Arnold's career at Oxford was a +memorable one. While here he was associated with such men as John Duke +Coleridge, John Shairp, Dean Fraser, Dean Church, John Henry Newman, +Thomas Hughes, the Froudes, and, closest of all, with Arthur Hugh +Clough, whose early death he lamented in his exquisite elegiac +poem--_Thyrsis_. Among this brilliant company Arnold moved with ease, +the recognized favorite. Having taken the Newdigate prize for English +verse, and also having won a scholarship, he was graduated with +honors in 1844, and in March of the following year had the additional +distinction of being elected a Fellow of Oriel, the crowning glory of +an Oxford graduate. He afterward taught classics for a short time at +Rugby, then in 1847 accepted the post of private secretary to the +Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, which position he +occupied until 1851, when he was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools +by the Committee on Education. The same year he married Frances Lucy +Wightman, daughter of Sir William Wightman, judge of the Court of the +Queen's Bench. + +Arnold's record as an educator is unparalleled in the history of +England's public schools. For more than thirty-five years he served as +inspector and commissioner, which offices he filled with efficiency. +As inspector he was earnest, conscientious, versatile; beloved alike +by teachers and pupils. The Dean of Salisbury likened his appearance +to inspect the school at Kiddermaster, to the admission of a ray +of light when a shutter is suddenly opened in a darkened room. +All-in-all, he valued happy-appearing children, and kindly sympathetic +teachers, more than excellence in grade reports. In connection with +the duties of his office as commissioner, he travelled frequently on +the Continent to inquire into foreign methods of primary and secondary +education. Here he found much that was worth while, and often carried +back to London larger suggestions and ideas than the national mind was +ready to accept. Under his supervision, however, the school system of +England was extensively revised and improved. He resigned his position +under the Committee of Council on Education, in 1886, two years before +his death. + +In the meantime Arnold's pen had not been idle. His first volume of +verse, _The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems_, appeared (1848), and +although quietly received, slowly won its way into public favor. The +next year the narrative poem, _The Sick King in Bokhara_, came out, +and was followed in turn by a third volume in 1853, under the title of +_Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems_. By this time Arnold's reputation +as a poet was established, and in 1857 he was elected Professor of +Poetry at Oxford, where he began his career as a lecturer, in which +capacity he twice visited America. _Merope, a Tragedy_ (1856) and a +volume under the title of _New Poems_ (1869) finish the list of his +poetical works, with the exception of occasional verses. + +Arnold's prose works, aside from his letters, consist wholly of +critical essays, in which he has dealt fearlessly with the greater +issues of his day. As will be seen by their titles (see page xxxviii +of this volume), the subject-matter of these essays is of very great +scope, embracing in theme literature, politics, social conduct, and +popular religion. By them Arnold has exerted a remarkable influence on +public thought and stamped himself as one of the ablest critics and +reformers of the last century. Arnold's life was thus one of many +widely diverse activities and was at all times deeply concerned with +practical as well as with literary affairs; and on no side was it +deficient in human sympathies and relations. He won respect and +reputation while he lived, and his works continue to attract men's +minds, although with much unevenness. It has been said of him that, of +all the modern poets, except Goethe, he was the best critic, and of +all the modern critics, with the same exception, he was the best poet. +He died at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter returning +from America, April 15, 1888. By his death the world lost an acute and +cultured critic, a refined writer, an earnest educational reformer, +and a noble man. He was buried in his native town, Laleham. + +Agreeably to his own request, Arnold has never been made the subject +for a biography. By means of his letters, his official reports, +and statements of his friends, however, one is able to trace the +successive stages of his career, as he steadily grew in honor and +public usefulness. Though somewhat inadequate, the picture thus +presented is singularly pleasing and attractive. The subjoined +appreciations have been selected with a view of giving the student a +glimpse of Arnold as he appeared to unprejudiced minds. + +One who knew him at Oxford wrote of him as follows: "His perfect +self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, the humorous turn which +he could give to any subject that he handled, his gaiety, audacity, +and unfailing command of words, made him one of the most popular and +successful undergraduates that Oxford has ever known." + +"He was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams +and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford: there was no +harm in them: they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his +voice and wave of his arm were Jove-like."--PROFESSOR MAX MUeLLER. + +"He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired +and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was +a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of this world he +indeed was; but, finding himself in it, and not precisely knowing what +is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man, he set himself to +make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The +'uncrumpling fern, the eternal moonlit snow,' the red grouse springing +at our sound, the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the +vagaries of men, of women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks, +whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him. + + * * * * * + +"In a sense of the word which is noble and blessed, he was of the +earth earthy.... His mind was based on the plainest possible things. +What he hated most was the fantastic--the far-fetched, all-elaborated +fancies and strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track of +human experience, and the broader the better. He was a plain-sailing +man. This is his true note."--MR. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. + +"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to +his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof +from all the bustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on; +he bore life's disappointments--and he was disappointed in some +reasonable hopes--with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden +upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily +load to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and +most active interest in the well-being of his country and his +countrymen."--MR. JOHN MORLEY. + +In his essay on Arnold, George E. Woodberry speaks of the poet's +personality as revealed by his letters in the following beautiful +manner: "Few who did not know Arnold could have been prepared for +the revelation of a nature so true, so amiable, so dutiful. In every +relation of private life he is shown to have been a man of exceptional +constancy and plainness.... Every one must take delight in the mental +association with Arnold in the scenes of his existence ... and in his +family affections. A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, +fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with +it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so +continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy +appreciation and leave the charm of memory. + +"He did his duty as naturally as if it required neither resolve nor +effort, nor thought of any kind for the morrow, and he never failed, +seemingly, in act or word of sympathy, in little or great things; and +when to this one adds the clear ether of the intellectual life where +he habitually moved in his own life apart, and the humanity of his +home, the gift that these letters bring may be appreciated. That gift +is the man himself, but set in the atmosphere of home, with sonship +and fatherhood, sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years +fully accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood--a sweet and +wholesome English home, with all the cloud and sunshine of the English +world drifting over its roof-trees, and the soil of England beneath +its stones, and English duties for the breath of its being. To add +such a home to the household rights of English Literature is perhaps +something from which Arnold would have shrunk, but it endears his +memory." + + "It may be overmuch + He shunned the common stain and smutch, + From soilure of ignoble touch + Too grandly free, + Too loftily secure in such + Cold purity; + But he preserved from chance control + The fortress of his established soul, + In all things sought to see the whole; + Brooked no disguise, + And set his heart upon the goal, + Not on the prize." + + --MR. WILLIAM WATSON, _In Laleham Churchyard_. + + + +ARNOLD THE POET + +Matthew Arnold was essentially a man of the intellect. No other author +of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals +so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of +his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is +always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase; +and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse, +however, there is a marked difference, both in tone and spiritual +quality. True, each possesses the note of a lofty, though stoical +courage; reveals the same grace of finish and exactness of phrase and +manner; and is, in equal degree, the output of a singularly sane and +noble nature; but here the comparison ends; for, while his prose +is often stormy and contentious, his poetry has always about it an +atmosphere of entire repose. The cause of this difference is not far +to seek. His poetry, written in early manhood, reflects his inner +self, the more lovable side of his nature; while his prose presents +the critic and the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and +permitting at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he +endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment with themselves +and their surroundings. + +With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's poetical career +began and ended inside of twenty years. The reason for this can only +be conjectured, and need not be dwelt upon here. But although his +poetic life was brief, it was of a very high order, his poems ranking +well up among the literary productions of the last century. As a +popular poet, however, he will probably never class with Tennyson or +Longfellow. His poems are too coldly classical and too unattractive in +subject to appeal to the casual reader, who is, generally speaking, +inclined toward poetry of the emotions rather than of the +intellect--Arnold's usual kind. That he recognized this himself, +witness the following quiet statements made in letters to his friends: +"My poems are making their way, I think, though slowly, and are +perhaps never to make way very far. There must always be some people, +however, to whom the literalness and sincerity of them has a charm.... +They represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last +quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day, as +people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind +is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it." Time +has verified the accuracy of this judgment. In short, Arnold has made +a profound rather than a wide impression. To a few, however, of each +generation, he will continue to be a "voice oracular,"--a poet with a +purpose and a message. + +=Arnold's Poetic Culture=.--Obviously, the sources of Arnold's culture +were classical. As one critic has tersely said, "He turned over his +Greek models by day and by night." Here he found his ideal standards, +and here he brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his +thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood +congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles, +"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he +called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and +consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy +appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other +poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets +have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well +satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious +sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of +measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, +and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the +substance of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his +art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic +art, I seem, to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted +in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, +and not hostile criticism." And again: "The radical difference between +the poetic theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them, +the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, +was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the +value of separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of +an action. They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems +which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, +and not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have +critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached +expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself. +I verily believe that the majority of them do not believe that there +is such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a poem at +all, or to be demanded from a poet. They will permit the poet to +select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a show of isolated thoughts and images; that is, +they permit him to leave their poetic sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity." + +Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his ideas of that +unity which gratifies the poetical sense, and has approached very +close to his Greek models in numerous instances; most notably so in +his great epic or narrative poem, _Sohrab and Rustum_, which is dealt +with elsewhere in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do better +than to quote for our consideration at this time, a fine synthesis +of Mr. Arthur Galton. He says: "In Matthew Arnold's style and in his +manner, he seems to me to recall the great masters, and this in a +striking and in an abiding way.... To recall them at all is a rare +gift, but to recall them naturally, and with no strained sense nor +jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly rare that it is +almost enough in itself to place a writer among the great masters; to +proclaim that he is one of them. To recall them at all is a rare gift, +though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets recall them too; +but with these, with every one of them, it is the exception when they +resemble the great masters. They have their own styles, which abide +with them; it is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they +break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal style. +Just the contrary of this is true of Matthew Arnold. It is his own, +his usual, and his most natural style which recalls the great masters; +and only when he does not write like himself, does he cease to +resemble them.... No man who attains to this great style can fail to +have a distinguished function; and Matthew Arnold, like Milton, will +be 'a leaven and a power,' because he, too, has made the great style +current in English. With his desire for culture and for perfection, +there is no destiny he would prefer to this, for which his nature, his +training, and his sympathies, all prepared him. To convey the message +of those ancients whom he loved so well, in that English tongue which +he was taught by them to use so perfectly;--to serve as an eternal +protest against charlatanism and vulgarity;--is exactly the mission +he would have chosen for himself.... The few writers of our language, +therefore, who give us 'an ideal of excellence, the most high and the +most rare,' have an important function; we should study their works +continually, and it should be a matter of passionate concern with us, +that the 'ideals,' that is, the definite and perfect models, should +abide with us forever." The Greeks recognized three kinds of +poetry,--Lyric, Dramatic, and Epic. Arnold tried all three. First, +then, as a lyricist. + +=Arnold as a Lyricist=.--Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of +the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, hence it is subjective. +The action is usually vapid, the verse musical, the time quick. Unlike +the Epic and Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the +poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of +verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in +vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay +or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is +soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental qualities +of the poet's mind and temperament. Though by no means lacking in +emotional sensibility, Arnold was too intellectually self-conscious to +be carried away by the impulsiveness common to the lyrical moods. With +him the intellect was always master; the emotions, subordinate. With +the lyricist, the order is, in the main, at least, reversed. The poet +throws off intellectual restraint, and "lets his illumined being +o'errun" with music and song. This Arnold could not or would not +do. Then, too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically. +This, combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues a not too +discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked genius in inventing verse +forms, and hence found himself under the necessity of employing or +adapting those already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior +to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly his own. Again, +considerable portions of his lyric verse consist merely of prose, cut +into lines of different length, in imitation of the unrhymed measures +of the Greek poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these +rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick drawn by a +city gamin sharply across the area railings,--a not inapt comparison. +That they were not always successful, witness the following stanza +from _Merope_:-- + + "Thou confessest the prize + In the rushing, blundering, mad, + Cloud-enveloped, obscure, + Unapplauded, unsung + Race of Calamity, mine!" + +Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, Arnold +was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at times, in those same uneven +measures in which are found his most signal failures--the unrhymed +Pindaric. _Philomela_ written in this style is one of the most +exquisite bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put it, +"It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." In urbanity of +phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it is unsurpassed and shows +Arnold at his best. _Rugby Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of +Man_, and _A Dream_ are good examples of his longer efforts in this +verse form. In the more common lyric measures, Arnold was, at times, +equally successful. Saintsbury, commenting on _Requiescat_, says that +the poet has "here achieved the triple union of simplicity, pathos, +and (in the best sense) elegance"; and adds that there is not a +false note in the poem. He also speaks enthusiastically of the +"honey-dropping trochees" of the _New Sirens_, and of the "chiselled +and classic perfection" of the lines of _Resignation_. Herbert W. +Paul, writing of _Mycerinus_, declares that no such verse has been +written in England since Wordsworth's _Laodamia_; and continues, +"The poem abounds in single lines of haunting charm." Among his more +successful longer lyrics are _The Sick King in Bokhara, Switzerland, +Faded Leaves_, and _Tristram and Iseult_, and _Epilogue to Lessing's +Laocooen_, included in this volume. + +=Arnold as a Dramatist=.--The drama is imitated human action, and is +intended to exhibit a picture of human life by means of dialogue, +acting, and stage accessories. In nature, it partakes of both lyric +and epic, thus uniting sentiment and action with narration. Characters +live and act before us, and speak in our presence, the interest being +kept up by constantly shifting situations tending toward some striking +result. As a dramatist, Arnold achieved no great success. Again the +fundamental qualities of his mind stood in the way. An author so +subjective, so absorbed in self-scrutiny and introspection as he, +is seldom able to project himself into the minds of others to any +considerable extent. His dramas are brilliant with beautiful phrases, +his pictures of landscapes and of nature in her various aspects +approach perfection; but in the main, he fails to handle his plots in +a dramatic manner and, as a result, does not secure the totality of +impression so vital to the drama. Frequently, too, his characters are +tedious, and in their dialogue manage to be provokingly unnatural or +insipid. They also lack in individuality and independence in speech +and action. Many of his situations, likewise, are at fault. For +instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters as Ulysses and +Circe playing the subordinate roles assigned to them in _The Strayed +Reveller_. A true dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a +blunder. _Merope_ is written in imitation of the Greek tragedians. It +has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, and a classic brevity +of style; but it is frigid and artificial, and fails in the most +essential function of drama--to stir the reader's emotions. +_Empedocles on Etna_, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some +respects a striking poem. It is replete with brilliant passages, and +contains some of Arnold's best lyric verses and most beautiful nature +pictures; but the dialogue is colorless, the rhymes poor, the plot, +such as it contains, but indifferently handled, and even Empedocles, +the principal character, is frequently tedious and unnatural. Arnold's +dramas show that his forte was not in character-drawing nor in +dialogue. + +=Arnold as a Writer of Epic and Elegy=.--Epic poetry narrates in grand +style the achievements of heroes--the poet telling the story as if +present. It is simple in construction and uniform in meter, yet it +admits of the dialogue and the episode, and though not enforcing a +moral it may hold one in solution. Elegiac poetry is plaintive in +tone and expresses sorrow or lamentation. Both epic and elegy are +inevitably serious in mood, and slow and stately in action. In these +two forms of verse Arnold was at his best. Stockton pronounced _Sohrab +and Rustum_ the noblest poem in the English language. Another critic +has said that "it is the nearest analogue in English to the rapidity +of action, plainness of thought, plainness of diction, and nobleness +of Homer." Combining, as it does, classic purity of style with +romantic ardor of feeling, it stands a direct exemplification of +Arnold's poetic theories, as set forth in the preface of his volume of +1853. Especially is it successful in emphasizing his idea of unity of +impression; "while the truth of its oriental color, the deep pathos +of the situation, the fire and intensity of the action, the strong +conception of character, and the full, solemn music of the verse, make +it unquestionably the masterpiece of Arnold's longer poems, among +which it is the largest in bulk and also the most ambitious in +scheme." _Balder Dead_, a characteristic Arnoldian production, founded +upon the Norse legend of Balder, Lok, and Hader, though not so great +as _Sohrab and Rustum_, has much poetic worth and ranks high among its +kind; and _Tristram and Iseult_, with its infinite tragedy, and _The +Sick King in Bokhara_, gorgeous in oriental color, are rare examples +of the lyrical epic. _The Forsaken Merman_ and _Saint Brandan_, which +are dealt with elsewhere in this volume, are good examples of his +shorter narrative poems. In _Thyrsis_, the beautiful threnody in which +he celebrated his dead friend, Clough, Arnold gave to the world one of +its greatest elegies. One finds in this poem and its companion piece, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, the same unity of classic form with romantic +feeling present in _Sohrab and Rustum_. Both are crystal-clear without +coldness, and restrained without loss of a full volume of power. +Mr. Saintsbury, writing of _The Scholar-Gipsy_, says: "It has +everything--a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a +sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages +and phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less praise is due +_Thyrsis_. Other of his elegiac poems are _Heine's Grave, Stanzas from +the Grande Chartreuse, Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann," +Obermann Once More, Rugby Chapel_, and _Memorial Verses_, the two last +named being included in this volume. In such measures as are used in +these poems, in the long, stately, swelling measures, whose graver +movements accord with a serious and elevated purpose, Arnold was most +at ease. + +=Greek Spirit in Arnold=.--But it is not alone in the fact that he +selects classic subjects, and writes after the manner of the great +masters, that Arnold's affinity with the Greeks is manifested. His +poems in spirit, as in form, reflect the moods common to the ancient +Hellenes, "One feels the (Greek) quality," writes George E. Woodberry, +"not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson, Keats, and Shelley +there was Greek influence, but in them the result was modern. In +Arnold the antiquity remains--remains in mood, just as in Landor it +remains in form. The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is +pagan in philosophic spirit, not Attic, but of later and stoical time; +with the patience, endurance, suffering, not in the Christian types, +but as they now seem to a post-Christian imagination, looking back to +the past." Even when his poems treat of modern or romantic subjects, +one is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with the same +quality of imagination as would the Greek masters themselves: and in +the same form. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Nature=.--In his attitude toward Nature +Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A close study, however, +reveals a wide difference, both in the way Nature appealed to them +and in their mood in her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary +refuge from the doubts and distractions of our modern life,--a +soothing, consoling, uplifting power; to Wordsworth she was an +inspiration,--a presence that disturbed him "with the joy of elevated +thoughts." Conscious of the help he found in her association, Arnold +urged all men to follow Nature's example; to possess their souls in +quietude, despite the storm and turmoil without. Pancoast says: "He +delights in leading us to contemplate the infinite calm of Nature, +beside which man's transitory woes are reduced to a mere fretful +insignificance. All the beautiful poem of _Tristram and Iseult_ is +built upon the skilful alternation of two themes. We pass from the +feverish, wasting, and ephemeral struggle of human passions and +desire, into an atmosphere that shames its heat and fume by an +immemorial coolness and repose;" and the same comparison constitutes +the theme for a considerable portion of his poetical work. In his +method of approaching Nature, Arnold also differed widely from +Wordsworth, in that he saw with the outward eye, that is objectively; +while Wordsworth saw rather with the inward eye, or subjectively. +In this Arnold is essentially Greek and more Tennysonian than +Wordsworthian. Many of his poems, in full or in part, are mere nature +pictures, and are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus +stream at the close of _Sohrab and Rustum_; the English garden in +_Thyrsis_; and the hunter on the arras, in _Tristram and Iseult_, are +all notable examples. This pictorial method Wordsworth seldom used. +In spirit, too, the poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, +first of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in the +wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom from the +fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of Nature's God. + +=Arnold's Attitude toward Life=.--Arnold's attitude toward life has +been dwelt upon in the appreciations under the biographical sketch in +this volume and need only briefly be summed up here. To him, human +life in its higher developments presented itself as a stern and +strenuous affair; but he never faltered nor sought to escape from his +share of the burden. "On the contrary, the prevailing note of his +poetry is self-reliance; help must come from the soul itself, for + + "The fountains of life are all within." + +He preaches fortitude and courage in the face of the mysterious and +the inevitable--a courage, indeed, forlorn and pathetic in the eyes of +many--and he constantly takes refuge from the choking cares of life, +in a kind of stoical resignation." As a reformer, his function +was especially to stir people up, to make them dissatisfied with +themselves and their institutions, and to force them to think, to +become individual. Everywhere in his works one is confronted by his +unvarying insistence upon the supremacy of conduct and duty. The +modern tendency to drift away from the old, established religious +faith was a matter of serious thought to him and led him to give to +the world a rational creed that would satisfy the sceptics and attract +the indifferent. We cannot do better than quote for our closing +thought the following pregnant lines from the author's sonnet entitled +_The Better Part_:-- + + "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!_" + + * * * * * + + + +ARNOLD THE CRITIC + +The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted from +well-known authorities. + +"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy of his +verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The +classical bent of his mind shows itself here, unmixed with the +inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is +his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of its +definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect which suffuses +it; but the doctrine which he spent his life in preaching is based +upon a classical ideal, the ideal of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he +daringly called it, _perfection_.... Wherever, in religion, politics, +education, or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination +of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word of deliverance, +'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with the best which has been thought +and done in the world, is his panacea for all ills.... In almost all +of his prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' by which +word he characterized the narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction of +the British middle class. + +"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task he had to +perform.... In _Culture and Anarchy_ and many successive works, he +made his plea for the gospel of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, +as befitted the Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into +the dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in _Literature and +Dogma_, where he pleads for a more liberal and literary reading of the +Bible, his manner is quiet, suave, and gently persuasive. At other +times, as in _Friendship's Garland_, he shoots the arrows of his +sarcasm into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate raillery and +scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, because it is veiled by +a mock humility, and is scrupulously polite. + +"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single piece is the +famous essay _On Translating Homer_, which deserves careful study +for the enlightenment it offers concerning many of the fundamental +questions of style. The essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from _Essays +in Criticism_, and that on Emerson, from _Discourses in America_, +furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and weight of matter +in this province. + +"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose may be described +as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. In comparison with Carlyle, +Buskin, and Newman, he is worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic +vision of these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, +the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. He +marks a return to the conventions of life after the storm and stress +of the romantic age. Yet in his own way he also was a prophet and a +preacher, striving whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from +bondage to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry and +balance of character which has seemed to many noble minds the true +goal of human endeavor."--MOODY AND LOVETT, _A History of English +Literature_. + +"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment were pretty +nearly infallible. He combined a loyal and reasonable submission +to literary authority, with a free and even daring use of private +judgment. His admiration for the acknowledged masters of human +utterance--Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe--was genuine +and enthusiastic, and incomparably better informed than that of some +more conventional critics. Yet this cordial submission to recognized +authority, this honest loyalty to established reputation, did not +blind him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating praise; +did not deter him from exposing the tendency to verbiage in Burke and +Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness of much of Wordsworth's blank +verse, the undercurrent of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of +Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in small. Whatever +literary production was brought under Matthew Arnold's notice, his +judgment was clear, sympathetic, and independent. He had the readiest +appreciation of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity and +inflation--of what he called endeavors to render platitude endurable +by making it pompous, and lively horror of affectation and +unreality."--Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL. + +"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a high place +among the foremost prose writers of the time. His style is in marked +contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's +pure and radiant coloring. It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, +discriminating, incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. +Notwithstanding its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is often +a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an opponent by +its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and its calm air of assured +superiority. By his insistence on a high standard of technical +excellence, and by his admirable presentation of certain principles of +literary judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. On +the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the human element, the +comprehensive sympathy that we recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. +Yet Carlyle could not have written the essay _On Translating Homer_, +with all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, any +more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's large-hearted essay on +_Burns_. Arnold's varied energy and highly trained intelligence +have been felt in many different fields. He has won a peculiar and +honorable place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as +literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, and +finally, in his _Culture and Anarchy_, he has set forth his scheme of +social reform, and in certain later books has made His contribution +to contemporary thought."--PANCOAST, _Introduction to English +Literature_. + + * * * * * + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ARNOLD'S WORKS + +1840. Alaric at Rome. (Prize poem at Rugby.) +1843. Cromwell. (Prize poem at Oxford.) +1849. The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems. + Mycerinus. + The Strayed Reveller. + Fragment of an Antigone. + The Sick King in Bokhara. + Religious Isolation. + To my Friends. + A Modern Sappho. + The New Sirens. + The Voice. + To Fausta. + Stagyrus. + To a Gipsy Child. + The Hayswater Boat. + The Forsaken Merman. + The World and the Quietist. + In Utrumque Paratus. + Resignation. + Sonnets. + Quiet Work. + To a Friend. + Shakespeare. + To the Duke of Wellington. + Written in Butler's Sermons. + Written in Emerson's Essays. + To an Independent Preacher. + To George Cruikshank. + To a Republican Friend. + +1852. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems. + Empedocles on Etna. + The River. + Excuse. + Indifference. + Too Late. + On the Rhine. + Longing. + The Lake. + Parting. + Absence. + Destiny. (Not reprinted.) + To Marguerite. + Human Life. + Despondency. + Youth's Agitations--A Sonnet. + Self-Deception. + Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.) + Tristram and Iseult. + Memorial Verses. (Previously published in _Fraser's + Magazine_.) + Courage. (Not reprinted.) + Self-Dependence. + A Summer Night. + The Buried Life. + A Farewell. + Stanzas in Memory of the Author of _Obermann_. + Consolation. + Lines written in Kensington Gardens. + The World's Triumphs--A Sonnet. + The Second Best. + Revolutions. + The Youth of Nature. + The Youth of Man. + Morality. + Progress. + The Future. +1853. Poems. + Sohrab and Rustum. + Cadmus and Harmonia. (A fragment of Empedocles on Etna.) + Philomela. + Thekla's Answer. + The Church of Brou. + The Neckan. + Switzerland. + Richmond Hill. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) + Requiescat. + The Scholar-Gipsy. + Stanzas in Memory of the Late Edward Quillman. + Power of Youth. (A fragment of The Youth of Man.) +1854. A Farewell. +1855. Poems. + Balder Dead + Separation. +1858. Merope: A Tragedy. +1867. New Poems. + Persistency of Poetry. + Saint Brandan. _(Fraser's Magazine_, July, 1860.) + Sonnets. + A Picture of Newstead. + Rachel. (Three Sonnets.) + East London. + West London. + Anti-Desperation. + Immorality. + Worldly Place. + The Divinity. + The Good Shepherd with the Kid. + Austerity of Poetry. + East and West. + Monica's Last Prayer. + Calais Sands. + Dover Beach. + The Terrace at Berne. + Stanzas composed at Carnae. + A Southern Night. (Previously published in the + _Victoria Regia_, 1861.) + Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira." + Palladium. + Early Death and Fame. + Growing Old. + The Progress of Poesy. + A Nameless Epitaph. + The Last Word. + A Wish. + A Caution to Poets. + Pis-Aller. + Epilogue to Lessing's Laocooen. + Bacchanalia. + Rugby Chapel. + Heine's Grave. + Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. +1860. The Lord's Messengers. (_Cornhill Magazine_, July.) +1866. Thyrsis. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, April.) +1868. Obermann Once More. +1873. New Rome. (_Cornhill Magazine_, June.) +1877. Haworth Churchyard with Epilogue. (_Fraser's Magazine_, May.) +1881. Geist's Grave. (_Fortnightly Review_, January.) +1882. Westminster Abbey. (_Nineteenth Century Magazine_, + January.) + Poor Matthais. (_Macmillan's Magazine_, December.) +1887. Horatian Echo. (_The Century Guild Hobby Horse_, July.) + Kaiser Dead. (_Fortnightly Review_, July.) + + + +PROSE WORKS + +1859. England and the Italian Question. +1861. Popular Education in France. + On Translating Homer. +1864. A French Eton. +1865. Essays in Criticism. +1867. On Study of Celtic Literature. +1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent. +1869. Culture and Anarchy. +1870. St. Paul and Protestantism. +1871. Friendship's Garland. +1873. Literature and Dogma. +1874. Higher Schools and Universities in Germany. +1875. God and the Bible. +1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion. +1879. Mixed Essays. +1882. Irish Essays. +1885. Discourses in America. +1888. Essays in Criticism, Second Series. + Special Report on Elementary Education Abroad. + Civilization in the United States. + + + +CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS + +Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). +Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859). +Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). +Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). +Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882). +William M. Thackeray (1811-1863). +Robert Browning (1812-1889). +Charles Dickens (1812-1870). +George Eliot (1819-1880). +John Ruskin (1819-1900). +Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). + +William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). +Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). +Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). +John G. Whittier (1807-1892). +Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882). +Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894). +James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +_The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold_ (The Macmillan Company, + one volume). +_The English Poets_, Vol. I, by T.H. Ward. +_Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age_, edited by the English + Club of Sewanee, Tennessee. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Sir J.G. Fitch. +_Tennyson, Ruskin, and Other Literary Estimates_, by Frederic + Harrison. +_Studies in Interpretation_, by W.H. Hudson. +_Corrected Impressions on Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Herbert W. Paul. +_Matthew Arnold_, by G.E.B. Saintsbury. +_Arnold's Letters_, collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell. +_The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, edited by T.B. Smart. +_Matthew Arnold_, by Andrew Lang, in _Century Magazine_, + 1881-1882, p. 849. + +_The Poetry of Matthew Arnold_, by R.H. Hutton, in + _Essays Theological and Literary_, Vol. II. +_Religion and Culture_, by John Shairp. +_Arnold_, in _Victorian Poets_, by Stedman. +_Matthew Arnold, New Poems_, in _Essays and Studies_, by + A.C. Swinburne. +_Arnold_, in _Our Living Poets_, by Forman. + + + + * * * * * + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +AND OTHER POEMS + + + * * * * * + + + + +NARRATIVE POEMS + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM deg. + +AN EPISODE + + +And the first grey of morning fill'd the east, deg. deg.1 +And the fog rose out of the Oxus deg. stream. deg.2 +But all the Tartar camp deg. along the stream deg.3 +Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; +Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long 5 +He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; +But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, +He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, +And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, +And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 10 +Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's deg. tent. deg.11 + +Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood +Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand +Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow +When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere deg. deg.15 +Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, +And to a hillock came, a little back +From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat, +Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. +The men of former times had crown'd the top 20 +With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now +The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, +A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. +And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood +Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, 25 +And found the old man sleeping on his bed +Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. +And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step +Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep; +And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:-- 30 + +"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. +Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?" + +But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:-- +"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. +The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 35 +Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie +Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. +For so did King Afrasiab deg. bid me seek deg.38 +Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, +In Samarcand, deg. before the army march'd; deg.40 +And I will tell thee what my heart desires. +Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan deg. first deg.42 +I came among the Tartars and bore arms, +I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, +At my boy's years, deg. the courage of a man. deg.45 +This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on +The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, +And beat the Persians back on every field, +I seek one man, one man, and one alone-- +Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, 50 +Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, +His not unworthy, not inglorious son. +So I long hoped, but him I never find. +Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. +Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 55 +Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords +To meet me, man to man; if I prevail, +Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-- +Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. +Dim is the rumour of a common fight, deg. deg.60 +Where host meets host, and many names are sunk deg.; deg.61 +But of a single combat fame speaks clear." + +He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand +Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:-- + +"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! 65 +Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, +And share the battle's common chance deg. with us deg.67 +Who love thee, but must press for ever first, +In single fight incurring single risk, +To find a father thou hast never seen deg.? deg.70 +That were far best, my son, to stay with us +Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, +And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. +But, if this one desire indeed rules all, +To seek out Rustum--seek him not through fight! 75 +Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, +O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! +But far hence seek him, for he is not here. +For now it is not as when I was young, +When Rustum was in front of every fray; 80 +But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, +In Seistan, deg. with Zal, his father old. deg.82 +Whether that his own mighty strength at last +Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, +Or in some quarrel deg. with the Persian King. deg. deg.85 +There go deg.!--Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes deg.86 +Danger or death awaits thee on this field. +Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost +To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace +To seek thy father, not seek single fights 90 +In vain;--but who can keep the lion's cub +From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son? +Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." + +So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left +His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 95 +And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat +He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, +And threw a white cloak round him, and he took +In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword deg.; deg.99 +And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 100 +Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul deg.; deg.101 +And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd +His herald to his side, and went abroad. + +The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog +From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 105 +And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed +Into the open plain; so Haman deg. bade-- deg.107 +Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled +The host, and still was in his lusty prime. +From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd; +As when some grey November morn the files, 111 +In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes +Stream over Casbin deg. and the southern slopes deg.113 +Of Elburz, deg. from the Aralian estuaries, deg.114 +Or some frore deg. Caspian reed-bed, southward bound deg.115 +For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd. +The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, +First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; +Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara deg. come deg.119 +And Khiva, deg. and ferment the milk of mares. deg. deg.120 +Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns deg. of the south, deg.121 +The Tukas, deg. and the lances of Salore, deg.122 +And those from Attruck deg. and the Caspian sands; deg.123 +Light men and on light steeds, who only drink +The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 125 +And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came +From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; +The Tartars of Ferghana, deg. from the banks deg.128 +Of the Jaxartes, deg. men with scanty beards deg.129 +And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes 130 +Who roam o'er Kipchak deg. and the northern waste, deg.131 +Kalmucks deg. and unkempt Kuzzaks, deg. tribes who stray deg.132 +Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, deg. deg.133 +Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; +These all filed out from camp into the plain. 135 +And on the other side the Persians form'd;-- +First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd. +The Ilyats of Khorassan deg.; and behind, deg.138 +The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, +Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 140 +But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, +Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, +And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. +And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw +That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 145 +He took his spear, and to the front he came, +And check'd his ranks, and fix'd deg. them where they stood. deg.147 +And the old Tartar came upon the sand +Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:-- + +"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 150 +Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. +But choose a champion from the Persian lords +To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." + +As, in the country, on a morn in June, +When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 155 +A shiver runs through the deep corn deg. for joy-- deg.156 +So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, +A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran +Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. + +But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, deg. deg.160 +Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, deg. deg.161 +That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; +Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass +Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, +Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves 165 +Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries-- +In single file they move, and stop their breath, +For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows-- +So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. + +And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 170 +To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, +And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host +Second, and was the uncle of the King deg.; deg.173 +These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:-- + +"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 175 +Yet champion have we none to match this youth. +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. deg. deg.177 +But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits deg. deg.178 +And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart. +Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 +The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. +Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. +Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." + +So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried:-- +"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! 185 +Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." +He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode +Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. +But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, +And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 190 +Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. +Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, +Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst +Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. +And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 195 +Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still +The table stood before him, charged with food-- +A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread; +And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate deg. deg.199 +Listless, and held a falcon deg. on his wrist, deg.200 +And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood +Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, +And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird, +And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:-- + +"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. 205 +What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." + +But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:-- +"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink, +But not to-day; to-day has other needs. +The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 210 +For from the Tartars is a challenge brought +To pick a champion from the Persian lords +To fight their champion--and thou know'st his name-- +Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. +O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 215 +He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; +And he is young, and Iran's deg. chiefs are old, deg.217 +Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. +Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!" + +He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:-- 220 +"Go to deg.! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I deg.221 +Am older; if the young are weak, the King +Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo, deg. deg.223 +Himself is young, and honours younger men, +And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 225 +Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young-- +The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. +For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? +For would that I myself had such a son, +And not that one slight helpless girl deg. I have-- deg.230 +A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, +And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal, deg. deg.232 +My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, +And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, +And he has none to guard his weak old age. 235 +There would I go, and hang my armour up, +And with my great name fence that weak old man, +And spend the goodly treasures I have got, +And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, +And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 240 +And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more." + +He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:-- +"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, +When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks +Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 245 +Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say: +_Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, +And shuns to peril it with younger men."_ deg. deg.248 + +And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:-- +"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 250 +Thou knowest better words than this to say. +What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, +Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? +Are not they mortal, am not I myself? +But who for men of nought would do great deeds? 255 +Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! +But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms deg.; deg.257 +Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd +In single fight with any mortal man." + +He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran 260 +Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy-- +Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. +But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd +His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, +And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose 265 +Were plain, and on his shield was no device, deg. deg.266 +Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, +And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume +Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. +So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, 270 +Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel-- +Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, +The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once +Did in Bokhara by the river find +A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 275 +And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, +Dight deg. with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green deg.277 +Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd +All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. +So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 280 +The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd. +And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts +Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. +And dear as the wet diver to the eyes +Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 285 +By sandy Bahrein, deg. in the Persian Gulf, deg.286 +Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, +Having made up his tale deg. of precious pearls, deg.288 +Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands-- +So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 290 + +And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, +And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came. +And as afield the reapers cut a swath +Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, +And on each side are squares of standing corn, 295 +And in the midst a stubble, short and bare-- +So on each side were squares of men, with spears +Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. +And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast +His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 300 +Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. + +As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, +Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge +Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire-- +At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 305 +When the frost flowers deg. the whiten'd window-panes-- +And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts +Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed +The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar +Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 310 +All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused deg. deg.311 +His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. +For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd; +Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, +Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 315 +Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, +By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound-- +So slender Sohrab seem'd, deg. so softly rear'd. deg.318 +And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul +As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 320 +And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:-- + +"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, +And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! +Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. +Behold me! I am vast, deg. and clad in iron, deg.325 +And tried deg.; and I have stood on many a field +Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe-- +Never was that field lost, or that foe saved. deg. deg.327 +O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? +Be govern'd deg.! quit the Tartar host, and come deg.330 +To Iran, and be as my son to me, +And fight beneath my banner till I die! +There are no youths in Iran brave as thou." + +So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, +The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 335 +His giant figure planted on the sand, +Sole, like some single tower, which a chief +Hath builded on the waste in former years +Against the robbers; and he saw that head, +Streak'd with its first grey hairs;--hope filled his soul, 340 +And he ran forward and embraced his knees, +And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:-- + +"O, by thy father's head deg.! by thine own soul! deg.343 +Art thou not Rustum deg.? speak! art thou not he?" deg.344 + +But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 345 +And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:-- + +"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! +False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. +For if I now confess this thing he asks, +And hide it not, but say: _Rustum is here_! 350 +He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, +But he will find some pretext not to fight, +And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts +A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. +And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 355 +In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: +'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd +Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords +To cope with me in single fight; but they +Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I 360 +Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.' +So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; +Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." + +And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:-- +"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 365 +Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd +By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, deg. or yield! deg.367 +Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? +Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! +For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 370 +Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, +There would be then no talk of fighting more. +But being what I am, I tell thee this-- +Do thou record it in thine inmost soul: +Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 375 +Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds +Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, +Oxus in summer wash them all away." + +He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:-- +"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so deg.! deg.380 +I am no girl to be made pale by words. +Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand +Here on this field, there were no fighting then. +But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. +Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 385 +And thou art proved, I know, and I am young-- +But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. +And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure +Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. +For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 390 +Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, +Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. +And whether it will heave us up to land, +Or whether it will roll us out to sea, +Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 395 +We know not, and no search will make us know; +Only the event will teach us in its hour." + +He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd +His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, +As on some partridge, in the corn a hawk, 400 +That long has tower'd deg. in the airy clouds, deg.401 +Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come, +And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear +Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, +Which it sent flying wide;--then Sohrab threw 405 +In turn, and full struck deg. Rustum's shield; sharp rang, deg.406 +The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. +And Rustum seized his club, which none but he +Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, +Still rough--like those which men in treeless plains 410 +To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, +Hyphasis deg. or Hydaspes, deg. when, high up deg.412 +By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time +Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack, deg. deg.414 +And strewn the channels with torn boughs--so huge 415 +The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck +One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, +Lithe as the glancing deg. snake, and the club came deg.418 +Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. +And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 420 +To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; +And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, +And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay +Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; +But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 425 +But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:-- + +"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float +Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. +But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; +No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 +Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! +Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul? +Boy as I am, I have seen battles too-- +Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, +And heard their hollow deg. roar of dying men; deg.435 +But never was my heart thus touch'd before. +Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? +O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! +Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, +And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 440 +And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, +And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. +There are enough foes in the Persian host, +Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; +Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 445 +Mayst fight; fight _them_, when they confront thy spear! +But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" + +He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, +And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club +He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear, 450 +Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand +Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, deg. deg.452 +The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd +His stately crest, deg. and dimm'd his glittering arms. deg.454 +His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice 455 +Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:-- + +"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! +Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! +Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! +Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 460 +With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; +But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance +Of battle, and with me, who make no play +Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. +Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 465 +Remember all thy valour deg.; try thy feints deg.466 +And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; +Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts +With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles. deg." deg.468 + +He spoke, and Sohrab kindled deg. at his taunts, deg.470 +And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd +Together, as two eagles on one prey +Come rushing down together from the clouds, +One from the east, one from the west; their shields +Bash'd with a clang together, and a din 475 +Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters +Make often in the forest's heart at morn, +Of hewing axes, crashing trees--such blows +Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. +And you would say that sun and stars took part 480 +In that unnatural deg. conflict; for a cloud deg. deg.481 +Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun +Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose +Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, +And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 485 +In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; +For both the on-looking hosts on either hand +Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, +And the sun sparkled deg. on the Oxus stream. deg.489 +But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 490 +And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield +Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear +Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, +And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. +Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, deg. deg.495 +Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest +He shore deg. away, and that proud horsehair plume, deg.497 +Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; +And Rustum bow'd his head deg.; but then the gloom deg.499 +Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 500 +And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse, +Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;-- +No horse's cry was that, most like the roar +Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day +Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 505 +And comes at night to die upon the sand. +The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, +And Oxus curdled deg. as it cross'd his stream. deg.508 +But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, +And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd 510 +His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, +Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, +And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. +Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes +Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 515 +And shouted: _Rustum_ deg.!--Sohrab heard that shout, deg.516 +And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step, +And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; +And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd +His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 520 +He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; +And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, +And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all +The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair-- +Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 525 +And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. + +Then, with a bitter smile, deg. Rustum began:-- deg.527 +"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill +A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, +And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent. 530 +Or else that the great Rustum would come down +Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move +His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. +And then that all the Tartar host would praise +Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 +To glad deg. thy father in his weak old age. deg.536 +Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! +Dearer to the red jackals deg. shalt thou be deg.538 +Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." + +And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:-- 540 +"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain +Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! +No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. +For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, +And I were that which till to-day I was, 545 +They should be lying here, I standing there +But that beloved name unnerved my arm-- +That name, and something, I confess, in thee, +Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield +Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe. 550 +And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. +But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear +The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! +My father, whom I seek through all the world, +He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" 555 + +As when some hunter deg. in the spring hath found deg.556 +A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, +Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, +And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, +And follow'd her to find her where she fell 560 +Far off;--anon her mate comes winging back +From hunting, and a great way off descries +His huddling young left sole deg.; at that, he checks deg.563 +His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps +Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 565 +Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she +Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, +In some far stony gorge out of his ken, +A heap of fluttering feathers--never more +Shall the lake glass deg. her, flying over it; deg.570 +Never the black and dripping precipices +Echo her stormy scream as she sails by-- +As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, +So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood +Over his dying son, and knew him not. 575 + +But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:-- +"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? +The mighty Rustum never had a son." + +And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 580 +Surely the news will one day reach his ear, +Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, +Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; +And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap +To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 585 +Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! +What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? +Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! +Yet him I pity not so much, but her, +My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 590 +With that old king, her father, who grows grey +With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. +Her most I pity, who no more will see +Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, +With spoils and honour, when the war is done. 595 +But a dark rumour will be bruited up, deg. deg.596 +From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; +And then will that defenceless woman learn +That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, +But that in battle with a nameless foe, 600 +By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." + +He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, +Thinking of her he left, and his own death. +He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought. +Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605 +Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew; +For he had had sure tidings that the babe, +Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, +Had been a puny girl, no boy at all-- +So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 +Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms-- +And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, +By a false boast, the style deg. of Rustum's son; deg.613 +Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. +So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought 615 +And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide +Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore +At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; +For he remember'd his own early youth, +And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620 +The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries +A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, +Through many rolling clouds--so Rustum saw +His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; +And that old king, deg. her father, who loved well deg.625 +His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child +With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, +They three, in that long-distant summer-time-- +The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt +And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 630 +In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth, +Of age and looks deg. to be his own dear son, deg.632 +Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand; +Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe +Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 635 +Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, +And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, +On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay, +Lovely in death, upon the common sand. +And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:-- 640 + +"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son +Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved. +Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men +Have told thee false--thou art not Rustum's son. +For Rustum had no son; one child he had-- 645 +But one--a girl; who with her mother now +Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us-- +Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." + +But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now +The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 650 +And he desired to draw forth the steel, +And let the blood flow free, and so to die-- +But first he would convince his stubborn foe; +And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:-- + +"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 655 +Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, +And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. +I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm deg. I bear deg.658 +That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, +That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 660 + +He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks, +And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand +Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, +That the hard iron corslet deg. clank'd aloud; deg.663 +And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 665 +And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! +If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son." + +Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed +His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 670 +And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points +Prick'd; as a cunning deg. workman, in Pekin, deg.672 +Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, +An emperor's gift--at early morn he paints, +And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675 +Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands-- +So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd +On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. +It was that griffin, deg. which of old rear'd Zal, deg.679 +Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 680 +A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; +Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved-- +Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. +And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, +And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes, 685 +And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:-- + +"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign +Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?" + +He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood +Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry: 690 +_O boy_--_thy father!_--and his voice choked there. +And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, +And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. +But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast +His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 695 +And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, +Trying to call him back to life; and life +Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, +And they stood wide with horror; and he seized +In both his hands the dust which lay around, 700 +And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,-- +His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; +And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, +And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword, +To draw it, and for ever let life out. 705 +But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, +And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:-- + +"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day +The doom which at my birth was written down +In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand. deg. deg.710 +Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, +When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, +I know it! but fate trod those promptings down +Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged +The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 715 +But let us speak no more of this! I find +My father; let me feel that I have found! deg. deg.717 +Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take +My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, +And wash them with thy tears, and say: _My son!_ 720 +Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, +And swift; for like the lightning to this field +I came, and like the wind I go away-- +Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. deg. deg.724 +But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." 725 + +So said he, and his voice released the heart +Of Rustum, and his tears brake forth; he cast +His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, +And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, +When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 +With his head bowing to the ground and mane +Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe +First to the one then to the other moved +His head, as if inquiring what their grief +Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 735 +The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked deg. the sand. deg.736 +But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:-- + +"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet +Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, +Or ere they brought thy master to this field!" 740 + +But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said:-- +"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, +My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, +My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, +That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 745 +Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! +O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; +For thou hast gone where I shall never go, +And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. +And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750 +And seen the River of Helmund, deg. and the Lake deg.751 +Of Zirrah deg.; and the aged Zal himself deg.752 +Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, +Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, +And said: _O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!_--but I 755 +Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, +Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, +Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; +But lodged among my father's foes, and seen +Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 760 +Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, +And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk +The desert rivers, Moorghab deg. and Tejend, deg. deg.763 +Kohik, deg. and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, +The northern Sir deg.; and this great Oxus stream, deg.765 +The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." + +Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:-- +"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! +Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt +Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" 770 + +But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:-- +"Desire not that, my father! thou must live. +For some are born to do great deeds, and live, +As some are born to be obscured, and die. +Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 775 +And reap a second glory in thine age; +Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. +But come! thou seest this great host of men +Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! +Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 780 +They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. +But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, +But carry me with thee to Seistan, +And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 785 +Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends. +And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound deg. above my bones, deg.788 +And plant a far-seen pillar over all. +That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 +May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: +_Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, +Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!_ +And I be not forgotten in my grave." + +And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:-- 795 +"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, +So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, +And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, +And carry thee away to Seistan, +And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 800 +With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. +And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, +And heap a stately mound above thy bones, +And plant a far-seen pillar over all, +And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 805 +And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! +Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! +What should I do with slaying any more? +For would that all that I have ever slain +Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810 +And they who were call'd champions in their time, +And through whose death I won that fame I have-- +And I were nothing but a common man, +A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, +So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! 815 +Or rather would that I, even I myself, +Might now be lying on this bloody sand, +Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, +Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; +And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820 +And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; +And say: _O son, I weep thee not too sore, +For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!_ +But now in blood and battles was my youth, +And full of blood and battles is my age, 825 +And I shall never end this life of blood." + +Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:-- +"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! +But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, +Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, deg. deg.830 +When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, +Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, +Returning home over the salt blue sea, +From laying thy dear master in his grave." + +And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:-- 835 +"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! +Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." + +He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took +The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased +His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 840 +Came welling from the open gash, and life +Flow'd with the stream;--all down his cold white side +The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, +Like the soil'd tissue of white violets +Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 845 +By children whom their nurses call with haste +Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, +His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay-- +White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, +Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 850 +Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, +And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; +Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs +Unwillingly the spirit fled away, +Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 855 +And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. + +So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; +And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak +Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. +As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd 860 +By Jemshid in Persepolis, deg. to bear deg.861 +His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps +Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side-- +So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. + +And night came down over the solemn waste, 865 +And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, +And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, +Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, +As of a great assembly loosed, and fires +Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 870 +Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; +The Persians took it on the open sands +Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; +And Rustum and his son were left alone. + +But the majestic river floated on, 875 +Out of the mist and hum of that low land, +Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, +Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian deg. waste, deg.878 +Under the solitary moon;--he flow'd +Right for the polar star, deg. past Orgunje, deg. deg.880 +Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin +To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, +And split his currents; that for many a league +The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along +Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-- 885 +Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had +In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, +A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last +The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide +His luminous home deg. of waters opens, bright deg.890 +And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars deg. deg.891 +Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN deg. + + +Saint Brandan sails the northern main; +The brotherhood of saints are glad. +He greets them once, he sails again; +So late!--such storms!--The Saint is mad! + +He heard, across the howling seas, 5 +Chime convent-bells on wintry nights; +He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides, deg. deg.7 +Twinkle the monastery-lights; + +But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd-- +And now no bells, no convents more! 10 +The hurtling Polar lights deg. are near'd, deg.11 +The sea without a human shore. + +At last--(it was the Christmas night; +Stars shone after a day of storm)-- +He sees float past an iceberg white, 15 +And on it--Christ!--a living form. + +That furtive mien, that scowling eye, +Of hair that red deg. and tufted fell-- deg.18 +It is--Oh, where shall Brandan fly?-- +The traitor Judas, out of hell! 20 + +Palsied with terror, Brandan sate deg.; deg.21 +The moon was bright, the iceberg near. +He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait! +By high permission I am here. + +"One moment wait, thou holy man 25 +On earth my crime, my death, they knew; +My name is under all men's ban-- +Ah, tell them of my respite too! + +"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night-- +(It was the first after I came, 30 +Breathing self-murder, deg. frenzy, spite, deg.31 +To rue my guilt in endless flame)-- + +"I felt, as I in torment lay +'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, +An angel touch my arm, and say: 35 +_Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!_ + +"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said. +_The Leper recollect,_ deg. said he, deg.38 +_Who ask'd the passers-by for aid, +In Joppa, deg. and thy charity._ deg.40 + +"Then I remember'd how I went, +In Joppa, through the public street, +One morn when the sirocco spent +Its storms of dust with burning heat; + +"And in the street a leper sate, 45 +Shivering with fever, naked, old; +Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, +The hot wind fever'd him five-fold. + +"He gazed upon me as I pass'd +And murmur'd: _Help me, or I die!_-- 50 +To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, +Saw him look eased, and hurried by. + +"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine, +What blessing must full goodness shower, +When fragment of it small, like mine, 55 +Hath such inestimable power! + +"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I +Did that chance act of good, that one! +Then went my way to kill and lie-- +Forgot my good as soon as done. 60 + +"That germ of kindness, in the womb +Of mercy caught, did not expire; +Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, +And friends me in the pit of fire. + +"Once every year, when carols wake, 65 +On earth, the Christmas-night's repose, +Arising from the sinner's lake, +I journey to these healing snows. + +"I stanch with ice my burning breast, +With silence balm my whirling brain. 70 +Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest +That Joppan leper's ease was pain."-- + +Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes; +He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer-- +Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies! 75 +The iceberg, and no Judas there! + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN deg. + + +Come, dear children, let us away; +Down and away below! +Now my brothers call from the bay, +Now the great winds shoreward blow, +Now the salt tides seaward flow; 5 +Now the wild white horses deg. play, deg.6 +Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. +Children dear, let us away! +This way, this way! + +Call her once before you go-- 10 +Call once yet! +In a voice that she will know: +"Margaret deg.! Margaret!" deg.13 +Children's voices should be dear +(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 15 +Children's voices, wild with pain-- +Surely she will come again! +Call her once and come away; +This way, this way! +"Mother dear, we cannot stay! 20 +The wild white horses foam and fret." +Margaret! Margaret! + +Come, dear children, come away down; +Call no more! +One last look at the white-wall'd town, 25 +And the little grey church on the windy shore; +Then come down! +She will not come though you call all day; +Come away, come away! + +Children dear, was it yesterday 30 +We heard the sweet bells over the bay? +In the caverns where we lay, +Through the surf and through the swell, +The far-off sound of a silver bell? +Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35 +Where the winds are all asleep; +Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, +Where the salt weed sways in the stream, +Where the sea-beasts, ranged deg. all round, deg.39 +Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 40 +Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, +Dry their mail deg. and bask in the brine; deg.42 +Where great whales come sailing by, +Sail and sail, with unshut eye, +Round the world for ever and aye? 45 +When did music come this way? +Children dear, was it yesterday? + +Children dear, was it yesterday +(Call yet once) that she went away? +Once she sate with you and me, 50 +On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, +And the youngest sate on her knee. +She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, +When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. deg. deg.54 +She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; 55 +She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray +In the little grey church on the shore to-day. +'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! +And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." +I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; 60 +Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" +She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. +Children dear, was it yesterday? + + Children dear, were we long alone? +"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 65 +Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; +Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. +We went up the beach, by the sandy down +Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town; +Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 70 +To the little grey church on the windy hill. +From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, +But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. +We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, +And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75 +She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: +"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! +Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone; +The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." +But, ah, she gave me never a look, 80 +For her eyes were seal'd deg. to the holy book! deg.81 +Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. +Come away, children, call no more! +Come away, come down, call no more! + + Down, down, down! 85 +Down to the depths of the sea! +She sits at her wheel in the humming town, +Singing most joyfully. +Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, +For the humming street, and the child with its toy! 90 +For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; +For the wheel where I spun, +And the blessed light of the sun deg.!" deg.93 +And so she sings her fill, +Singing most joyfully, 95 +Till the spindle drops from her hand, +And the whizzing wheel stands still. +She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, +And over the sand at the sea; +And her eyes are set in a stare; 100 +And anon there breaks a sigh, +And anon there drops a tear, +From a sorrow-clouded eye, +And a heart sorrow-laden, +A long, long sigh; 105 +For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden +And the gleam of her golden hair. + + Come away, away, children; +Come children, come down! +The hoarse wind blows coldly; 110 +Lights shine in the town. +She will start from her slumber +When gusts shake the door; +She will hear the winds howling, +Will hear the waves roar. 115 +We shall see, while above us +The waves roar and whirl, +A ceiling of amber, +A pavement of pearl. +Singing: "Here came a mortal, 120 +But faithless was she! +And alone dwell for ever +The kings of the sea." + +But, children, at midnight, +When soft the winds blow, 125 +When clear falls the moonlight, +When spring-tides are low; +When sweet airs come seaward +From heaths starr'd with broom, deg. deg.129 +And high rocks throw mildly 130 +On the blanch'd sands a gloom; +Up the still, glistening beaches, +Up the creeks we will hie, +Over banks of bright seaweed +The ebb-tide leaves dry. 135 +We will gaze, from the sand-hills, +At the white, sleeping town; +At the church on the hill-side-- +And then come back down. +Singing: "There dwells a loved one, 140 +But cruel is she! +She left lonely for ever +The kings of the sea." + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT deg. + +I + +TRISTRAM + + +_Tristram_. Is she not come deg.? The messenger was sure-- +Prop me upon the pillows once again-- +Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure. +--Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! +What lights will those out to the northward be deg.? deg.5 + +_The Page_. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea. + +_Tristram_. Soft--who is that, stands by the dying fire? + +_The Page_. Iseult. deg. deg.8 + +_Tristram_. Ah! not the Iseult I desire. + + * * * * * + +What Knight is this so weak and pale, +Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head, 10 +Propt on pillows in his bed, +Gazing seaward for the light +Of some ship that fights the gale +On this wild December night? +Over the sick man's feet is spread 15 +A dark green forest-dress; +A gold harp leans against the bed, +Ruddy in the fire's light. +I know him by his harp of gold, +Famous in Arthur's court deg. of old; deg.20 +I know him by his forest-dress-- +The peerless hunter, harper, knight, +Tristram of Lyoness. deg. deg.23 +What Lady is this, whose silk attire +Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? 25 +The ringlets on her shoulders lying +In their flitting lustre vying +With the clasp of burnish'd gold +Which her heavy robe doth hold. +Her looks are mild, her fingers slight 30 +As the driven snow are white deg.; deg.31 +But her cheeks are sunk and pale. +Is it that the bleak sea-gale +Beating from the Atlantic sea +On this coast of Brittany, 35 +Nips too keenly the sweet flower? +Is it that a deep fatigue +Hath come on her, a chilly fear, +Passing all her youthful hour +Spinning with her maidens here, 40 +Listlessly through the window-bars +Gazing seawards many a league, +From her lonely shore-built tower, +While the knights are at the wars? +Or, perhaps, has her young heart 45 +Felt already some deeper smart, +Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive, +Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? +Who is this snowdrop by the sea?-- +I know her by her mildness rare, 50 +Her snow-white hands, her golden hair; +I know her by her rich silk dress, +And her fragile loveliness-- +The sweetest Christian soul alive, +Iseult of Brittany. 55 + +Iseult of Brittany?--but where +Is that other Iseult fair, +That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen? +She, whom Tristram's ship of yore +From Ireland to Cornwall bore, 60 +To Tyntagel, deg. to the side deg.61 +Of King Marc, deg. to be his bride? deg.62 +She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd +With Tristram that spiced magic draught, +Which since then for ever rolls 65 +Through their blood, and binds their souls, +Working love, but working teen deg.?--. deg.67 +There were two Iseults who did sway +Each her hour of Tristram's day; +But one possess'd his waning time, 70 +The other his resplendent prime. +Behold her here, the patient flower, +Who possess'd his darker hour! +Iseult of the Snow-White Hand +Watches pale by Tristram's bed. 75 +She is here who had his gloom, +Where art thou who hadst his bloom? +One such kiss as those of yore +Might thy dying knight restore! +Does the love-draught work no more? 80 +Art thou cold, or false, or dead, +Iseult of Ireland? + + * * * * * + +Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain, +And the knight sinks back on his pillows again. +He is weak with fever and pain; 85 +And his spirit is not clear. +Hark! he mutters in his sleep, +As he wanders deg. far from here, deg.88 +Changes place and time of year, +And his closed eye doth sweep 90 +O'er some fair unwintry sea, deg. deg.91 +Not this fierce Atlantic deep, +While he mutters brokenly:-- + +_Tristram_. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails; +Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, 95 +And overhead the cloudless sky of May.-- +_"Ah, would I were in those green fields at play, +Not pent on ship-board this delicious day! +Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy, +Reach me my golden phial stands by thee, 100 +But pledge me in it first for courtesy."_-- +Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine? +Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine! +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! 105 +Keep his eyelids! let him seem +Not this fever-wasted wight +Thinn'd and paled before his time, +But the brilliant youthful knight +In the glory of his prime, 110 +Sitting in the gilded barge, +At thy side, thou lovely charge, +Bending gaily o'er thy hand, +Iseult of Ireland! +And she too, that princess fair, 115 +If her bloom be now less rare, +Let her have her youth again-- +Let her be as she was then! +Let her have her proud dark eyes, +And her petulant quick replies-- 120 +Let her sweep her dazzling hand +With its gesture of command, +And shake back her raven hair +With the old imperious air! +As of old, so let her be, 125 +That first Iseult, princess bright, +Chatting with her youthful knight +As he steers her o'er the sea, +Quitting at her father's will +The green isle deg. where she was bred, deg.130 +And her bower in Ireland, +For the surge-beat Cornish strand +Where the prince whom she must wed +Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill, deg. deg.134 +High above the sounding sea. 135 +And that potion rare her mother +Gave her, that her future lord, +Gave her, that King Marc and she, +Might drink it on their marriage-day, +And for ever love each other-- 140 +Let her, as she sits on board, +Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly! +See it shine, and take it up, +And to Tristram laughing say: +"Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, 145 +Pledge me in my golden cup!" +Let them drink it--let their hands +Tremble, and their cheeks be flame, +As they feel the fatal bands +Of a love they dare not name, 150 +With a wild delicious pain, +Twine about their hearts again! +Let the early summer be +Once more round them, and the sea +Blue, and o'er its mirror kind 155 +Let the breath of the May-wind, +Wandering through their drooping sails, +Die on the green fields of Wales! +Let a dream like this restore +What his eye must see no more! deg. deg.160 + +_Tristram_. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks deg. are drear-- deg.161 +Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here? +Were feet like those made for so wild a way? +The southern winter-parlour, by my fay, deg. deg.164 +Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day! 165 +_"Tristram!--nay, nay--thou must not take my hand!-- +Tristram!--sweet love!--we are betray'd--out-plann'd. +Fly--save thyself--save me!--I dare not stay."_-- +One last kiss first!--_"'Tis vain--to horse--away!"_ + + * * * * * + +Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move 170 +Faster surely than it should, +From the fever in his blood! +All the spring-time of his love +Is already gone and past, +And instead thereof is seen 175 +Its winter, which endureth still-- +Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill, +The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen, +The flying leaves, the straining blast, +And that long, wild kiss--their last. deg. deg.180 +And this rough December-night, +And his burning fever-pain, +Mingle with his hurrying dream, +Till they rule it, till he seem +The press'd fugitive again, 185 +The love-desperate banish'd knight +With a fire in his brain +Flying o'er the stormy main. +--Whither does he wander now? +Haply in his dreams the wind 190 +Wafts him here, and lets him find +The lovely orphan child deg. again deg. deg.192 +In her castle by the coast; +The youngest, fairest chatelaine, deg. deg.194 +Whom this realm of France can boast, 195 +Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, +Iseult of Brittany. +And--for through the haggard air, +The stain'd arms, the matted hair +Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd, deg. deg.200 +There gleam'd something, which recall'd +The Tristram who in better days +Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard deg.-- deg.203 +Welcomed here, deg. and here install'd, deg.204 +Tended of his fever here, 205 +Haply he seems again to move +His young guardian's heart with love +In his exiled loneliness, +In his stately, deep distress, +Without a word, without a tear. 210 +--Ah! 'tis well he should retrace +His tranquil life in this lone place; +His gentle bearing at the side +Of his timid youthful bride; +His long rambles by the shore 215 +On winter-evenings, when the roar +Of the near waves came, sadly grand, +Through the dark, up the drown'd sand, +Or his endless reveries +In the woods, where the gleams play 220 +On the grass under the trees, +Passing the long summer's day +Idle as a mossy stone +In the forest-depths alone, +The chase neglected, and his hound 225 +Couch'd beside him on the ground. deg. deg.226 +--Ah! what trouble's on his brow? +Hither let him wander now; +Hither, to the quiet hours +Pass'd among these heaths of ours. 230 +By the grey Atlantic sea; +Hours, if not of ecstasy, +From violent anguish surely free! + +_Tristram_. All red with blood the whirling river flows, +The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows. 235 +Upon us are the chivalry of Rome-- +Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam. deg. deg.237 +"Up, Tristram, up," men cry, "thou moonstruck knight deg.! deg.238 +What foul fiend rides thee deg.? On into the fight!" deg.239 +--Above the din her deg. voice is in my ears; deg.240 +I see her form glide through the crossing spears.-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + +Ah! he wanders forth again deg.; deg.243 +We cannot keep him; now, as then, +There's a secret in his breast deg. deg.245 +Which will never let him rest. +These musing fits in the green wood +They cloud the brain, they dull the blood! +--His sword is sharp, his horse is good; +Beyond the mountains will he see 250 +The famous towns of Italy, +And label with the blessed sign deg. deg.252 +The heathen Saxons on the Rhine. +At Arthur's side he fights once more +With the Roman Emperor. deg. deg.255 +There's many a gay knight where he goes +Will help him to forget his care; +The march, the leaguer, deg. Heaven's blithe air, deg.258 +The neighing steeds, the ringing blows-- +Sick pining comes not where these are. 260 +Ah! what boots it, deg. that the jest deg.261 +Lightens every other brow, +What, that every other breast +Dances as the trumpets blow, +If one's own heart beats not light 265 +On the waves of the toss'd fight, +If oneself cannot get free +From the clog of misery? +Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale +Watching by the salt sea-tide 270 +With her children at her side +For the gleam of thy white sail. +Home, Tristram, to thy halls again! +To our lonely sea complain, +To our forests tell thy pain! 275 + +_Tristram_. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade, +But it is moonlight in the open glade; +And in the bottom of the glade shine clear +The forest-chapel and the fountain near. +--I think, I have a fever in my blood; 280 +Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood, +Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood. +--Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light; +God! 'tis _her_ face plays in the waters bright. +"Fair love," she says, "canst thou forget so soon, 285 +At this soft hour under this sweet moon?"-- +Iseult!... + + * * * * * + + Ah, poor soul! if this be so, + Only death can balm thy woe. + The solitudes of the green wood 290 + Had no medicine for thy mood; + The rushing battle clear'd thy blood + As little as did solitude. + --Ah! his eyelids slowly break + Their hot seals, and let him wake; 295 + What new change shall we now see? + A happier? Worse it cannot be. + +_Tristram_. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire! +Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright; +The wind is down--but she'll not come to-night. 300 +Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now, +Far hence; her dreams are fair--smooth is her brow +Of me she recks not, deg. nor my vain desire. deg.303 + +--I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page, +Would take a score years from a strong man's age; 305 +And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear, +Scant leisure for a second messenger. + +--My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait! +To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by; +To-night my page shall keep me company. 310 +Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me! +Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I; +This comes of nursing long and watching late. +To bed--good night! deg. deg.314 + + * * * * * + +She left the gleam-lit fireplace, 315 +She came to the bed-side; +She took his hands in hers--her tears +Down on his wasted fingers rain'd. +She raised her eyes upon his face-- +Not with a look of wounded pride, 320 +A look as if the heart complained-- +Her look was like a sad embrace; +The gaze of one who can divine +A grief, and sympathise. +Sweet flower! thy children's eyes 325 +Are not more innocent than thine. + But they sleep in shelter'd rest, +Like helpless birds in the warm nest, +On the castle's southern side; +Where feebly comes the mournful roar 330 +Of buffeting wind and surging tide +Through many a room and corridor. +--Full on their window the moon's ray +Makes their chamber as bright as day. +It shines upon the blank white walls, 335 +And on the snowy pillow falls, +And on two angel-heads doth play +Turn'd to each other--the eyes closed, +The lashes on the cheeks reposed. +Round each sweet brow the cap close-set 340 +Hardly lets peep the golden hair; +Through the soft-open'd lips the air +Scarcely moves the coverlet. +One little wandering arm is thrown +At random on the counterpane, 345 +And often the fingers close in haste +As if their baby-owner chased +The butterflies again. +This stir they have, and this alone; 350 +But else they are so still! +--Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still; +But were you at the window now, +To look forth on the fairy sight +Of your illumined haunts by night, 355 +To see the park-glades where you play +Far lovelier than they are by day, +To see the sparkle on the eaves, +And upon every giant-bough +Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves 360 +Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain-- +How would your voices run again! +And far beyond the sparkling trees +Of the castle-park one sees +The bare heaths spreading, clear as day, 365 +Moor behind moor, far, far away, +Into the heart of Brittany. +And here and there, lock'd by the land, +Long inlets of smooth glittering sea, +And many a stretch of watery sand 370 +All shining in the white moon-beams-- +But you see fairer in your dreams! + +What voices are these on the clear night-air? +What lights in the court--what steps on the stair? + + + +II + +ISEULT OF IRELAND deg. + + +_Tristram_. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.-- + Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen! +Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever; + Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been. + +_Iseult_. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried; 5 + Bound I was, I could not break the band. +Chide not with the past, but feel the present! + I am here--we meet--I hold thy hand. + +_Tristram_. Thou art come, indeed--thou hast rejoin'd me; + Thou hast dared it--but too late to save. 10 +Fear not now that men should tax thine honour! + I am dying: build--(thou may'st)--my grave! + +_Iseult_. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly! + What, I hear these bitter words from thee? +Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel-- 15 + Take my hand--dear Tristram, look on me! + +_Tristram_. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage-- + Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair. +But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult! + And thy beauty never was more fair. 20 + +_Iseult_. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty! + I, like thee, have left my youth afar. +Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers-- + See my cheek and lips, how white they are! + +_Tristram_. Thou art paler--but thy sweet charm, Iseult! 25 + Would not fade with the dull years away. +Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight! + I forgive thee, Iseult!--thou wilt stay? + +_Iseult_. Fear me not, I will be always with thee; + I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain; 30 +Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers, + Join'd at evening of their days again. + +_Tristram_. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding + Something alter'd in thy courtly tone. +Sit--sit by me! I will think, we've lived so 35 + In the green wood, all our lives, alone. + +_Iseult_. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me, + Love like mine is alter'd in the breast; +Courtly life is light and cannot reach it-- + Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd! 40 + +What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers + Words by which the wretched are consoled? +What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler, + Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold? + +Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband-- 45 + That was bliss to make my sorrows flee! +Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings deg.-- + Those were friends to make me false to thee! + +Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced, + Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown-- 50 +Thee, a pining exile in thy forest, + Me, a smiling queen upon my throne? + +Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd, + Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad, +Both have brought their anxious day to evening, 55 + And have now short space for being glad! + +Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people, + Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill, +That a former rival shares her office, + When she sees her humbled, pale, and still. 60 + +I, a faded watcher by thy pillow, + I, a statue on thy chapel-floor, +Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother, + Rouse no anger, make no rivals more. + +She will cry: "Is this the foe I dreaded? 65 + This his idol? this that royal bride? +Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight! + Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side." + +Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me. + I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep. 70 +Close thine eyes--this flooding moonlight blinds them!-- + Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep. + +_Tristram_. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something + Swells my heart, and takes my breath away. +Through a mist I see thee; near--come nearer! 75 + Bend--bend down!--I yet have much to say. + +_Iseult_. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow-- + Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail! +Call on God and on the holy angels! + What, love, courage!--Christ! he is so pale. 80 + +_Tristram_. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching! + This is what my mother said should be, +When the fierce pains took her in the forest, + The deep draughts of death, in bearing me. + +"Son," she said, "thy name shall be of sorrow; 85 + Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake." +So she said, and died in the drear forest. + Grief since then his home with me doth make. deg. deg.88 + +I am dying.--Start not, nor look wildly! + Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save. 90 +But, since living we were ununited, + Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave. + +Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult; + Speak her fair, she is of royal blood! +Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me-- 95 + She will grant it; she is kind and good. + +Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee-- + One last kiss upon the living shore! + +_Iseult_. Tristram!--Tristram!--stay--receive me with thee! + Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more. deg. deg.100 + + * * * * * + +You see them clear--the moon shines bright. +Slow, slow and softly, where she stood, +She sinks upon the ground;--her hood +Has fallen back; her arms outspread +Still hold her lover's hand; her head 105 +Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed. +O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair +Lies in disorder'd streams; and there, +Strung like white stars, the pearls still are, +And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare, 110 +Flash on her white arms still. +The very same which yesternight +Flash'd in the silver sconces' deg. light, deg.113 +When the feast was gay and the laughter loud +In Tyntagel's palace proud. 115 +But then they deck'd a restless ghost +With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes, +And quivering lips on which the tide +Of courtly speech abruptly died, +And a glance which over the crowded floor, 120 +The dancers, and the festive host, +Flew ever to the door. deg. deg.122 +That the knights eyed her in surprise, +And the dames whispered scoffingly: +"Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers! 125 +But yesternight and she would be +As pale and still as wither'd flowers, +And now to-night she laughs and speaks +And has a colour in her cheeks; +Christ keep us from such fantasy!"-- 130 +Yes, now the longing is o'erpast, +Which, dogg'd deg. by fear and fought by shame, deg.132 +Shook her weak bosom day and night, +Consumed her beauty like a flame, +And dimm'd it like the desert-blast. 135 +And though the bed-clothes hide her face, +Yet were it lifted to the light, +The sweet expression of her brow +Would charm the gazer, till his thought +Erased the ravages of time, 140 +Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought +A freshness back as of her prime-- +So healing is her quiet now. +So perfectly the lines express +A tranquil, settled loveliness, 145 +Her younger rival's purest grace. + +The air of the December-night +Steals coldly around the chamber bright, +Where those lifeless lovers be; +Swinging with it, in the light 150 +Flaps the ghostlike tapestry. +And on the arras wrought you see +A stately Huntsman, clad in green, +And round him a fresh forest-scene. +On that clear forest-knoll he stays, 155 +With his pack round him, and delays. +He stares and stares, with troubled face, +At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace, +At that bright, iron-figured door, +And those blown rushes on the floor. 160 +He gazes down into the room +With heated cheeks and flurried air, +And to himself he seems to say: +_"What place is this, and who are they? +Who is that kneeling Lady fair? 165 +And on his pillows that pale Knight +Who seems of marble on a tomb? +How comes it here, this chamber bright, +Through whose mullion'd windows clear +The castle-court all wet with rain, 170 +The drawbridge and the moat appear, +And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray, +The sunken reefs, and far away +The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? +--What, has some glamour made me sleep, 175 +And sent me with my dogs to sweep, +By night, with boisterous bugle-peal, +Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall, +Not in the free green wood at all? +That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer 180 +That Lady by the bed doth kneel-- +Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!"_ +--The wild boar rustles in his lair; +The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air; +But lord and hounds keep rooted there. 185 + +Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake, +O Hunter! and without a fear +Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow, +And through the glades thy pastime take-- +For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here! 190 +For these thou seest are unmoved; +Cold, cold as those who lived and loved +A thousand years ago. deg. deg.193 + + + +III + +ISEULT OF BRITTANY deg. + + +A year had flown, and o'er the sea away, +In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay; +In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old-- +There in a ship they bore those lovers cold. + +The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, 5 +Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play +In a green circular hollow in the heath +Which borders the sea-shore--a country path +Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind. +The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined, 10 +And to one standing on them, far and near +The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear +Over the waste. This cirque deg. of open ground deg.13 +Is light and green; the heather, which all round +Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass 15 +Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass +Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there +Dotted with holly-trees and juniper. deg. deg.18 +In the smooth centre of the opening stood +Three hollies side by side, and made a screen, 20 +Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green +With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's deg. food. deg.22 +Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands, +Watching her children play; their little hands +Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams 25 +Of stagshorn deg. for their hats; anon, with screams deg.26 +Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound +Among the holly-clumps and broken ground, +Racing full speed, and startling in their rush +The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush 30 +Out of their glossy coverts;--but when now +Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow, +Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair, +In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair-- +Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three 35 +Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she +Told them an old-world Breton history. deg. deg.37 + +Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there, +Under the hollies, in the clear still air-- +Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering 40 +Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring. +Long they stay'd still--then, pacing at their ease, +Moved up and down under the glossy trees. +But still, as they pursued their warm dry road, +From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd, 45 +And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes +Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise; +Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side, +Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide, +Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away 50 +From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay, +Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams +Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams, +Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear, +The fell-fares settled on the thickets near. 55 +And they would still have listen'd, till dark night +Came keen and chill down on the heather bright; +But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold, +And the grey turrets of the castle old +Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, 60 +Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair, +And brought her tale to an end, and found the path, +And led them home over the darkening heath. + +And is she happy? Does she see unmoved +The days in which she might have lived and loved 65 +Slip without bringing bliss slowly away, +One after one, to-morrow like to-day? +Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will-- +Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still, +Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, 70 +So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet +Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone +Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, +But even that comes languidly; in truth, +She seems one dying in a mask of youth. 75 +And now she will go home, and softly lay +Her laughing children in their beds, and play +Awhile with them before they sleep; and then +She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen +Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar, 80 +Along this iron coast, deg. know like a star, deg. deg.81 +And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit +Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it; +Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind +Her children, or to listen to the wind. 85 +And when the clock peals midnight, she will move +Her work away, and let her fingers rove +Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound +Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground; +Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes 90 +Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise, +And at her prie-dieu deg. kneel, until she have told deg.92 +Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold, +Then to her soft sleep--and to-morrow'll be +To-day's exact repeated effigy. 95 + +Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall. +The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal, deg. deg.97 +Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound, +Are there the sole companions to be found. +But these she loves; and noiser life than this 100 +She would find ill to bear, weak as she is. +She has her children, too, and night and day +Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play, +The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore, +The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails, 105 +These are to her dear as to them; the tales +With which this day the children she beguiled +She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child, +In every hut along this sea-coast wild. +She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, 110 +Can forget all to hear them, as of old. + +Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, +Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear +To all that has delighted them before, +And lets us be what we were once no more. 115 +No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain +Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain, +By what of old pleased us, and will again. +No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world, +In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd 120 +Until they crumble, or else grow like steel-- +Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring-- +Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, +But takes away the power--this can avail, +By drying up our joy in everything, 125 +To make our former pleasures all seem stale. +This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit +Of passion, which subdues our souls to it, +Till for its sake alone we live and move-- +Call it ambition, or remorse, or love-- 130 +This too can change us wholly, and make seem +All which we did before, shadow and dream. + +And yet, I swear, it angers me to see +How this fool passion gulls deg. men potently; deg.134 +Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest, 135 +And an unnatural overheat at best. +How they are full of languor and distress +Not having it; which when they do possess, +They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, +And spend their lives in posting here and there deg. deg.140 +Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, +Are furious with themselves, and hard to please. +Like that bold Caesar, deg. the famed Roman wight, deg.143 +Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight +Who made a name at younger years than he; 145 +Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry, +Prince Alexander, deg. Philip's peerless son, deg.147 +Who carried the great war from Macedon +Into the Soudan's deg. realm, and thundered on deg.149 +To die at thirty-five in Babylon. 150 + +What tale did Iseult to the children say, +Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day? +She told them of the fairy-haunted land +Away the other side of Brittany, +Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 +Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, deg. deg.156 +Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps +Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. +For here he came with the fay deg. Vivian, deg.158 +One April, when the warm days first began. +He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 +On her white palfrey; here he met his end, +In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. +This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay deg. deg.163 +Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear +Before the children's fancy him and her. 165 + +Blowing between the stems, the forest-air +Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair, +Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes +Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise. +Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat, 170 +For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet. +A brier in that tangled wilderness +Had scored her white right hand, which she allows +To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress; +The other warded off the drooping boughs. 175 +But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes +Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize. +Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace, +The spirit of the woods was in her face. +She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight 180 +Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight; +And he grew fond, and eager to obey +His mistress, use her empire deg. as she may. deg.184 +They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day 185 +Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away, +In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook; +And up as high as where they stood to look +On the brook's farther side was clear, but then +The underwood and trees began again. 190 +This open glen was studded thick with thorns +Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, +Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer +Who come at noon down to the water here. +You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along 195 +Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong +The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, +And the weird chipping of the woodpecker +Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair, +And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere. 200 +Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow, +To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough +Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild. +As if to itself the quiet forest smiled. +Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here 205 +The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear +Across the hollow; white anemones +Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses +Ran out from the dark underwood behind. +No fairer resting-place a man could find. 210 +"Here let us halt," said Merlin then; and she +Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree. + +They sate them down together, and a sleep +Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. +Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose 215 +And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws, +And takes it in her hand, and waves it over +The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. +Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple deg. round, deg.219 +And made a little plot of magic ground. 220 +And in that daised circle, as men say, +Is Merlin prisoner deg. till the judgment-day; deg.222 +But she herself whither she will can rove-- +For she was passing weary of his love. deg. deg.224 + + + + + + +LYRICAL POEMS + + + + +THE CHURCH OF BROU deg. + +I + +THE CASTLE + + +Down the Savoy deg. valleys sounding, deg.1 + Echoing round this castle old, +'Mid the distant mountain-chalets deg. deg.3 + Hark! what bell for church is toll'd? + +In the bright October morning 5 + Savoy's Duke had left his bride. +From the castle, past the drawbridge, + Flow'd the hunters' merry tide. + +Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering; + Gay, her smiling lord to greet, 10 +From her mullion'd chamber-casement + Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. + +From Vienna, by the Danube, + Here she came, a bride, in spring. +Now the autumn crisps the forest; 15 + Hunters gather, bugles ring. + +Hounds are pulling, prickers deg. swearing, deg.17 + Horses fret, and boar-spears glance. +Off!--They sweep the marshy forests. + Westward, on the side of France. 20 + +Hark! the game's on foot; they scatter!-- + Down the forest-ridings lone, +Furious, single horsemen gallop---- + Hark! a shout--a crash--a groan! + +Pale and breathless, came the hunters; 25 + On the turf dead lies the boar-- +God! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him, + Senseless, weltering in his gore. + + * * * * * + +In the dull October evening, + Down the leaf-strewn forest-road, 30 +To the castle, past the drawbridge, + Came the hunters with their load. + +In the hall, with sconces blazing, + Ladies waiting round her seat, +Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais deg. deg.35 + Sate the Duchess Marguerite. + +Hark! below the gates unbarring! + Tramp of men and quick commands! +"--'Tis my lord come back from hunting--" + And the Duchess claps her hands. 40 + +Slow and tired, came the hunters-- + Stopp'd in darkness in the court. +"--Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! + To the hall! What sport? What sport?"-- + +Slow they enter'd with their master; 45 + In the hall they laid him down. +On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, + On his brow an angry frown. + +Dead her princely youthful husband + Lay before his youthful wife, 50 +Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces-- + And the sight froze all her life. + + * * * * * + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Kings hold revel, gallants meet. +Gay of old amid the gayest 55 + Was the Duchess Marguerite. + +In Vienna, by the Danube, + Feast and dance her youth beguiled. +Till that hour she never sorrow'd; + But from then she never smiled. 60 + +'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys + Far from town or haunt of man, +Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd, + Which the Duchess Maud began; + +Old, that Duchess stern began it, 65 + In grey age, with palsied hands; +But she died while it was building, + And the Church unfinish'd stands-- + +Stands as erst deg. the builders left it, deg.69 + When she sank into her grave; 70 +Mountain greensward paves the chancel, deg. deg.71 + Harebells flower in the nave. deg. deg.72 + +"--In my castle all is sorrow," + Said the Duchess Marguerite then; +"Guide me, some one, to the mountain! 75 + We will build the Church again."-- + +Sandall'd palmers, deg. faring homeward, deg.78 + Austrian knights from Syria came. +"--Austrian wanderers bring, O warders! + Homage to your Austrian dame."-- 80 + +From the gate the warders answer'd: + "--Gone, O knights, is she you knew! +Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess; + Seek her at the Church of Brou!"-- + +Austrian knights and march-worn palmers 85 + Climb the winding mountain-way.-- +Reach the valley, where the Fabric + Rises higher day by day. + +Stones are sawing, hammers ringing; + On the work the bright sun shines, 90 +In the Savoy mountain-meadows, + By the stream, below the pines. + +On her palfry white the Duchess + Sate and watch'd her working train-- +Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, 95 + German masons, smiths from Spain. + +Clad in black, on her white palfrey, + Her old architect beside-- +There they found her in the mountains, + Morn and noon and eventide. 100 + +There she sate, and watch'd the builders, + Till the Church was roof'd and done. +Last of all, the builders rear'd her + In the nave a tomb of stone. + +On the tomb two forms they sculptured, 105 + Lifelike in the marble pale-- +One, the Duke in helm and armour; + One, the Duchess in her veil. + +Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork deg. deg.109 + Was at Easter-tide put on. 110 +Then the Duchess closed her labours; + And she died at the St. John. + + + +II + +THE CHURCH + + +Upon the glistening leaden roof +Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines; + The stream goes leaping by. +The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof; +'Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 5 + Stands the Church on high. +What Church is this, from men aloof?-- +'Tis the Church of Brou. + +At sunrise, from their dewy lair +Crossing the stream, the kine are seen 10 + Round the wall to stray-- +The churchyard wall that clips the square +Of open hill-sward fresh and green + Where last year they lay. +But all things now are order'd fair 15 +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, at the matin-chime, deg. deg.17 +The Alpine peasants, two and three, + Climb up here to pray; +Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, 20 +Ride out to church from Chambery, deg. deg.21 + Dight deg. with mantles gay. deg.22 +But else it is a lonely time +Round the Church of Brou. + +On Sundays, too, a priest doth come 25 +From the wall'd town beyond the pass, + Down the mountain-way; +And then you hear the organ's hum, +You hear the white-robed priest say mass, + And the people pray. 30 +But else the woods and fields are dumb +Round the Church of Brou. + +And after church, when mass is done, +The people to the nave repair + Round the tomb to stray; 35 +And marvel at the Forms of stone, +And praise the chisell'd broideries deg. rare-- deg.37 + Then they drop away. +The princely Pair are left alone +In the Church of Brou. 40 + + + +III + +THE TOMB + + +So rest, for ever rest, O princely Pair! +In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air, +Where horn, and hound, and vassals never come. +Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb, +From the rich painted windows of the nave, 5 +On aisle, and transept, deg. and your marble grave; deg.6 +Where thou, young Prince! shalt never more arise +From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies, +On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds, +And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds 10 +To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve; +And thou, O Princess! shalt no more receive, +Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state, +The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, +Coming benighted to the castle-gate. 15 + + So sleep, for ever sleep, O marble Pair! +Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair +On the carved western front a flood of light +Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright +Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, 20 +In the vast western window of the nave, +And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints +A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints, +And amethyst, and ruby--then unclose +Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, 25 +And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads, +And rise upon your cold white marble beds; +And, looking down on the warm rosy tints, +Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints, +Say: _What is this? we are in bliss--forgiven--_ 30 +_Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!_ +Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain +Doth rustlingly above your heads complain +On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls +Shedding her pensive light at intervals 35 +The moon through the clere-story windows shines, +And the wind washes through the mountain-pines. +Then, gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high, +The foliaged marble forest deg. where ye lie, deg.39 +_Hush_, ye will say, _it is eternity!_ 40 +_This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these +The columns of the heavenly palaces!_ +And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear +The passage of the Angels' wings will hear, +And on the lichen-crusted leads deg. above deg.45 +The rustle of the eternal rain of love. + + + + +REQUIESCAT deg. + + +Strew on her roses, roses, + And never a spray of yew! +In quiet she reposes; + Ah, would that I did too! + +Her mirth the world required; 5 + She bathed it in smiles of glee. +But her heart was tired, tired, + And now they let her be. + +Her life was turning, turning, + In mazes of heat and sound. 10 +But for peace her soul was yearning, + And now peace laps her round. + +Her cabin'd, deg. ample spirit, deg.13 + It flutter'd and fail'd for breath +To-night it doth inherit 15 + The vasty deg. hall of death. deg.16 + + + + +CONSOLATION + + +Mist clogs the sunshine. +Smoky dwarf houses +Hem me round everywhere; +A vague dejection +Weighs down my soul. 5 + +Yet, while I languish, +Everywhere countless +Prospects unroll themselves, +And countless beings +Pass countless moods. 10 + +Far hence, in Asia, +On the smooth convent-roofs, +On the gilt terraces, +Of holy Lassa, deg. deg.14 +Bright shines the sun. 15 + +Grey time-worn marbles +Hold the pure Muses deg.; deg.17 +In their cool gallery, deg. deg.18 +By yellow Tiber, deg. deg.19 +They still look fair. 20 + +Strange unloved uproar deg. deg.21 +Shrills round their portal; +Yet not on Helicon deg. deg.23 +Kept they more cloudless +Their noble calm. 25 + +Through sun-proof alleys +In a lone, sand-hemm'd +City of Africa, +A blind, led beggar, +Age-bow'd, asks alms. 30 + +No bolder robber +Erst deg. abode ambush'd deg.32 +Deep in the sandy waste; +No clearer eyesight +Spied prey afar. 35 + +Saharan sand-winds +Sear'd his keen eyeballs; +Spent is the spoil he won. +For him the present +Holds only pain. 40 + +Two young, fair lovers, +Where the warm June-wind, +Fresh from the summer fields +Plays fondly round them, +Stand, tranced in joy. 45 + +With sweet, join'd voices, +And with eyes brimming: +"Ah," they cry, "Destiny, deg. deg.48 +Prolong the present! +Time, stand still here!" 50 + +The prompt stern Goddess +Shakes her head, frowning; +Time gives his hour-glass +Its due reversal; +Their hour is gone. 55 + +With weak indulgence +Did the just Goddess +Lengthen their happiness, +She lengthen'd also +Distress elsewhere. 60 + +The hour, whose happy +Unalloy'd moments +I would eternalise, +Ten thousand mourners +Well pleased see end. 65 + +The bleak, stern hour, +Whose severe moments +I would annihilate, +Is pass'd by others +In warmth, light, joy. 70 + +Time, so complain'd of, +Who to no one man +Shows partiality, +Brings round to all men +Some undimm'd hours. 75 + + + + +A DREAM + + +Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd, +Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream, +Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun, +On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, +On the red pinings of their forest-floor, 5 +Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines +The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change +Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees +And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. +Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 +And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came +Notes of wild pastoral music--over all +Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. +Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge, +Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood, 15 +Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves +Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof +Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within, +Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn. +We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. 20 +On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms +Came forth--Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine. +Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast; +Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue, +Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play'd. 25 +They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved, +And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes. +Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly, +Flash'd once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed. +One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat 30 +Hung poised--and then the darting river of Life +(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life, +Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam'd, +Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone. +Soon the plank'd cottage by the sun-warm'd pines 35 +Faded--the moss--the rocks; us burning plains, +Bristled with cities, us the sea received. + + + + +LINES deg. + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + + +In this lone, open glade I lie, +Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand; +And at its end, to stay the eye, +Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees deg. stand! deg.4 + +Birds here make song, each bird has his, 5 +Across the girdling city's hum. +How green under the boughs it is! +How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! + +Sometimes a child will cross the glade +To take his nurse his broken toy; 10 +Sometimes a thrush flit overhead +Deep in her unknown day's employ. + +Here at my feet what wonders pass, +What endless, active life is here deg.! deg.14 +What blowing daisies, fragrant grass! 15 +An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear. + +Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod +Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out, +And, eased of basket and of rod, +Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. 20 + +In the huge world, deg. which roars hard by, deg.21 +Be others happy if they can! +But in my helpless cradle I +Was breathed on by the rural Pan. deg. deg.24 + +I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd, 25 +Think often, as I hear them rave, +That peace has left the upper world +And now keeps only in the grave. + +Yet here is peace for ever new! +When I who watch them am away, 30 +Still all things in this glade go through +The changes of their quiet day. + +Then to their happy rest they pass! +The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, +The night comes down upon the grass, 35 +The child sleeps warmly in his bed. + +Calm soul of all things! make it mine +To feel, amid the city's jar, +That there abides a peace of thine, +Man did not make, and cannot mar. 40 + +The will to neither strive nor cry, +The power to feel with others give deg.! +Calm, calm me more! nor let me die +Before I have begun to live. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER deg. + +_The Portico of Circe's Palace. Evening._ + +A YOUTH. CIRCE. deg. + + + _The Youth_. Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession +Of eddying forms, 5 +Sweep through my soul! + +Thou standest, smiling +Down on me! thy right arm, +Lean'd up against the column there, +Props thy soft cheek; 10 +Thy left holds, hanging loosely, +The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, deg. deg.12 +I held but now. + +Is it, then, evening +So soon? I see, the night-dews, 15 +Cluster'd in thick beads, dim +The agate brooch-stones +On thy white shoulder; +The cool night-wind, too, +Blows through the portico, 20 +Stirs thy hair, Goddess, +Waves thy white robe! + + _Circe_. Whence art thou, sleeper? + + _The Youth_. When the white dawn first +Through the rough fir-planks 25 +Of my hut, by the chestnuts, +Up at the valley-head, +Came breaking, Goddess! +I sprang up, I threw round me +My dappled fawn-skin; 30 +Passing out, from the wet turf, +Where they lay, by the hut door, +I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, +All drench'd in dew-- +Came swift down to join 35 +The rout deg. early gather'd deg.36 +In the town, round the temple, +Iacchus' deg. white fane deg. deg.38 +On yonder hill. + +Quick I pass'd, following 40 +The wood-cutters' cart-track +Down the dark valley;--I saw +On my left, through, the beeches, +Thy palace, Goddess, +Smokeless, empty! 45 +Trembling, I enter'd; beheld +The court all silent, +The lions sleeping, deg. deg.47 +On the altar this bowl. +I drank, Goddess! 50 +And sank down here, sleeping, +On the steps of thy portico. + + _Circe_. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? +Thou lovest it, then, my wine? +Wouldst more of it? See, how glows, 55 +Through the delicate, flush'd marble, +The red, creaming liquor, +Strown with dark seeds! +Drink, then! I chide thee not, +Deny thee not my bowl. 60 +Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so! +Drink--drink again! + + _The Youth_. Thanks, gracious one! +Ah, the sweet fumes again! +More soft, ah me, 65 +More subtle-winding +Than Pan's flute-music! deg. deg.67 +Faint--faint! Ah me, +Again the sweet sleep! + + _Circe_. Hist! Thou--within there! 70 +Come forth, Ulysses deg.! deg.71 +Art deg. tired with hunting? deg.72 +While we range deg. the woodland, deg.73 +See what the day brings. deg. deg.74 + + _Ulysses_. Ever new magic! 75 +Hast thou then lured hither, +Wonderful Goddess, by thy art, +The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, +Iacchus' darling-- +Or some youth beloved of Pan, 80 +Of Pan and the Nymphs deg.? deg.81 +That he sits, bending downward +His white, delicate neck +To the ivy-wreathed marge +Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves 85 +That crown his hair, +Falling forward, mingling +With the dark ivy-plants-- +His fawn-skin, half untied, +Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he, 90 +That he sits, overweigh'd +By fumes of wine and sleep, +So late, in thy portico? +What youth, Goddess,--what guest +Of Gods or mortals? 95 + + _Circe_. Hist! he wakes! +I lured him not hither, Ulysses. +Nay, ask him! + + _The Youth_. Who speaks? Ah, who comes forth +To thy side, Goddess, from within? 100 +How shall I name him? +This spare, dark-featured, +Quick-eyed stranger? +Ah, and I see too +His sailor's bonnet, 105 +His short coat, travel-tarnish'd, +With one arm bare deg.!-- deg.107 +Art thou not he, whom fame +This long time rumours +The favour'd guest of Circe, deg. brought by the waves? deg.110 +Art thou he, stranger? +The wise Ulysses, +Laertes' son? + +_Ulysses_. I am Ulysses. +And thou, too, sleeper? 115 +Thy voice is sweet. +It may be thou hast follow'd +Through the islands some divine bard, +By age taught many things, +Age and the Muses deg.; deg.120 +And heard him delighting +The chiefs and people +In the banquet, and learn'd his songs, +Of Gods and Heroes, +Of war and arts, 125 +And peopled cities, +Inland, or built +By the grey sea.--If so, then hail! +I honour and welcome thee. + + _The Youth_. The Gods are happy. 130 +They turn on all sides +Their shining eyes, +And see below them +The earth and men. deg. deg.134 + +They see Tiresias deg. deg.135 +Sitting, staff in hand, +On the warm, grassy +Asopus deg. bank, deg.138 +His robe drawn over +His old, sightless head, 140 +Revolving inly +The doom of Thebes. deg. deg.142 + +They see the Centaurs deg. deg.143 +In the upper glens +Of Pelion, deg. in the streams, deg.145 +Where red-berried ashes fringe +The clear-brown shallow pools, +With streaming flanks, and heads +Rear'd proudly, snuffing +The mountain wind. 150 + +They see the Indian +Drifting, knife in hand, +His frail boat moor'd to +A floating isle thick-matted +With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, 155 +And the dark cucumber. +He reaps, and stows them, +Drifting--drifting;--round him, +Round his green harvest-plot, +Flow the cool lake-waves, 160 +The mountains ring them. deg. + +They see the Scythian +On the wide stepp, unharnessing +His wheel'd house at noon. +He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal-- 165 +Mares' milk, and bread +Baked on the embers deg.;--all around deg.167 +The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd +With saffron and the yellow hollyhock +And flag-leaved iris-flowers. 170 +Sitting in his cart, +He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, +Alive with bright green lizards, +And the springing bustard-fowl, +The track, a straight black line, 175 +Furrows the rich soil; here and there +Clusters of lonely mounds +Topp'd with rough-hewn, +Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer +The sunny waste. deg. deg.180 + +They see the ferry +On the broad, clay-laden. +Lone Chorasmian stream deg.;--thereon, deg.183 +With snort and strain, +Two horses, strongly swimming, tow 185 +The ferry-boat, with woven ropes +To either bow +Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief, +With shout and shaken spear, +Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern 190 +The cowering merchants, in long robes, +Sit pale beside their wealth +Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, +Of gold and ivory, +Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, 195 +Jasper and chalcedony, +And milk-barr'd onyx-stones. deg. deg.197 +The loaded boat swings groaning +In the yellow eddies; +The Gods behold them. 200 +They see the Heroes +Sitting in the dark ship +On the foamless, long-heaving +Violet sea, +At sunset nearing 205 +The Happy Islands. deg. deg.206 + + These things, Ulysses, +The wise bards also +Behold and sing. +But oh, what labour! 210 +O prince, what pain! + +They too can see +Tiresias;--but the Gods, +Who give them vision, +Added this law: 215 +That they should bear too +His groping blindness, +His dark foreboding, +His scorn'd white hairs; +Bear Hera's anger deg. deg.220 +Through a life lengthen'd +To seven ages. + +They see the Centaurs +On Pelion;--then they feel, +They too, the maddening wine 225 +Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain +They feel the biting spears +Of the grim Lapithae, deg. and Theseus, deg. drive, deg.228 +Drive crashing through their bones deg.; they feel deg.229 +High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230 +Alcmena's dreadful son deg. deg.231 +Ply his bow;--such a price +The Gods exact for song: +To become what we sing. + +They see the Indian 235 +On his mountain lake; but squalls +Make their skiff reel, and worms +In the unkind spring have gnawn +Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see +The Scythian; but long frosts 240 +Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp, +Till they too fade like grass; they crawl +Like shadows forth in spring. + +They see the merchants +On the Oxus stream deg.;--but care deg.245 +Must visit first them too, and make them pale. +Whether, through whirling sand, +A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst +Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, +In the wall'd cities the way passes through, 250 +Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs, +On some great river's marge, +Mown them down, far from home. + +They see the Heroes deg. deg.254 +Near harbour;--but they share 255 +Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes, +Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy deg.; deg.257 +Or where the echoing oars +Of Argo first +Startled the unknown sea. deg. deg.260 + +The old Silenus deg. deg.261 +Came, lolling in the sunshine, +From the dewy forest-coverts, +This way, at noon. +Sitting by me, while his Fauns 265 +Down at the water-side +Sprinkled and smoothed +His drooping garland, +He told me these things. + +But I, Ulysses, 270 +Sitting on the warm steps, +Looking over the valley, +All day long, have seen, +Without pain, without labour, +Sometimes a wild-hair'd Maenad deg.-- deg.275 +Sometimes a Faun with torches deg.-- deg.276 +And sometimes, for a moment, +Passing through the dark stems +Flowing-robed, the beloved, +The desired, the divine, 280 +Beloved Iacchus. + +Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! +Ah, glimmering water, +Fitful earth-murmur, +Dreaming woods! 285 +Ah, golden-hair'd, strangely smiling Goddess, +And thou, proved, much enduring, +Wave-toss'd Wanderer! +Who can stand still? +Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me-- 290 +The cup again! + +Faster, faster, +O Circe, Goddess, +Let the wild, thronging train, +The bright procession 295 +Of eddying forms, +Sweep through my soul! + + + + +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 5 + 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. 10 + 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, 15 +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, 20 +See, on her face a glow is spread, +A strong emotion on her cheek! + "Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, + Whence was it, for it is not mine? + +"There is no effort on _my_ brow-- 25 +I do not strive, I do not weep; +I rush with the swift spheres and glow +In joy, and when I will, I sleep. + Yet that severe, that earnest air, + I saw, I felt it once--but where? 30 + +"I knew not yet the gauge of time, +Nor wore the manacles of space; +I felt it in some other clime, +I saw it in some other place. + 'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 35 + And lay upon the breast of God." + + + + +DOVER BEACH + + +The sea is calm to-night. +The tide is full, the moon lies fair +Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light +Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, +Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5 +Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! +Only, from the long line of spray +Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, +Listen! you hear the grating roar +Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 +At their return, up the high strand, +Begin, and cease, and then again begin, +With tremulous cadence slow, and bring +The eternal note of sadness in. + +Sophocles deg. long ago deg.15 +Heard it on the AEgaean, deg. and it brought deg.16 +Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow +Of human misery; we +Find also in the sound a thought, +Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20 + +The Sea of Faith +Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore +Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. +But now I only hear +Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25 +Retreating, to the breath +Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear +And naked shingles of the world. +Ah, love, let us be true +To one another! for the world, which seems 30 +To lie before us like a land of dreams, +So various, so beautiful, so new, +Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, +Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; +And we are here as on a darkling plain 35 +Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, +Where ignorant armies clash by night. + + + + +PHILOMELA deg. + + +Hark! ah, the nightingale-- +The tawny-throated! +Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! +What triumph! hark!--what pain deg.! deg.4 + +O wanderer from a Grecian shore, deg. deg.5 +Still, after many years, in distant lands, +Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain +That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain deg.-- deg.8 +Say, will it never heal? +And can this fragrant lawn 10 +With its cool trees, and night, +And the sweet, tranquil Thames, +And moonshine, and the dew, +To thy rack'd heart and brain +Afford no balm? 15 + +Dost thou to-night behold, +Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, +The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild deg.? deg.18 +Dost thou again peruse +With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 20 +The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame deg.? deg.21 +Dost thou once more assay +Thy flight, and feel come over thee, +Poor fugitive, the feathery change +Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25 +With love and hate, triumph and agony, +Lone Daulis, deg. and the high Cephissian vale deg.? deg.27 +Listen, Eugenia-- +How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves deg.! deg.29 +Again--thou hearest? 30 +Eternal passion! +Eternal pain deg.! deg.32 + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + + +What mortal, when he saw, +Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend, +Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly: +"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law deg.; deg.4 +The inly-written chart deg. thou gavest me, 5 +To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"? + +Ah! let us make no claim, +On life's incognisable deg. sea, deg.8 +To too exact a steering of our way; +Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim, 10 +If some fair coast have lured us to make stay, +Or some friend hail'd us to keep company. + +Ay! we would each fain drive +At random, and not steer by rule. +Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain 15 +Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, +We rush by coasts where we had lief remain; +Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool. + +No! as the foaming swath +Of torn-up water, on the main, 20 +Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar +On either side the black deep-furrow'd path +Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore, deg. deg.23 +And never touches the ship-side again; + +Even so we leave behind, 25 +As, charter'd by some unknown Powers +We stem deg. across the sea of life by night deg.27 +The joys which were not for our use design'd;-- +The friends to whom we had no natural right, +The homes that were not destined to be ours. 30 + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE + + +Yes deg.! in the sea of life enisled, deg.1 +With echoing straits between us thrown, +Dotting the shoreless watery wild, +We mortal millions live _alone_. +The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5 +And then their endless bounds they know. + +But when the moon deg. their hollows lights, deg.7 +And they are swept by balms of spring, +And in their glens, on starry nights, +The nightingales divinely sing; 10 +And lovely notes, from shore to shore, +Across the sounds and channels pour-- + +Oh! then a longing like despair +Is to their farthest caverns sent; +For surely once, they feel, we were 15 +Parts of a single continent! +Now round us spreads the watery plain-- +Oh might our marges meet again! + +Who order'd, that their longing's fire +Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? 20 +Who renders vain their deep desire?-- +A God, a God their severance ruled! +And bade betwixt their shores to be +The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. deg. deg.24 + + + + +KAISER DEAD deg. + +_April_ 6, 1887 + + +What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news +Post-haste to Cobham deg. calls the Muse, deg.2 +From where in Farringford deg. she brews deg.3 + The ode sublime, +Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard deg. pursues deg.5 + A rival rhyme. + +Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet, +Were known to all the village-street. +"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; + "A loss indeed!" 10 +O for the croon pathetic, sweet, + Of Robin's reed deg.! deg.12 + +Six years ago I brought him down, +A baby dog, from London town; +Round his small throat of black and brown 15 + A ribbon blue, +And vouch'd by glorious renown + A dachshound true. + +His mother, most majestic dame, +Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam deg. came; deg.20 +And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same-- + No lineage higher. +And so he bore the imperial name. + But ah, his sire! + +Soon, soon the days conviction bring. 25 +The collie hair, the collie swing, +The tail's indomitable ring, + The eye's unrest-- +The case was clear; a mongrel thing + Kai stood confest. 30 + +But all those virtues, which commend +The humbler sort who serve and tend, +Were thine in store, thou faithful friend. + What sense, what cheer! +To us, declining tow'rds our end, 35 + A mate how dear! + +For Max, thy brother-dog, began +To flag, and feel his narrowing span. +And cold, besides, his blue blood ran, + Since, 'gainst the classes, 40 +He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man deg. deg.41 + Incite the masses. + +Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad; +But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad, +Teeming with plans, alert, and glad 45 + In work or play, +Like sunshine went and came, and bade + Live out the day! + +Still, still I see the figure smart-- +Trophy in mouth, agog deg. to start, deg.50 +Then, home return'd, once more depart; + Or prest together +Against thy mistress, loving heart, + In winter weather. + +I see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd, 55 +In moments of disgrace uncurl'd, +Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd, + A conquering sign; +Crying, "Come on, and range the world, + And never pine." 60 + +Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone; +Thou hast thine errands, off and on; +In joy thy last morn flew; anon, + A fit! All's over; +And thou art gone where Geist deg. hath gone, deg.65 + And Toss, and Rover. + +Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head, +Regards his brother's form outspread; +Full well Max knows the friend is dead + Whose cordial talk, 70 +And jokes in doggish language said, + Beguiled his walk. + +And Glory, stretch'd at Burwood gate, +Thy passing by doth vainly wait; +And jealous Jock, thy only hate, 75 + The chiel deg. from Skye, deg. deg.76 +Lets from his shaggy Highland pate + Thy memory die. + +Well, fetch his graven collar fine, +And rub the steel, and make it shine, 80 +And leave it round thy neck to twine, + Kai, in thy grave. +There of thy master keep that sign, + And this plain stave. + + + + +THE LAST WORD deg. + + +Creep into thy narrow bed, +Creep, and let no more be said! +Vain thy onset! all stands fast. +Thou thyself must break at last. + +Let the long contention cease! 5 +Geese are swans, and swans are geese. +Let them have it how they will! +Thou art tired; best be still. + +They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? +Better men fared thus before thee; 10 +Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, +Hotly charged--and sank at last. + +Charge once more, then, and be dumb! +Let the victors, when they come, +When the forts of folly fall, 15 +Find thy body by the wall! + + + + +PALLADIUM deg. + + +Set where the upper streams of Simois deg. flow deg.1 +Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; +And Hector deg. was in Ilium deg. far below, deg.3 +And fought, and saw it not--but there it stood! + +It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light 5 +On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. +Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight +Round Troy--but while this stood, Troy could not fall. + +So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. +Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; 10 +Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; +We visit it by moments, ah, too rare! + +We shall renew the battle in the plain +To-morrow;--red with blood will Xanthus deg. be; deg.14 +Hector and Ajax deg. will be there again, deg.15 +Helen deg. will come upon the wall to see. deg.16 + +Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, +And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, +And fancy that we put forth all our life, +And never know how with the soul it fares. 20 + +Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, +Upon our life a ruling effluence send. +And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; +And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. + + + + +REVOLUTIONS + + +Before man parted for this earthly strand, +While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood, +God put a heap of letters in his hand, +And bade him make with them what word he could. + +And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece, 5 +Rome, England, France;--yes, nor in vain essay'd +Way after way, changes that never cease! +The letters have combined, something was made. + +But ah! an inextinguishable sense +Haunts him that he has not made what he should; 10 +That he has still, though old, to recommence, +Since he has not yet found the word God would. + +And empire after empire, at their height +Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on; +Have felt their huge frames not constructed right, 15 +And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne. + +One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear +The word, the order, which God meant should be. +--Ah! we shall know _that_ well when it comes near; +The band will quit man's heart, he will breathe free. 20 + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE deg. + + +Weary of myself, and sick of asking +What I am, and what I ought to be, +At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me +Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. + +And a look of passionate desire 5 +O'er the sea and to the stars I send: +"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, +Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! + +"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, +On my heart your mighty charm renew; 10 +Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, +Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" + +From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, +Over the lit sea's unquiet way, +In the rustling night-air came the answer: 15 +"Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they. + +"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, +Undistracted by the sights they see, +These demand not that the things without them +Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 20 + +"And with joy the stars perform their shining, +And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll; +For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting +All the fever of some differing soul. + +"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 25 +In what state God's other works may be, +In their own tasks all their powers pouring, +These attain the mighty life you see." + +O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, +A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: 30 +"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, +Who finds himself, loses his misery!" + + + + +A SUMMER NIGHT + + +In the deserted, moon-blanch'd 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, 5 +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! 10 + +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; 15 +The spring-tide's brimming flow +Heaved dazzlingly between; +Houses, with long white sweep, + +Girdled the glistening bay; +Behind, through the soft air, 20 +The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away, +The night was far more fair-- +But the same restless pacings to and fro, +And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, +And the same bright, calm moon. 25 + +And the calm moonlight seems to say: +_Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast, +Which neither deadens into rest, +Nor ever feels the fiery glow +That whirls the spirit from itself away_, 30 +_But fluctuates to and fro, +Never by passion quite possess'd +And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?--_ +And I, I know not if to pray +Still to be what I am, or yield and be 35 +Like all the other men I see. + +For most men in a brazen prison live, +Where, in the sun's hot eye, +With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly +Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, 40 +Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall. +And as, year after year, +Fresh products of their barren labour fall +From their tired hands, and rest +Never yet comes more near, 45 +Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; +A while they try to stem +The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, +And the rest, a few, +Escape their prison and depart 50 +On the wide ocean of life anew. +There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart +Listeth, will sail; +Nor doth he know how these prevail, +Despotic on that sea, 55 +Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. +Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd +By thwarting signs, and braves +The freshening wind and blackening waves +And then the tempest strikes him; and between 60 +The lightning-bursts is seen +Only a driving wreck. +And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck +With anguished face and flying hair, +Grasping the rudder hard, 65 +Still bent to make some port he knows not where, +Still standing for some false, impossible shore. +And sterner comes the roar +Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom +Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom 70 +And he, too, disappears and comes no more. + +Is there no life, but there alone? +Madman or slave, must man be one? +Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! +Clearness divine. 75 +Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign +Of languor, though so calm, and though so great +Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; +Who though so noble, share in the world's toil. +And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil! 80 + +I will not say that your mild deeps retain +A tinge, it may he, of their silent pain +Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain-- +But I will rather say that you remain +A world above man's head, to let him see 85 +How boundless might his soul's horizon be, +How vast, yet of which clear transparency! +How it were good to live there, and breathe free! +How fair a lot to fill +Is left to each man still! 90 + + + + +GEIST'S GRAVE deg. + + +Four years!--and didst thou stay above +The ground, which hides thee now, but four? +And all that life, and all that love, +Were crowded, Geist! into no more? + +Only four years those winning ways, 5 +Which make me for thy presence yearn, +Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, +Dear little friend! at every turn? + +That loving heart, that patient soul, +Had they indeed no longer span, 10 +To run their course, and reach their goal, +And read their homily deg. to man? deg.12 + +That liquid, melancholy eye, +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs +Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry, deg. deg.15 +The sense of tears in mortal things-- + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled +By spirits gloriously gay, +And temper of heroic mould-- +What, was four years their whole short day? 20 + +Yes, only four!--and not the course +Of all the centuries yet to come, +And not the infinite resource +Of Nature, with her countless sum + +Of figures, with her fulness vast 25 +Of new creation evermore, +Can ever quite repeat the past, +Or just thy little self restore. + +Stern law of every mortal lot! +Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, 30 +And builds himself I know not what +Of second life I know not where. + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go, +On us, who stood despondent by, +A meek last glance of love didst throw, 35 +And humbly lay thee down to die. + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart-- +Would fix our favourite on the scene, +Nor let thee utterly depart +And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 40 + +And so there rise these lines of verse +On lips that rarely form them now deg.; deg.42 +While to each other we rehearse: +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! + +We stroke thy broad brown paws again, 45 +We bid thee to thy vacant chair, +We greet thee by the window-pane, +We hear thy scuffle on the stair. + +We see the flaps of thy large ears +Quick raised to ask which way we go; 50 +Crossing the frozen lake, appears +Thy small black figure on the snow! + +Nor to us only art thou dear +Who mourn thee in thine English home; +Thou hast thine absent master's deg. tear, 55 +Dropt by the far Australian foam. + +Thy memory lasts both here and there, +And thou shalt live as long as we. +And after that--thou dost not care! +In us was all the world to thee. 60 + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, +Even to a date beyond our own +We strive to carry down thy name, +By mounded turf, and graven stone. + +We lay thee, close within our reach, 65 +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, +Between the holly and the beech, +Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, + +Asleep, yet lending half an ear +To travellers on the Portsmouth road;-- 70 +There build we thee, O guardian dear, +Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode! + +Then some, who through this garden pass, +When we too, like thyself, are clay, +Shall see thy grave upon the grass, 75 +And stop before the stone, and say: + +_People who lived here long ago +Did by this stone, it seems, intend +To name for future times to know +The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend._ 80 + + + + +EPILOGUE + +TO LESSING'S LAOCOOeN deg. + + +One morn as through Hyde Park deg. we walk'd, deg.1 +My friend and I, by chance we talk'd +Of Lessing's famed Laocooen; +And after we awhile had gone +In Lessing's track, and tried to see 5 +What painting is, what poetry-- +Diverging to another thought, +"Ah," cries my friend, "but who hath taught +Why music and the other arts +Oftener perform aright their parts 10 +Than poetry? why she, than they, +Fewer fine successes can display? + +"For 'tis so, surely! Even in Greece, +Where best the poet framed his piece, +Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground deg. deg.15 +Pausanias deg. on his travels found deg.16 +Good poems, if he look'd, more rare +(Though many) than good statues were-- +For these, in truth, were everywhere. +Of bards full many a stroke divine 20 +In Dante's, deg. Petrarch's, deg. Tasso's deg. line, deg.21 +The land of Ariosto deg. show'd; deg.22 +And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd +With triumphs, a yet ampler brood, +Of Raphael deg. and his brotherhood. deg.25 +And nobly perfect, in our day +Of haste, half-work, and disarray, +Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong, +Hath risen Goethe's, deg. Wordsworth's deg. song; deg.29 +Yet even I (and none will bow 30 +Deeper to these) must needs allow, +They yield us not, to soothe our pains, +Such multitude of heavenly strains +As from the kings of sound are blown, +Mozart, deg. Beethoven, deg. Mendelssohn. deg." deg.35 + +While thus my friend discoursed, we pass +Out of the path, and take the grass. +The grass had still the green of May, +And still the unblackan'd elms were gay; +The kine were resting in the shade, 40 +The flies a summer-murmur made. +Bright was the morn and south deg. the air; deg.42 +The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair +As those which pastured by the sea, +That old-world morn, in Sicily, 45 +When on the beach the Cyclops lay, +And Galatea from the bay +Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay. deg. deg.48 +"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere! +The limits of his art appear. 50 +The passing group, the summer-morn, +The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn-- +Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise, +Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes-- +These, or much greater things, but caught 55 +Like these, and in one aspect brought! +In outward semblance he must give +A moment's life of things that live; +Then let him choose his moment well, +With power divine its story tell." 60 + +Still we walk'd on, in thoughtful mood, +And now upon the bridge we stood. +Full of sweet breathings was the air, +Of sudden stirs and pauses fair. +Down o'er the stately bridge the breeze 65 +Came rustling from the garden-trees +And on the sparkling waters play'd; +Light-plashing waves an answer made, +And mimic boats their haven near'd. +Beyond, the Abbey-towers deg. appear'd, deg.70 +By mist and chimneys unconfined, +Free to the sweep of light and wind; +While through their earth-moor'd nave below +Another breath of wind doth blow, +Sound as of wandering breeze--but sound 75 +In laws by human artists bound. + +"The world of music deg.!" I exclaimed:-- deg.77 +"This breeze that rustles by, that famed +Abbey recall it! what a sphere +Large and profound, hath genius here! 80 +The inspired musician what a range, +What power of passion, wealth of change +Some source of feeling he must choose +And its lock'd fount of beauty use, +And through the stream of music tell 85 +Its else unutterable spell; +To choose it rightly is his part, +And press into its inmost heart. + +"_Miserere Domine deg.!_ deg.89 +The words are utter'd, and they flee. 90 +Deep is their penitential moan, +Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone. +They have declared the spirit's sore +Sore load, and words can do no more. +Beethoven takes them then--those two 95 +Poor, bounded words--and makes them new; +Infinite makes them, makes them young; +Transplants them to another tongue, +Where they can now, without constraint, +Pour all the soul of their complaint, 100 +And roll adown a channel large +The wealth divine they have in charge. +Page after page of music turn, +And still they live and still they burn, +Eternal, passion-fraught, and free-- 105 +_Miserere Domine deg.!"_ deg.106 + +Onward we moved, and reach'd the Ride deg. deg.107 +Where gaily flows the human tide. +Afar, in rest the cattle lay; +We heard, afar, faint music play; 110 +But agitated, brisk, and near, +Men, with their stream of life, were here. +Some hang upon the rails, and some +On foot behind them go and come. +This through the Ride upon his steed 115 +Goes slowly by, and this at speed. +The young, the happy, and the fair, +The old, the sad, the worn, were there; +Some vacant, deg. and some musing went, +And some in talk and merriment. 120 +Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells! +And now and then, perhaps, there swells +A sigh, a tear--but in the throng +All changes fast, and hies deg. along. deg.124 +Hies, ah, from whence, what native ground? 125 +And to what goal, what ending, bound? +"Behold, at last the poet's sphere! +But who," I said, "suffices here? + +"For, ah! so much he has to do; +Be painter and musician too deg.! deg.130 +The aspect of the moment show, +The feeling of the moment know! +The aspect not, I grant, express +Clear as the painter's art can dress; +The feeling not, I grant, explore 135 +So deep as the musician's lore-- +But clear as words can make revealing, +And deep as words can follow feeling. +But, ah! then comes his sorest spell +Of toil--he must life's _movement_ deg. tell! deg.140 +The thread which binds it all in one, +And not its separate parts alone. +The _movement_ he must tell of life, +Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife; +His eye must travel down, at full, 145 +The long, unpausing spectacle; +With faithful unrelaxing force +Attend it from its primal source, +From change to change and year to year +Attend it of its mid career, 150 +Attend it to the last repose +And solemn silence of its close. + +"The cattle rising from the grass +His thought must follow where they pass; +The penitent with anguish bow'd 155 +His thought must follow through the crowd. +Yes! all this eddying, motley throng +That sparkles in the sun along, +Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold, +Master and servant, young and old, 160 +Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife, +He follows home, and lives their life. + +"And many, many are the souls +Life's movement fascinates, controls; +It draws them on, they cannot save 165 +Their feet from its alluring wave; +They cannot leave it, they must go +With its unconquerable flow. +But ah! how few, of all that try +This mighty march, do aught but die! 170 +For ill-endow'd for such a way, +Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they. +They faint, they stagger to and fro, +And wandering from the stream they go; +In pain, in terror, in distress, 175 +They see, all round, a wilderness. +Sometimes a momentary gleam +They catch of the mysterious stream; +Sometimes, a second's space, their ear +The murmur of its waves doth hear. 180 +That transient glimpse in song they say, +But not of painter can pourtray-- +That transient sound in song they tell, +But not, as the musician, well. +And when at last their snatches cease, 185 +And they are silent and at peace, +The stream of life's majestic whole +Hath ne'er been mirror'd on their soul. + +"Only a few the life-stream's shore +With safe unwandering feet explore; 190 +Untired its movement bright attend, +Follow its windings to the end. +Then from its brimming waves their eye +Drinks up delighted ecstasy, +And its deep-toned, melodious voice 195 +For ever makes their ear rejoice. +They speak! the happiness divine +They feel, runs o'er in every line; +Its spell is round them like a shower-- +It gives them pathos, gives them power. 200 +No painter yet hath such a way, +Nor no musician made, as they, +And gather'd on immortal knolls +Such lovely flowers for cheering souls. +Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach 205 +The charm which Homer, Shakespeare, teach. +To these, to these, their thankful race +Gives, then, the first, the fairest place; +And brightest is their glory's sheen, +For greatest hath their labour been. deg." deg.210 + + + + + + +SONNETS + + + + +QUIET WORK deg. + + +One lesson, deg. Nature, let me learn of thee, deg.1 +One lesson which in every wind is blown, +One lesson of two duties kept at one +Though the loud deg. world proclaim their enmity-- deg.4 + +Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity! 5 +Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows +Far noisier deg. schemes, accomplish'd in repose, deg.7 +Too great for haste, too high for rivalry! + +Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, +Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, 10 +Still do thy sleepless ministers move on, + +Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; +Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, +Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE deg. + + +Others abide our question. Thou art free. +We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still, +Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, +Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, + +Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5 +Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, +Spares but the cloudy border of his base +To the foil'd searching of mortality; + +And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know +Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, 10 +Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so! + +All pains the immortal spirit must endure, +All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow +Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS deg. + + +When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence, +From this poor present self which I am now; +When youth has done its tedious vain expense +Of passions that for ever ebb and flow; + +Shall I not joy deg. youth's heats deg. are left behind, deg.5 +And breathe more happy in an even clime deg.?-- deg.6 +Ah no, for then I shall begin to find +A thousand virtues in this hated time! + +Then I shall wish its agitations back, +And all its thwarting currents of desire; 10 +Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, +And call this hurrying fever, deg. generous fire; deg.12 + +And sigh that one thing only has been lent +To youth and age in common--discontent. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY deg. + + +That son of Italy deg. who tried to blow, deg.1 +Ere Dante deg. came, the trump of sacred song, deg.2 +In his light youth deg. amid a festal throng deg.3 +Sate with his bride to see a public show. + +Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow 5 +Youth like a star; and what to youth belong-- +Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong. +A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo, + +'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! +Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found 10 +A robe of sackcloth deg. next the smooth, white skin. deg.11 + +Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, +Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground +Of thought and of austerity within. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + + +_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ +So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, +Marcus Aurelius. deg. But the stifling den deg.3 +Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, + +Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 5 +And drudge under some foolish deg. master's ken. deg. deg.6 +Who rates deg. us if we peer outside our pen-- deg.7 +Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell? + +_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, +Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; 10 +And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame + +Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, +I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! +The aids to noble life are all within." + + + + +EAST LONDON + + +'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead +Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, deg. deg.2 +And the pale weaver, through his windows seen +In Spitalfields, deg. look'd thrice dispirited. deg.4 + +I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 5 +"Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"-- +"Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been, +Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread."_ + +O human soul! as long as thou canst so +Set up a mark of everlasting light, 10 +Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + +To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- +Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! +Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. + + + + +WEST LONDON + + +Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square, deg. deg.1 +A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. +A babe was in her arms, and at her side +A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. + +Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, 5 +Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied +Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied. +The rich she had let pass with frozen stare. + +Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers; +She will not ask of aliens but of friends, 10 +Of sharers in a common human fate. + +"She turns from that cold succour, which attends +The unknown little from the unknowing great, +And points us to a better time than ours." + + + + + + +ELEGIAC POEMS + + + + +MEMORIAL VERSES deg. + +_April_, 1850 + + +Goethe in Weimar sleeps, deg. and Greece, deg.1 +Long since, saw Byron's deg. struggle cease. deg.2 +But one such death remain'd to come; +The last poetic voice is dumb-- +We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. 5 + +When Byron's eyes were shut in death, +We bow'd our head and held our breath. +He taught us little; but our soul +Had _felt_ him like the thunder's roll. +With shivering heart the strife we saw 10 +Of passion with eternal law; +And yet with reverential awe +We watch'd the fount of fiery life +Which served for that Titanic strife. + +When Goethe's death was told, we said: 15 +Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. +Physician of the iron age, deg. deg.17 +Goethe has done his pilgrimage. +He took the suffering human race, +He read each wound, each weakness clear; 20 +And struck his finger on the place, +And said: _Thou ailest here, and here!_ +He look'd on Europe's dying hour +Of fitful dream and feverish power; +His eye plunged down the weltering strife, 25 +The turmoil of expiring life-- +He said: _The end is everywhere, +Art still has truth, take refuge there!_ +And he was happy, if to know +Causes of things, and far below 30 +His feet to see the lurid flow +Of terror, and insane distress, +And headlong fate, be happiness. + +And Wordsworth!--Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! +For never has such soothing voice 35 +Been to your shadowy world convey'd, +Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade +Heard the clear song of Orpheus deg. come deg.38 +Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. +Wordsworth has gone from us--and ye, 40 +Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! +He too upon a wintry clime +Had fallen--on this iron time +Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. +He found us when the age had bound 45 +Our souls in its benumbing round; +He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. +He laid us as we lay at birth +On the cool flowery lap of earth, +Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 50 +The hills were round us, and the breeze +Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; +Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. +Our youth returned; for there was shed +On spirits that had long been dead, 55 +Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, +The freshness of the early world. + +Ah! since dark days still bring to light +Man's prudence and man's fiery might, +Time may restore us in his course 60 +Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; +But where will Europe's latter hour +Again find Wordsworth's healing power? +Others will teach us how to dare, +And against fear our breast to steel; 65 +Others will strengthen us to bear-- +But who, ah! who, will make us feel +The cloud of mortal destiny? +Others will front it fearlessly-- +But who, like him, will put it by? 70 + +Keep fresh the grass upon his grave +O Rotha, deg. with thy living wave! deg.72 +Sing him thy best! for few or none +Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY deg. + + +Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; + Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes deg.! deg.2 + No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, + Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, + Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head. 5 + But when the fields are still, + And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, + And only the white sheep are sometimes seen; + Cross and recross deg. the strips of moon-blanch'd green, deg.9 + Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 10 + +Here, where the reaper was at work of late-- + In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves + His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, deg. deg.13 + And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, + Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use-- 15 + Here will I sit and wait, + While to my ear from uplands far away + The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, + With distant cries of reapers in the corn deg.-- deg.19 + All the live murmur of a summer's day. 20 + +Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, + And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. + Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, + And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see + Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 25 + And air-swept lindens yield + Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers + Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, + And bower me from the August sun with shade; + And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. deg. deg.30 + +And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book deg.-- deg.31 + Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! + The story of the Oxford scholar poor, + Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, + Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 35 + One summer-morn forsook + His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, + And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood, + And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, + But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40 + +But once, years after, in the country-lanes, + Two scholars, whom at college erst deg. he knew, deg.42 + Met him, and of his way of life enquired; + Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew, + His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 45 + The workings of men's brains, + And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. + "And I," he said, "the secret of their art, + When fully learn'd, will to the world impart; + But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill. deg." deg.50 + +This said, he left them, and return'd no more.-- + But rumours hung about the country-side, + That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, + Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, + In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55 + The same the gipsies wore. + Shepherds had met him on the Hurst deg. in spring; deg.57 + At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, deg. deg.58 + On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors + Had found him seated at their entering. 60 + +But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. + And I myself seem half to know, thy looks, + And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; + And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks + I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place; 65 + Or in my boat I lie + Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats, + 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills. + And watch the warm, green-muffled deg. Cumner hills, deg.69 + And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 70 + +For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! + Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, + Returning home on summer-nights, have met + Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, deg. deg.74 + Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 + As the punt's rope chops round; + And leaning backward in a pensive dream, + And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers + Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers + And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 80 + +And then they land, and thou art seen no more!-- + Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come; + To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, deg. deg.83 + Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam + Or cross a stile into the public way. + Oft thou hast given them store 85 + Of flowers--the frail-leaf'd, white anemony, + Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves + And purple orchises with spotted leaves-- + But none hath words she can report of thee. 90 + +And, above Godstow Bridge, deg. when hay-time's here + In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, + Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass + Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames, + To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass, deg. deg.95 + Have often pass'd thee near + Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; + Mark'd thine outlandish deg. garb, thy figure spare, deg.98 + Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air-- + But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! 100 + +At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, + Where at her open door the housewife darns, + Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate + To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. + Children, who early range these slopes and late 105 + For cresses from the rills, + Have known thee eying, all an April-day, + The springing pastures and the feeding kine; + And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, + Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 110 + +In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood deg.-- deg.111 + Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way + Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see + With scarlet patches tagg'd deg. and shreds of grey, deg.114 + Above the forest-ground called Thessaly deg.-- deg.115 + The blackbird, picking food, + Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; + So often has he known thee past him stray + Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray, + And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 120 + +And once, in winter, on the causeway chill + Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, + Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge, + Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, + Thy face tow'rd Hinksey deg. and its wintry ridge? deg.125 + And thou hast climb'd the hill, + And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; + Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall + The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall deg.-- deg.129 + Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. deg.130 + +But what--I dream! Two hundred years are flown + Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, + And the grave Glanvil deg. did the tale inscribe deg.133 + That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls + To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe; 135 + And thou from earth art gone + Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid-- + Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave + Tall grasses and white-flowering nettles wave, + Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree's deg. shade. deg.140 + +--No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! + For what wears out the life of mortal men? + 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls + 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, + Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 145 + And numb the elastic powers. + Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, deg. deg.147 + And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, + To the just-pausing Genius deg. we remit deg.149 + Our worn-out life, and are--what we have been. 150 + +Thou hast not lived, deg. why should'st thou perish, so? deg.151 + Thou hadst _one_ aim, _one_ business, _one_ desire deg.; deg.152 + Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead! + Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! + The generations of thy peers are fled, 155 + And we ourselves shall go; + But thou possessest an immortal lot, + And we imagine thee exempt from age + And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, + Because thou hadst--what we, alas! have not. deg. deg.160 + +For early didst thou leave the world, with powers + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; + Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, + Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings deg.. deg.165 + O life unlike to ours! + Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, + Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, + And each half lives a hundred different lives; + Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. deg. deg.170 + +Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, + Light half-believers of our casual creeds, + Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, + Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, + Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; 175 + For whom each year we see + Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; + Who hesitate and falter life away, + And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day-- + Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too deg. deg.180 + +Yes, we await it!--but it still delays, + And then we suffer! and amongst us one, + Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly + His seat upon the intellectual throne; + And all his store of sad experience he 185 + Lays bare of wretched days; + Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, + And how the dying spark of hope was fed, + And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, + And all his hourly varied anodynes. deg. deg.190 + +This for our wisest! and we others pine, + And wish the long unhappy dream would end, + And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; + With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend, + Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair-- 195 + But none has hope like thine! + Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, + Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, + Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, + And every doubt long blown by time away. 200 + +O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, + And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; + Before this strange disease of modern life, + With its sick hurry, its divided aims, + Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife-- 205 + Fly hence, our contact fear! + Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! + Averse, as Dido deg. did with gesture stern deg. deg.208 + From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, + Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! 210 + +Still nursing the unconquerable hope, + Still clutching the inviolable shade, deg. deg.212 + With a free, onward impulse brushing through, + By night, the silver'd branches deg. of the glade-- deg.214 + Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 215 + On some mild pastoral slope + Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales + Freshen thy flowers as in former years + With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, + From the dark dingles, deg. to the nightingales! 220 + +But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! + For strong the infection of our mental strife, + Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; + And we should win thee from thy own fair life, + Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 225 + Soon, soon thy cheer would die, + Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, + And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; + And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, + Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 230 + +Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! + --As some grave Tyrian deg. trader, from the sea, + Descried at sunrise an emerging prow + Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily, + The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 + Among the AEgaean isles deg.; deg.236 + And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, + Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, deg. deg.238 + Green, bursting figs, and tunnies deg. steep'd in brine-- deg.239 + And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 240 + +The young light-hearted masters of the waves-- + And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail; + And day and night held on indignantly + O'er the blue Midland waters deg. with the gale, deg.244 + Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 245 + To where the Atlantic raves + Outside the western straits deg.; and unbent sails deg.247 + There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, + Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come deg.; deg.249 + And on the beach undid his corded bales. deg. deg.250 + + + + +THYRSIS deg. + +A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND +ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861 + + +How changed is here each spot man makes or fills deg.! deg.1 + In the two Hinkseys deg. nothing keeps the same; deg.2 + The village street its haunted mansion lacks, + And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, deg. deg.4 + And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks-- 5 + Are ye too changed, ye hills deg.? deg.6 + See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men + To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! + Here came I often, often, in old days-- + Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. 10 + +Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, + Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns + The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames + The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs deg.? deg.14 + The Vale, deg. the three lone weirs, deg. the youthful Thames?--, deg.15 + This winter-eve is warm, + Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, + The tender purple spray on copse and briers! + And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, deg. deg.19 + She needs not June for beauty's heightening, deg. deg.20 + +Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!-- + Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power + Befalls me wandering through this upland dim, deg. deg.23 + Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour deg.; deg.24 + Now seldom come I, since I came with him. 25 + That single elm-tree bright + Against the west--I miss it! is it gone? + We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, + Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; + While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. deg. deg.30 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, + But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; + And with the country-folk acquaintance made + By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. + Here, too, our shepherd-pipes deg. we first assay'd. deg.35 + Ah me! this many a year + My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! + Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart + Into the world and wave of men depart; + But Thyrsis of his own will went away. deg. deg.40 + +It irk'd deg. him to be here, he could not rest. deg.41 + He loved each simple joy the country yields, + He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep, deg. deg.43 + For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, + Here with the shepherds and the silly deg. sheep. deg.45 + Some life of men unblest + He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head. + He went; his piping took a troubled sound + Of storms deg. that rage outside our happy ground; + He could not wait their passing, he is dead. deg. deg.50 + +So, some tempestuous morn in early June, + When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, + Before the roses and the longest day-- + When garden-walks and all the grassy floor + With blossoms red and white of fallen May deg. deg.55 + And chestnut-flowers are strewn-- + So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, + From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, + Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: + _The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I deg.!_ deg.60 + +Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? + Soon will the high Midsummer pomps deg. come on, deg.62 + Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, + Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, + Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, 65 + And stocks in fragrant blow; + Roses that down the alleys shine afar, + And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, + And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, + And the full moon, and the white evening-star. 70 + +He hearkens not! light comer, deg. he is flown! deg.71 + What matters it? next year he will return, + And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days. +With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, + And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, 75 + And scent of hay new-mown. + But Thyrsis never more we swains deg. shall see; deg.77 + See him come back, and cut a smoother reed, deg. deg.78 + And blow a strain the world at last shall heed deg.-- deg.79 + For Time, not Corydon, deg. hath conquer'd thee! deg.80 + +Alack, for Corydon no rival now!-- + But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, + Some good survivor with his flute would go, + Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate deg.; deg.84 + And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, deg. deg.85 + And relax Pluto's brow, + And make leap up with joy the beauteous head + Of Proserpine, deg. among whose crowned hair deg.88 + Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air, + And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead. deg. deg.90 + +O easy access to the hearer's grace + When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! + For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, + She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, deg. deg.94 + She knew each lily white which Enna yields, 95 + Each rose with blushing face deg.; deg.96 + She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain. deg. deg.97 + But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! + Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd; + And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! 100 + +Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be, + Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour + In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill! + Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? + I know the wood which hides the daffodil, 105 + I know the Fyfield tree, deg. deg.106 + I know what white, what purple fritillaries + The grassy harvest of the river-fields, + Above by Ensham, deg. down by Sandford, deg. yields, deg.109 + And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; 110 + +I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?-- + But many a dingle on the loved hill-side, + With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees + Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried + High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises, 115 + Hath since our day put by + The coronals of that forgotten time; + Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, + And only in the hidden brookside gleam + Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 120 + +Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, + Above the locks, above the boating throng, + Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats, deg. deg.123 + Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among + And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 125 + We track'd the shy Thames shore? + Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell + Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, + Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?-- + They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 130 + +Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night + In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. + I see her veil draw soft across the day, + I feel her slowly chilling breath invade + The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent deg. with grey; deg.135 + I feel her finger light + Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;-- + The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, + The heart less bounding at emotion new, + And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 140 + +And long the way appears, which seem'd so short + To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; + And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, +The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, + Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! 145 + Unbreachable the fort + Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; + And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, + And near and real the charm of thy repose, + And night as welcome as a friend would fall. deg. deg.150 + +But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss + Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side, + A troop of Oxford hunters going home, +As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! + From hunting with the Berkshire deg. hounds they come. deg.155 + Quick! let me fly, and cross + Into yon farther field!--'Tis done; and see, + Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify + The orange and pale violet evening-sky, + Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 160 + +I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, + The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, + The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, + And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. + I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 165 + Yet, happy omen, hail! + Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale deg. deg.167 + (For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep + The morningless and unawakening sleep + Under the flowery oleanders pale), 170 + +Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!-- + Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, + These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, + That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; + To a boon southern country he is fled, deg. deg.175 + And now in happier air, + Wandering with the great Mother's deg. train divine deg.177 + (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, + I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) + Within a folding of the Apennine, 180 + +Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!-- + Putting his sickle to the perilous grain + In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, + For thee the Lityerses-song again + Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; 185 + Sings his Sicilian fold, + His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes-- + And how a call celestial round him rang, + And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, + And all the marvel of the golden skies. deg. deg.190 + +There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here + Sole deg. in these fields! yet will I not despair. + Despair I will not, while I yet descry + 'Neath the mild canopy of English air + That lonely tree against the western sky. 195 + Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, + Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee + Fields where soft sheep deg. from cages pull the hay, + Woods with anemonies in flower till May, + Know him a wanderer still; then why not me? deg. deg.200 + +A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, + Shy to illumin; and I seek it too. deg. deg.202 + This does not come with houses or with gold, + With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; + 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold-- 205 + But the smooth-slipping weeks + Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; + Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, + He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; + Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. 210 + +Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest was bound; + Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! + Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, + If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power, + If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. 215 + And this rude Cumner ground, + Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, + Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time, + Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! + And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. 220 + +What though the music of thy rustic flute + Kept not for long its happy, country tone; + Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note + Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, + Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat-- 225 + It fail'd, and thou wast mute! + Yet hadst thou alway visions of our light, + And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, + And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, + Left human haunt, and on alone till night. 230 + +Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! + 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, + Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. + Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, + Let in thy voice a whisper often come, 235 + To chase fatigue and fear: + _Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died. + Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. + Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill, + Our scholar travels yet the loved hill-side._ 240 + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL deg. + +_November 1857_ + + +Coldly, sadly descends +The autumn-evening. The field +Strewn with its dank yellow drifts +Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, +Fade into dimness apace, 5 +Silent;--hardly a shout +From a few boys late at their play! +The lights come out in the street, +In the school-room windows;--but cold, +Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 +Through the gathering darkness, arise +The chapel-walls, in whose bound +Thou, my father! art laid. deg. deg.13 + +There thou dost lie, in the gloom +Of the autumn evening. But ah! 15 +That word, _gloom, deg._ to my mind deg.16 +Brings thee back, in the light +Of thy radiant vigour, again; +In the gloom of November we pass'd +Days not dark at thy side; 20 +Seasons impair'd not the ray +Of thy buoyant cheerfulness, clear. +Such thou wast! and I stand +In the autumn evening, and think +Of bygone autumns with thee. 25 + +Fifteen years have gone round +Since thou arosest to tread, +In the summer-morning, the road +Of death, at a call unforeseen, +Sudden. For fifteen years, 30 +We who till then in thy shade +Rested as under the boughs +Of a mighty oak, deg. have endured deg.33 +Sunshine and rain as we might, +Bare, unshaded, alone, 35 +Lacking the shelter of thee. + +O strong soul, by what shore deg. deg.37 +Tarriest thou now? For that force, +Surely, has not been left vain! +Somewhere, surely, afar, 40 +In the sounding labour-house vast +Of being, is practised that strength, +Zealous, beneficent, firm! + +Yes, in some far-shining sphere, +Conscious or not of the past, 45 +Still thou performest the word +Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live-- +Prompt, unwearied, as here! +Still thou upraisest with zeal +The humble good from the ground, 50 +Sternly repressest the bad! +Still, like a trumpet, doth rouse +Those who with half-open eyes +Tread the border-land dim +'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 55 +Succourest!--this was thy work, +This was thy life upon earth. deg. deg.57 + +What is the course of the life +Of mortal men on the earth deg.?-- deg.59 +Most men eddy about 60 +Here and there--eat and drink, +Chatter and love and hate, +Gather and squander, are raised +Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust, +Striving blindly, achieving 65 +Nothing; and then they die-- +Perish;--and no one asks +Who or what they have been, +More than he asks what waves, +In the moonlit solitudes mild 70 +Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd, +Foam'd for a moment, and gone. + +And there are some, whom a thirst +Ardent, unquenchable, fires, +Not with the crowd to be spent, 75 +Not without aim to go round +In an eddy of purposeless dust, +Effort unmeaning and vain. +Ah yes! some of us strive +Not without action to die 80 +Fruitless, but something to snatch +From dull oblivion, nor all +Glut the devouring grave! +We, we have chosen our path-- +Path to a clear-purposed goal, 85 +Path of advance!--but it leads +A long, steep journey, through sunk +Gorges, o'er mountains in snow. +Cheerful, with friends, we set forth-- +Then, on the height, comes the storm. 90 +Thunder crashes from rock +To rock, the cataracts reply, +Lightnings dazzle our eyes. deg. deg.93 +Roaring torrents have breach'd +The track, the stream-bed descends 95 +In the place where the wayfarer once +Planted his footstep--the spray +Boils o'er its borders! aloft +The unseen snow-beds dislodge +Their hanging ruin deg.; alas, deg.100 +Havoc is made in our train! + +Friends, who set forth at our side, +Falter, are lost in the storm. +We, we only are left! +With frowning foreheads, with lips 105 +Sternly compress'd, we strain on, +On--and at nightfall at last +Come to the end of our way, +To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; +Where the gaunt and taciturn host 110 +Stands on the threshold, the wind +Shaking his thin white hairs-- +Holds his lantern to scan +Our storm-beat figures, and asks: +Whom in our party we bring? 115 +Whom we have left in the snow? + +Sadly we answer: We bring +Only ourselves! we lost +Sight of the rest in the storm. +Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120 +Stripp'd, without friends, as we are. +Friends, companions, and train, +The avalanche swept from our side. deg. deg.123 + +But thou would'st not _alone_ +Be saved, my father! _alone_ 125 +Conquer and come to thy goal, +Leaving the rest in the wild. +We were weary, and we +Fearful, and we in our march +Fain to drop down and to die. 130 +Still thou turnedst, and still +Beckonedst the trembler, and still +Gavest the weary thy hand. + +If, in the paths of the world, +Stones might have wounded thy feet, 135 +Toil or dejection have tried +Thy spirit, of that we saw +Nothing--to us thou wast still +Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! +Therefore to thee it was given 140 +Many to save with thyself; +And, at the end of thy day, +O faithful shepherd! to come, +Bringing thy sheep in thy hand. deg. deg.144 + +And through thee I believe 145 +In the noble and great who are gone; +Pure souls honour'd and blest +By former ages, who else-- +Such, so soulless, so poor, +Is the race of men whom I see-- 150 +Seem'd but a dream of the heart, +Seem'd but a cry of desire. +Yes! I believe that there lived +Others like thee in the past, +Not like the men of the crowd 155 +Who all round me to-day +Bluster or cringe, and make life +Hideous, and arid, and vile; +But souls temper'd with fire, +Fervent, heroic, and good, 160 +Helpers and friends of mankind. + +Servants of God!--or sons +Shall I not call you? because +Not as servants ye knew +Your Father's innermost mind, 165 +His, who unwillingly sees +One of his little ones lost-- +Yours is the praise, if mankind +Hath not as yet in its march +Fainted, and fallen, and died! 170 + +See! In the rocks deg. of the world +Marches the host of mankind, +A feeble, wavering line. +Where are they tending?--A God +Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. 175 +Ah, but the way is so long! +Years they have been in the wild! +Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, +Rising all round, overawe; +Factions divide them, their host 180 +Threatens to break, to dissolve. +--Ah, keep, keep them combined! +Else, of the myriads who fill +That army, not one shall arrive; +Sole they shall stray: in the rocks 185 +Stagger for ever in vain, +Die one by one in the waste. + +Then, in such hour of need +Of your fainting, dispirited race, +Ye, deg. like angels, appear, 190 +Radiant with ardour divine! +Beacons of hope, ye appear! +Languor is not in your heart, +Weakness is not in your word, +Weariness not on your brow. 195 +Ye alight in our van! at your voice, +Panic, despair, flee away. +Ye move through the ranks, recall +The stragglers, refresh the outworn, +Praise, re-inspire the brave! 200 +Order, courage, return. +Eyes rekindling, and prayers, +Follow your steps as ye go. +Ye fill up the gaps in our files, +Strengthen the wavering line, 205 +Stablish, continue our march, +On, to the bound of the waste, +On, to the City of God. deg. deg.208 + + + + + + + + + * * * * * + [149] + +NOTES + + * * * * * + + + + +SOHRAB AND RUSTUM + +"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than anything +I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I shall not +ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments +instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a letter to +Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.) + +"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished +and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and I think +it will be generally liked; though one can never be sure of this. I +have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a rare thing with me, +and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure what you write is likely +to afford to others. But the story is a very noble and excellent one." +(Arnold, in a letter to his mother, May, 1853.) + +The following synopsis of the story of Sohrab and Rustum the "tale +replete with tears," is gathered from several sources, chiefly +Benjamin's _Persia_, in _The Story of the Nations_, Sir John Malcolm's +_History of Persia_, and the great Persian epic poem, _Shah Nameh_. +The _Shah Nameh_ the original source of the story, and which purports +to narrate the exploits of Persia's kings and champions over a space +of thirty-six centuries, bears the same relation to Persian literature +as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ to the Greek, and the _AEneid_ to the +Latin, though in structure it more nearly resembles _Morte d'Arthur_, +which records in order the achievements of various heroes. In it +the native poet Mansur ibn Ahmad, afterwards known to literature +as Firdausi, the Paradisaical, has set down the early tales and +traditions of his people with all the vividness and color common to +oriental writers. The principal hero of the poem is the mighty Rustum, +who, mounted on his famous horse Ruksh, performed prodigies of valor +in defence of the Persian throne. Of all his adventures his encounter +with Sohrab is the most dramatic. The poem was probably written in +the latter half of the tenth century. As will be seen, the incidents +narrated in Arnold's poem form but an episode in the complete story of +the two champions. [150] + +Rustum (or Rustem), having killed a wild ass while hunting on the +Turanian frontier, and having feasted on its flesh, composed himself +to sleep, leaving his faithful steed, Ruksh (or Raksh), to graze +untethered. On awakening, he found his horse had disappeared, and +believing it had been stolen, the warrior proceeded towards Semenjan, +a near-by city, in hopes of recovering his property. On the way, he +learned that Ruksh had been found by the servants of the king and was +stabled at Semenjan, as he had surmised. Upon Rustum's demand, the +steed was promptly restored to him, and he was about to depart when he +was prevailed upon to accept the king's invitation to tarry awhile and +rest himself in feasting and idleness. + +Now the king of Semenjan had a fair daughter named Tahmineh, who had +become enamoured of Rustum because of his mighty exploits. Susceptible +as she was beautiful, she made her attachment so evident that the +young hero, who was as ardent as he was brave, readily yielded to +the power of her fascination. The consent of the king having been +obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were married with all the rites +prescribed by the laws of the country. A peculiar feature of this +alliance lay in the fact that the king of Semenjan was feudatory to +Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, while Rustum was her greatest +champion. At this time, however, the two countries were at peace. + [151] +For a time all went happily, then Rustum found it necessary to leave +his bride, as he thought, for only a short time. At parting he gave +her an onyx, which he wore on his arm, bidding her, if a daughter +should be born to their union, to twine the gem in her hair under a +fortunate star; but if a son, to bind it on his arm, and he would be +insured a glorious career. Rustum then mounted Ruksh and rode away--as +time proved, never to return. + +The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous son, +whom, because of his comely features, she named Sohrab. Fearing Rustum +would send for the boy when he grew older, and thus rob her of her +treasure, Tahmineh sent word to him that the child was a girl--"no +son," and Rustum took no further interest in it. + +While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble lineage. +He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of ten years, +according to the tradition, was large and handsome and highly +accomplished in the use of arms. Realizing at length that he was of +lofty descent, he insisted that his mother, who had concealed the +fact, should inform him of the name of his father. Being told that it +was the renowned Rustum, he exclaimed, "Since he is my father, I shall +go to his aid; he shall become king of Persia and together we shall +rule the world." After this the youth caused a horse worthy of him to +be found, and with the aid of his grandfather, the king of Semenjan, +he prepared to go on the quest, attended by a mighty host. + +When Afrasiab, the Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was going to +war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after counselling +with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his enterprises, +with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab would fall in battle +and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly sent an army of auxiliaries +to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute courtiers, Houman and Barman, +who, under the guise of friendship, were to act as counsellors to +the young leader. These he ordered to keep the knowledge of their +relationship from father and son and to seek to bring about an +encounter between them, in the hope that Sohrab would slay Rustum, +Afrasiab's most dreaded foeman, after which the unsuspecting youth +might easily be disposed of by treachery. [152] + +Sohrab, with his army and that of Afrasiab, set out, intending to +fight his way until Rustum should be sent against him, when he would +reveal himself to his father and form an alliance with him that would +place the line of Seistan on the throne. On the way southward, Sohrab +overthrew and captured the Persian champion, Hujir, and the same +day conquered the warrior maiden Gurdafrid, whose beauty and tears, +however, prevailed upon him to release her. Guzdehern, father of +Gurdafrid, recognizing Sohrab's prowess, and alarmed for the safety +of the Persian throne, secretly despatched a courier to the king Kai +Kaoos to warn him of the young Tartar's approach. Kaoos, in great +terror, sent for Rustum to hurry to his aid. Regardless of the king's +request, Rustum spent eight days in feasting, then presented himself +at the court. Kaoos, angered at the delay, ordered both the champion +and the messenger to be executed forthwith; but Rustum effected his +escape on Ruksh, and returned to Seistan, leaving Persia to her fate. +The king's wrath, however, soon gave place to fear; and recognizing +the danger of his throne unsupported by Rustum's valor, he despatched +messengers to him with humble petitions and apologies. After much +protesting, Rustum finally yielded and accompanied the Persian army, +under the king Kai Kaoos, which at once set forth to encounter Sohrab. + +The morning before the opening of hostilities, Sohrab, taking the +Persian Hujir, whom he still held a prisoner, to the top of a rocky +eminence, ordered him to point out the tents of the chief warriors +of the Persian army, particularly Rustum's. But Hujir, fearing lest +Sohrab should attack Rustum unexpectedly and so overcome him, declared +that the great chieftain's tent was not among those on the plain +below. Disappointed at his failure to find his father, Sohrab led his +army in a fierce onslaught on the Persians, driving them in confusion +before him. In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos sent for Rustum, who was +somewhat apart from the main troop. Exclaiming that the king never +sent for him except when he had got himself into trouble, the warrior +armed, mounted Ruksh, and rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the +two champions withdrew to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they +might fight out their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each +other, Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried +to dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. +Sohrab, filled with sudden hope,--an instinctive feeling that the +father whom he was seeking stood before him,--eagerly demanded whether +this were Rustum. But Rustum, fearing treachery, said he was only an +ordinary man, having neither palace nor princely kingdom--not Rustum. + +They marked off the lists, and, mounted on their powerful horses, +fought first with javelins, then with swords, clubs, and bows and +arrows. After several hours of fighting both were exhausted, and by +tacit consent they retired to opposite sides of the lists for rest. +When the combat was renewed, Sohrab gained a slight advantage. A truce +was then made for the night, and the warriors returned to their tents +to prepare for the morrow. + +With daybreak the struggle was renewed. To prevent the armies from +intervening or engaging in battle, they were removed to a distance of +several miles. Midway between, Sohrab and Rustum met in the midst of a +lonely, treeless waste. More convinced than before that his adversary +was Rustum, Sohrab sought to bring about a reconciliation, but Rustum +refused. This time they fought on foot. From morning till afternoon +they fought, neither gaining any decided advantage. At last Sohrab +succeeded in felling Rustum to the earth, and was about to slay him, +when the Persian called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous +warfare to slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. +Sohrab, generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again +father and son parted. [154] + +Rustum, scarcely believing himself alive after such an escape, +purified himself with water, and prayed that his wounds might be +healed and his accustomed strength restored to him. Never before had +he been so beset in battle. + +With morning came the renewal of the combat, both champions +determining to end it that day. Late in the evening Rustum, by a +supreme effort, seized Sohrab around the waist and hurled him to the +ground. Then, fearing lest the youth prove too strong for him in the +end, he drew his blade and plunged it into Sohrab's bosom. + +Sohrab forgave Rustum, but warned him to beware the vengeance of his +father, the mighty Rustum, who must soon learn that he had slain his +son Sohrab. "I went out to seek my father," cried the dying youth, +"for my mother had told me by what tokens I should know him, and I +perish for longing after him.... Yet I say unto thee, if thou shouldst +become a fish that swimmeth in the depths of the ocean, if thou +shouldst change into a star that is concealed in the farthest heaven, +my father would draw thee forth from thy hiding-place, and avenge my +death upon thee, when he shall learn that the earth is become my bed. +For my father is Rustum the Pehliva, and it shall be told unto him, +how that Sohrab his son perished in the quest after his face." These +words were as death to the aged hero, who fell senseless at the side +of his wounded son. When he had recovered he called in despair for +proofs of what Sohrab had said. The now dying youth tore open his mail +and showed his father the onyx which his mother had bound on his arm +as directed. [155] + +The sight of his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he cursed +himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for the +efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his tents +and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and buried +it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, was +permitted to return home unmolested. When the tidings of Sohrab's +death reached his mother, she was inconsolable, and died in less than +a year. + +In the main the story as told by Arnold follows the original +narrative. A careful investigation of the alterations made, and the +effect thus produced, will lend added interest to the study of the +poem and give ample theme for composition work. + + +=1. And the first grey of morning fill'd the east.= Note the abrupt +opening. What is gained by its use? At what point in the story as told +in the introductory note does the poem take up the narrative? Be sure +to get a clear mental picture of the initiative scene. _And_ is here +used in a manner common in the Scriptures. Cf. "And the Lord spake +unto Moses," etc. + +=2. Oxus.= The chief river of Central Asia, which separated Turan from +Iran or the Persian Empire, called Oxus by the Greeks and Romans, and +the Jihun or Amu by the Arabs and Persians. It takes its source in +Lake Sir-i-Kol, in the Pamir table-land, at a height of 15,600 feet, +flows northwest, and empties into the Aral Sea on the south. Its +length is about 1300 miles. + +"The introduction of the tranquil pictures of the Oxus, both at the +beginning and close of the poem (ll. 875-892), flowing steadily on, +unmoved by the tragedy which has been enacted on her shore, forms one +of the most artistic features in the setting of the poem." + +=3. Tartar camp.= The Tartars were nomadic tribes of Central Asia and +southern Russia. The so-called Black Tartars, identified with the +Scythians of the Greek historians, inhabited the basin of the Aral and +Caspian Seas, and are the tribe referred to in the poem. They are a +fierce, warlike people; hence our expression, "caught a Tartar." + [156] +=11. Peran-Wisa.= A celebrated Turanian chief, here in command of +Afrasiab's army, which was composed of representatives of many Tartar +tribes, as indicated in ll. 119-134. + +=15. Pamere=, or Pamir. An extensive plateau region of Central Asia, +called by the natives the "roof of the world." Among the rivers having +their source in this plateau are the Oxus, l. 2, and the Jaxartes, l. +129. + +=38. Afrasiab.= The king of the Tartars, and one of the principal +heroes of the _Shah Nameh_, the Persian "Book of Kings." He is reputed +to have been strong as a lion and to have had few equals as a warrior. + +=40. Samarcand.= A city in the district of Serafshan, Turkestan, to +the east of Bokhara; now a considerable commercial and manufacturing +centre, and a centre of Mohammedan learning. + +=42. Ader-baijan.= The northwest province of Persia, on the Turanian +frontier. + +=45. At my boy's years.= See introductory note to poem. + +=60. common fight.= In the sense of a general engagement. Be sure to +catch the reason why Sohrab makes his request. + +=61. sunk.= That is, lost sight of. + +=67. common chance.= See note, l. 60. Which would be the more +dangerous, a "single" or "common" combat? Why? + +=70. To find a father thou hast never seen.= See introductory note to +poem. + +=82. Seistan.= A province of southwest Afghanistan bordering on the +Persian province of Yezd. It is intersected by the Helmund River (l. +751), which flows into the Hamoon Lake, now scarcely more than a +morass. On an island in this lake are ruins of fortifications called +Fort Rustum. This territory was long held by Rustum's family, +feudatory to the Persian kings. =Zal.= Rustum's father, ruler of +Seistan. See note, l. 232. [157] + +=83-85. Whether that ... or in some quarrel=, etc. Either because his +mighty strength ... or because of some quarrel, etc. + +=85. Persian King.= That is, Kai Kaoos (or Kai Khosroo). See +introductory note to poem; also note, l. 223. + +=86-91. There go!= etc. The touching solicitation of these lines is +wholly Arnold's. + +=99. Why ruler's staff, no sword?= + +=101. Kara Kul.= A district some thirty miles southwest of Bokhara, +noted for the excellence of its pasturage, and for its fleeces. + +=107. Haman.= Next to Peran-Wisa in command of Tartar army. See +Houman, in introductory note to poem. + +=113-114. Casbin.= A fortified city in the province of Irak-Ajemi, +Persia, situated on the main route from Persia to Europe, and at one +time the capital of the Iranian empire. Just to the north of the city +rise the =Elburz Mountains= (l. 114), which separate the Persian +Plateau from the depression containing the Caspian and Aral Seas. + +=115. frore.= Frozen, from the Anglo-Saxon _froren_. + + "... the parching air + Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire." + + --MILTON. _Paradise Lost_, ll. 594-595, Book II. + +=119. Bokhara.= Here the state of Bokhara, an extensive region of +Central Asia, touching the Aral Sea to the north, the Oxus to the +south, and Khiva to the west. It has an estimated area of 235,000 +square miles, and contains nineteen cities of considerable size, of +which the capital, Bokhara, is most important. + +=120. Khiva.= A khanate situated in the valley of the lower Oxus, +bordering Bokhara on the southeast. =ferment the milk of mares.= An +intoxicating drink, _Koumiss_, made of camel's or mare's milk, is in +wide use among the steppe tribes. + [158] +=121. Toorkmuns.= A branch of the Turkish race found chiefly in +northern Persia and Afghanistan. + +=122. Tukas.= From the province of Azer-baijan. + +=123. Attruck.= A river of Khorassan, near the frontier of Khiva; it +has a west course, and enters the Caspian Sea on the east side. + +=128. Ferghana.= A khanate of Turkestan, north of Bokhara, in the +upper valley of the Sir Daria. + +=129. Jaxartes.= The ancient name of the Sir Daria River. It takes its +source in the Thian Shan Mountains, one of the Pamir Plateau ranges, +and flows with a general direction north, emptying into the Aral Sea +on the east side. + +=131. Kipchak.= A khanate some seventy miles below Khiva on the Oxus. + +=132. Kalmucks.= A nomadic branch of the Mongolian race, dwelling in +western Siberia. =Kuzzaks.= Now commonly called Cossacks; a warlike +people inhabiting the steppes of southern Russia and extensive +portions of Asia. Their origin is uncertain. + +=133. Kirghizzes.= A rude nomadic people of Mongolian-Tartar race +found in northern Turkestan. + +=138. Khorassan.= (That is, the region of the sun.) A province of +northeastern Persia, largely desert. The origin of the name is + prettily suggested by Moore in the opening poem of _Lalla Rookh_:-- + + "In the delightful province of the sun + The first of Persian lands he shines upon," etc. + +=147. fix'd.= Stopped suddenly, halted. + +=154-169.= Note the effect the challenge has on the two armies. + +=156. corn.= Here used with its European sense of "grain." It is only +in America that the word signifies Indian corn or "maize." + [159] +=160. Cabool.= Capital of northern Afghanistan, and an important +commercial city. + +=161. Indian Caucasus.= A lofty mountain range north of Cabool, which +forms the boundary between Turkestan and Afghanistan. + +=173. King.= See note, l. 85. + +=177. lion's heart.= Explain the line. Why are the terms here used so +forcible in the mouth of Gudurz? + +=178-183. Aloof he sits, etc.= One is reminded by Rustum's deportment +here, of Achilles sulking in his tent and nursing his wrath against +Agamemnon.--_Iliad_, Book I. + +=199. sate.= Old form of "sat," common in poetry. + +=200. falcon.= A kind of hawk trained to catch game birds. + +=217. Iran.= The official name of Persia. + +=221. Go to!= Hebraic expression. Frequently found in Shakespeare. + +=223. Kai Khosroo.= According to the _Shah Nameh_, the thirteenth +Turanian king. He reigned in the sixth century B.C., and has been +identified with Cyrus the Great. + +=230. Not that one slight helpless girl, etc.= See ll. 609-611, also +introduction to the poem. + +=232. snow-haired Zal.= According to tradition, Zal was born with +snow-white hair. His father Lahm, believing this an ill omen, doomed +the unfortunate babe to be exposed on the loftiest summit of the +Elburz Mountains. The Simurgh, a great bird or griffin, found him and +cared for him till grown, then restored him to his repentant parent. +He subsequently married the Princess Rudabeh of Seistan, by whom he +became father of Rustum. + +=243-248. He spoke ... men.= Note carefully Gudurz's argument. Why so +effective with Rustum? + +=257. But I will fight unknown and in plain arms.= The shields and +arms of the champions were emblazoned with mottoes and devices. Why +does Rustum determine to lay aside his accustomed arms and fight +incognito? What effect does this determination have upon the ultimate +outcome of the situation? Read the story of the arming of Achilles +(Book XIX., Homer's _Iliad_), and compare with Rustum's preparation +for battle. [160] + +=266. device.= See note, l. 257. + + =277. Dight.= Adorned, dressed. + + "The clouds in thousand liveries dight." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ l. 62. + +=286. Bahrein= or Aval. A group of islands in the Persian Gulf, +celebrated for its pearl fisheries. + + =288. tale.= Beckoning, number. + + "And every shepherd tells his _tale_, + Under the hawthorn in the dale." + --MILTON. _L'Allegro,_ ll. 67-68. + +=306. flowers.= Decorates, beautifies with floral designs. + +=311. perused.= Studied, observed closely. + +=318.= In a letter dated November, 1852, Mr. Arnold speaks of the +figures in his poem as follows: "I can only say that I took a great +deal of trouble to orientalize them, because I thought they looked +strange, and jarred, if western." What is gained by their use? + +=325. vast.= Large, mighty. + +=326. tried.= Proved, experienced. + +=328. Never was that field lost or that foe saved.= Note the power +gained in this line by the use of the alliteration. + +=330. Be govern'd.= Be influenced, persuaded. + +=343. by thy father's head!= Such oaths are common to the extravagant +speech of the oriental peoples. + +=344. Art thou not Rustum?= See introductory note to poem. + +=367. vaunt.= Boast implied in the challenge. + +=380. Thou wilt not fright me so!= That is, by such talk. + +=401. tower'd.= Remained stationary, poised. + +=406. full struck.= Struck squarely. + [161] +=412. Hyphasis, Hydaspes.= Two of the rivers of the Punjab in northern +India, now known as the Beas and Jhylum. In 326 B.C. Alexander +defeated Porus on the banks of the latter stream. + +=414. wrack.= Ruin, havoc. (Poetical.) + +=418. glancing.= In the sense of darting aside. + +=435. hollow.= Unnatural in tone. + +=452. like that autumn-star.= Probably Sirius, the Dog Star, under +whose ascendency, according to ancient beliefs, epidemic diseases +prevailed. + +=454. crest.= That is, helmet and plume. + +=466. Remember all thy valour.= That is, summon up all your courage. + +=469. girl's wiles.= Explain the line. + +=470. kindled.= Roused, angered. + +=481. unnatural.= because of the kinship of the combatants. + +=481-486. for a cloud=, etc. A distinctly Homeric imitation. Cf. the +cloud that enveloped Paris--Book III., ll. 465-469, of the _Iliad_. + +=489. And the sun sparkled=, etc. Why this reference to the clear Oxus +stream at this moment of intense tragedy? + +=495. helm.= Helmet; defensive armor for the head. + +=497. shore.= Past tense of _shear_, to cut. + +=499. bow'd his head:= because of the force of the blow. + +=508. curdled.= Thickened as with fear. + +=516. Rustum!= Why did this word so affect Sohrab? Note the author's +skill in working up to this climax in the narrative. + +=527-539. Then with a bitter smile=, etc. Compare these words of +the victor, Rustum, with the words of Sohrab, ll. 427-447, when the +advantage was with him. + +=536. glad.= Make happy. + + "That which _gladded_ all the warrior train." + --DRYDEN. + [162] +=538. Dearer to the red jackals=, etc. Cf. I. Sam. xvii. 44: "Come to +me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the +beasts of the field." Careful investigation will show the poem to +abound with Biblical as well as classical parallelisms. + +=556-575. As when some hunter, etc.= One of the truly great similes in +the English language. + +=563. sole.= Alone, solitary. From the Latin _solus_. + +=570. glass.= Reflect as in a mirror. + +=596. bruited up.= Noised abroad. + +=613. the style.= The name or title. + +=625. that old king.= The king of Semenjan. See introductory note to +poem. + +=632. Of age and looks=, etc. That is, of such age as he (Sohrab) +would be, if born of his (Rustum's) union with Tahmineh. + +=658-660. I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm=, etc. This is Arnold's +conception. In the original story Sohrab wore an onyx stone as an +amulet. The onyx was supposed to incite the wearer to deeds of valor. + +=664. corselet.= Protective armor for the body. + +=673. cunning.= Skilful, deft. + +=679. griffin.= In the natural history of the ancients, an imaginary +animal, half lion and half eagle. Here the Simurgh. See note, l. 232. + +=708-710. unconscious hand.= Note how the dying Sohrab seeks to + console the grief-stricken Rustum. + + "Such is my destiny, such is the will of fortune. + It was decreed that I should perish by the hand of my father." + + --_Shah Nameh_. + +=717. have found= (him). Note the ellipsis. + +=723-724. I came ... passing wind.= The _Shah Nameh_ has-- + + "I came like a flash of lightning, and now I depart like the wind." + +=736. caked the sand.= Hardened into cakes. + +=751. Helmund.= See note, l. 82. [163] + +=752. Zirrah.= Another lake in Seistan, southeast of Hamoon, now +almost dry. + +=763-765. Moorghab, Tejend and Kohik.= Rivers of Turkestan which lose +themselves in the deserts to the south of Bokhara. The northern Sir is +the Sir Daria, or Jaxartes. See note, l. 129. + +=788. And heap a stately mound=, etc. Persian tradition says that a +large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed over the +spot where Sohrab was buried. + +=830. on that day.= Shortly after the death of Afrasiab, the Persian +monarch Kai Khosroo, accompanied by a large number of his nobles, went +to a spring far to the north, the location fixed upon as a place +for their repose. Here the king died, and those who went with him +afterward perished in a tempest. Sohrab predicted Rustum would be one +of those lost, but tradition does not have it so. + +=861. Persepolis.= An ancient capital of Persia, the ruins of which +are known as "the throne of Jemshid," after a mythical king. + +=878. Chorasma.= A region of Turkestan, the seat of a powerful empire +in the twelfth century, but now greatly reduced. Its present limits +are about the same as those of Khiva. See note, l. 120. + +=880. Right for the polar star.= That is, due north. =Orgunje.= A +village on the Oxus some seventy miles below Khiva, and near the head +of its delta. + +=890. luminous home.= The Aral Sea. + +=891. new bathed stars.= As the stars appear on the horizon, they seem +to have come up out of the sea. + +=875-892.= Discuss the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these closing lines of the poem. See also note, ll. +231-250, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + + +SAINT BRANDAN [164] + +In this poem Arnold has vividly presented a quaint legend of Judas +Iscariot, popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Brandan (490-577) was +a celebrated Irish monk, famous for his voyages. "According to the +legendary accounts of his travels, he set sail with others to seek the +terrestrial paradise which was supposed to exist in an island of the +Atlantic. Various miracles are related of the voyage, but they are +always connected with the great island where the monks are said to +have landed. The legend was current in the time of Columbus and +long after, and many connected St. Brandan's island with the newly +discovered America. He is commemorated on May 16."--_The Century +Cyclopedia of Names_. + + +=7. Hebrides.= A group of islands off the northwestern coast of +Scotland. + +=11. hurtling Polar lights.= A reference to the rapid, changing +movements of the Aurora Borealis. + +=18. Of hair that red.= According to tradition, Judas Iscariot's hair +was red. + +=21. sate.= See note, l. 199, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Old form of "sat," +common in poetry.) + + +=31. self-murder.= After betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself. See +Matt, xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18. + +=38. The Leper recollect.= There is no scriptural authority for this +incident. + +=40. Joppa=, or Jaffa. A small maritime town of Palestine--the ancient +port of Jerusalem. There is also a small village called Jaffa in +Galilee, some two miles southwest of Nazareth, which may have been the +place the poet had in mind. + + +Image the situation as presented in the first several stanzas. Why +locate in the sea without a "human shore," l. 12? Is there any +especial reason for having the time Christmas night? Note the dramatic +introduction of Judas. What effect did his appearance have on the +saint? How was the latter reassured? Give reasons why Judas felt +impelled to tell his story. Tell the story. Does he praise or belittle +his act of charity? Why does he say "that _chance_ act of good"? How +was it rewarded? Explain his last expression. Was he about to say +more? If so, what? What effect did Judas's story have on Saint +Brandan? Why? What is the underlying thought in the poem? Discuss the +form of verse used and its appropriateness to the theme. [165] + + + + +THE FORSAKEN MERMAN + +"The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's two +poems, _The Merman_ and _The Mermaid_. A comparison will show that, in +this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched his subject not +less melodiously and with finer and deeper feeling.--Margaret will not +listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with pain';--dearer to her is +the selfish desire to save her own soul than is the light in the eyes +of her little Mermaiden, dearer than the love of the king of the sea, +who yearns for her with sorrow-laden heart. Here is there an infinite +tenderness and an infinite tragedy." + --L. DUPONT SYLE, _From Milton to Tennyson_. + +Legends of this kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and Cymric +people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more pleasing and +touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note carefully the dramatic +manner in which the pathos of the story is presented and developed. + + +=6. wild white horses.= Breakers, whitecaps. + +=13. Margaret.= A favorite name with Arnold. See _Isolation_ and _A +Dream_ in this volume. + +=39. ranged.= See note, l. 73, _The Strayed Reveller_. (wander +aimlessly about.) + +=42. mail.= Protective covering. + +=54.= Why "down swung the sound of a far-off bell"? [166] + +=81. seal'd.= Fastened; fixed intently upon, as though spellbound. + +=89-93. Hark ... sun.= In her song Margaret shows she is still keenly +alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The priest, bell, +and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here Roman Catholic. The +bell is used in the Roman Church to call especial attention to the +more important portions of the service; the well is the holy-water +font. + +=129. heaths starr'd with broom.= The flower of the broom plant, +common in England, is yellow; hence, _starr'd_. + +In his work on Matthew Arnold, George Saintsbury speaks of this poem +as follows: "It is, I believe, not so 'correct' as it once was to +admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to correctness, at least +the correctness which varies with fashion. _The Forsaken Merman_ is +not a perfect poem--it has _tongueurs_, though it is not long; it has +its inadequacies, those incompetences of expression which are so oddly +characteristic of its author; and his elaborate simplicity, though +more at home here than in some other places, occasionally gives a +dissonance. But it is a great poem,--one by itself,--one which finds +and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained gallery or museum, with +which every true lover of poetry is provided, though he inherits it by +degrees. None, I suppose, will deny its pathos; I should be sorry for +any one who fails to perceive its beauty. The brief picture of the +land, and the fuller one of the sea, and that (more elaborate still) +of the occupations of the fugitive, all have their charm. But the +triumph of the piece is in one of those metrical coups, which give +the triumph of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden change from the +slower movements of the earlier stanzas, or strophes, to the quicker +sweep of the famous conclusions." + [167] +What is the opening situation in the poem? Have the merman and his +children just reached the shore, or have they been there some time? +Why so? Why does the merman still linger, when he is convinced that +further delay will count for nothing? Why does he urge the children to +call? What is shown by his repeated question--"was it yesterday"? Tell +the story of Margaret's departure for the upper world, and discuss the +validity of her reason for going. Do you think she intended to return? +What is the significance of her smile just before departing? Give +a word picture of what the sea-folk saw as they lingered in the +churchyard. Will Margaret ever grieve for the past? If so, when? Why? +Who has your sympathy most, Margaret, the forsaken merman, or the +children? Why? Do you condemn Margaret for the way she has done, or do +you feel she was justified in her actions? Discuss the versification, +giving special attention to its effect on the movement of the poem. + + + + +TRISTRAM AND ISEULT + +The story of Tristram and Iseult is one of the most vivid and +passionate of the Arthurian cycle of legends, and is a favorite with +the poets. The following version is abridged from Dunlop's _History of +Fiction_. + +"In the court of his uncle, King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who at +this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became expert +in all knightly exercises.... The king of Ireland, at Tristram's +solicitation, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on +King Marc.... The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter's confidante +a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her +nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult unfortunately partook. +Its influence, during the remainder of their lives, regulated the +affections and destiny of the lovers. + [168] +"After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the +nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance +is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews ... +Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the displeasure +of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult with the White +Hands. He married her, more out of gratitude than love. Afterwards +he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur which became the theatre of +unnumbered exploits. + +"Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany and to +his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was soon +reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation he despatched a confidant +to the queen of Cornwall to try if he could induce her to follow him +to Brittany. + +"Meanwhile Tristram awaited the arrival of the queen with such +impatience that he employed one of his wife's damsels to watch at the +harbor. Through her, Iseult learned Tristram's secret, and filled with +jealousy, flew to her husband as the vessel which bore the queen of +Cornwall was wafted toward the harbor, and reported that the sails +were black (the signal that Iseult, Marc's queen, had refused +Tristram's request to come to him). Tristram, penetrated with +inexpressible grief, died. The account of Tristram's death was the +first intelligence which the queen of Cornwall heard on landing. She +was conducted to his chamber, and expired holding him in her arms." + + +=1. Is she not come?= That is, Iseult of Ireland. Arnold's poem takes +up the story at the point where Tristram, now on his death-bed, is +watching eagerly for the coming of Iseult, Marc's queen, for whom he +had sent his confidant to Cornwall. Evidently he has just awakened +and is still somewhat confused; see l. 7. Surely none will fail to +appreciate so dramatic a situation. + +=5. What ... be?= That is, what lights are those to the northward, the +direction from which Iseult would come? + [169] +=8. Iseult.= Here Iseult of the White Hands, daughter of King Hoel of +Brittany and wife of Tristram. + +=20. Arthur's court.= Arthur, the half-mythical king of the Britons, +set up his court at Camelot, which Caxton locates in Wales and Malory +near Winchester. Here was gathered the famous company of champions +known as the "Knights of the Round Table," whose feats have been +extensively celebrated in song and story. Among these knights Tristram +held high rank, both as a warrior and a harpist. See ll. 17-19. + +=23. Lyoness.= A mythical region near Cornwall, the home country of +Arthur and Tristram. + +=30-31.= Hence the name, Iseult of the White Hands. + +=56-68.= See introductory note to poem for explanation. =Tyntagel.= +A village in Cornwall near the sea. Near it is the ruined Tyntagel +Castle, the reputed birthplace of Arthur. In the romance of Sir +Tristram it is the castle of King Marc, the cowardly and treacherous +king of Cornwall, the southwest county of England. =teen=. See note, +l. 147, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. (Grief, sorrow; from the old English +_teona_, meaning injury.) + + +=88. wanders=, in fancy. Note how the wounded knight's mind flits from +scene to scene, always centring around Iseult of Ireland. + +=91. O'er ... sea.= The Irish Sea. He is dreaming of his return trip +from Ireland with Iseult, "under the cloudless sky of May" (l. 96). + +=129-132.= See introductory note to poem. The green isle, Ireland is +noted for its green fields; hence the name, Emerald (green) Isle. + +=134. on loud Tyntagel's hill.= A high headland on the coast of Wales. +Discuss the force of the adjective "loud" in this connection. + +=137-160. And that ... more.= See introductory note to poem. + +=161. pleasaunce-walks.= A pleasure garden, screened by trees, shrubs, +and close hedges--here a trysting-place. After the marriage of +Iseult to King Marc, she and Tristram contrived to continue their +relationship in secret. [170] + +=164. fay.= Faith. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=180.= Tristram, having been discovered by King Marc in his intrigues +with Iseult, was forced to leave Cornwall; hence his visit to Brittany +and subsequent marriage to Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory +note to poem. + +=192. lovely orphan child.= Iseult of Brittany. + +=194. chatelaine.= From the French, meaning the mistress of a +chateau--a castle or fortress. + +=200. stranger-knight, ill-starr'd.= That is, Tristram, whose many +mishaps argued his being born under an unlucky star. See also the +account of his birth, note, ll. 81-88, Part II. + +=203. Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard.= Prior to his visit to +Brittany, Tristram had imprisoned his uncle, King Marc, and eloped +with Iseult to the domains of King Arthur. While there he resided +at Joyous Gard, the favorite castle of Launcelot, which that knight +assigned to the lovers as their abode. + +=204. Welcomed here.= That is, in Brittany, where he was nursed back +to health by Iseult of the White Hands. See introductory note to poem. + +=215-226. His long rambles ... ground.= Account for Tristram's +discontent, as indicated in these lines. + +=234-237. All red ... bathed in foam.= The kings of Britain agreed +with Arthur to make war upon Rome. Arthur, leaving Modred in charge +of his kingdom, made war upon the Romans, and, after a number +of encounters, Lucius Tiberius was killed and the Britons were +victorious.--GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Book IV, Chapter XV; Book X, +Chapters I-XIII. According to Malory, Arthur captured many French and +Italian cities (see ll. 250-251); during this continental invasion, +and was finally crowned king at Rome. It seems that he afterward +despatched a considerable number of his knights to carry the Christian +faith among the heathen German tribes. See ll. 252-253. [171] + +=238. moonstruck knight.= A reference to the mystical influence the +ancients supposed the moon to exert over men's minds and actions. + +=239. What foul fiend rides thee?= What evil spirit possesses you and +keeps you from the fight? + +=240. her.= That is, Iseult of Ireland. + +=243. wanders forth again=, in fancy. + +=245. secret in his breast.= What secret? + +=250-253.= See note, ll. 234-237. =blessed sign.= The cross. + +=255. Roman Emperor.= That is, Lucius Tiberius. See note, ll. 234-237. + +=258. leaguer.= Consult dictionary. + +=261. what boots it?= That is, what difference will it make? + +=303. recks not.= Has no thought of (archaic). + +=308-314. My princess ... good night.= Are Tristram's words sincere, +or has he a motive in thus dismissing Iseult? + +=373-374.= From a dramatic standpoint, what is the purpose of these +two lines? + + + +PART II + +With the opening of Part II the lovers are restored to each other. +The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with long waiting, +unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having come to him with +greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, quickly dispel his +doubts as to her loyalty to her former vows. A complete reconciliation +takes place, and they die in each other's embrace. The picture of the +Huntsman on the arras is one of the most notable in English poetry. + + +=47. honied nothings=. Explain. Compare with + + "his tongue Dropt manna." [172] + --_Paradise Lost_, ll. 112-113, Book II. + +=81-88=. Tristram was born in the forest, where his mother Isabella, +sister to King Marc, had gone in search of her recreant husband. + +=97-100=. Tennyson, in _The Last Tournament_, follows Malory in the +story of Tristram's and Iseult's death. "That traitor, King Mark, slew +the noble knight, Sir Tristram, as he sat harping before his lady, +La Beale Isoud, with a trenchant glaive, for whose death was much +bewailing of every knight that ever was in Arthur's days ... and La +Beale Isoud died swooning upon the cross of Sir Tristram, whereof was +great pity."--Malory's _Morte d' Arthur._ + +=113. sconce=. Consult dictionary. + +=116-122=. Why this restlessness on the part of Iseult? Why her +frequent glances toward the door? + +=132. dogg'd=. Worried, pursued. Coleridge uses the epithet +"star-dogged moon," l. 212, Part III, _The Ancient Mariner._ + +=147-193=. For the poet's purpose in introducing the remarkable +word-picture of these lines, see notes on the Tyrian trader, ll. +231-250, 232, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + + + +PART III + +After the death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland, our thoughts +inevitably turn to Iseult of the White Hands. The infinite pathos of +her life has aroused our deepest sympathy, and we naturally want to +know further concerning her and Tristram's children. + + +=13. cirque=. A circle (obsolete or poetical). See l. 7, Part III. + +=18. holly-trees and juniper=. Evergreen trees common in Europe and +America. + [173] +=22. fell-fare= (or field-fare). A small thrush found in Northern +Europe. + +=26. stagshorn.= A common club-moss. + +=37. old-world Breton history.= That is, the story of Merlin and +Vivian, ll. 153-224, Part III. + +=79-81=. Compare with the following lines from Wordsworth's +_Michael_:-- + + "This light was famous in its neighborhood. + ... For, as it chanced, + Their cottage on a plot of rising ground + Stood single.... + And from this constant light so regular + And so far seen, the House itself, by all + Who dwelt within the limits of the vale + ... was named _The Evening Star_." + +=81. iron coast.= This line inevitably calls to mind a stanza from +Tennyson's _Palace of Art_:-- + + "One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. + You seemed to hear them climb and fall + And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves, + Beneath the windy wall." + +=92. prie-dieu.= Praying-desk. From the French _prier_, pray; _dieu_, +God. + +=97. seneschal.= A majordomo; a steward. Originally meant _old_ (that +is, _chief) servant_; from the Gothic _sins_, old, and _salks_, a +servant.--SKEAT. + +=134. gulls.= Deceives, tricks. + + "The vulgar, _gulled_ into rebellion, armed," + --DRYDEN. + +=140.= posting here and there. That is, restlessly changing from place +to place and from occupation to occupation. + +=143-145. Like that bold Caesar=, etc. Julius Caesar (100?-44 B.C.). +The incident here alluded to Is mentioned in Suetonius' _Life of the +Deified Julius_, Chapter VII. "Farther Spain fell to the lot of Caesar +as questor. When, at the command of the Roman people, he was holding +court and had come to Cadiz, he noticed in the temple of Hercules a +statue of Alexander the Great. At sight of this statue he sighed, +as if disgusted at his own lack of achievement, because he had done +nothing of note by the time in life (Caesar was then thirty-two) that +Alexander had conquered the world." (Free translation.) [174] + +=146-150. Prince Alexander, etc.= Alexander III., surnamed "The +Great" (356-323 B.C.), was the most famous of Macedonian generals and +conquerors, and the first in order of time of the four most celebrated +commanders of whom history makes mention. In less than fifteen years +he extended his domain over the known world and established himself as +the universal emperor. He died at Babylon, his capital city, at the +age of thirty-three, having lamented that there were no more worlds +for him to conquer. (For the boundaries of his empire, see any map of +his time.) Pope spoke of him as "The youth who all things but himself +subdued." =Soudan= (l. 149). An obsolete term for Sultan, the Turkish +ruler. + +=153-224=. The story of Merlin, King Arthur's court magician, and the +enchantress Vivian is one of the most familiar of the Arthurian cycle +of legends. =Broce-liande= (l. 156). In Cornwall. See l. 61, Part +I. =fay= (l. 159). Fairy, =empire= (l. 184). That is, power; here +supernatural power. =wimple= (l. 220). A covering for the head. =Is +Merlin prisoner=, etc. (l. 223). Merlin, the magician, is thus +entrapped by means of a charm he had himself communicated to his +mistress, the enchantress Vivian. Malory has Merlin imprisoned under a +rock; Tennyson, in an oak:-- + + "And in the hollow oak he lay as dead + And lost to life and use and name and fame." + --_Merlin and Vivian_. + [175] +=224=. For she was passing weary, etc. + + "And she was ever passing weary of him." + --MALORY. + +PART I. What is the opening situation in the poem? Why have it a +stormy night? What does Tristram's question (l. 7) reveal of his +condition physically and mentally? What is the office of the parts +of the poem coming between the intervals of conversation? How is the +wounded knight identified? How the lady? Follow the wanderings of the +sleeping Tristram's mind. Are the incidents he speaks of in the order +of their occurrence? Explain ll. 102-103; ll. 161-169. Tell the story +of Tristram and Iseult of the White Hands. What is shown by the fact +that Tristram's mind dwells on Iseult of Ireland even at the time of +battle? How account for his wanderings? For his morose frame of mind? +What change has come over nature when Tristram awakes? Why this +change? What is his mood now? Account for his addressing Iseult of +Brittany as he does. Why his order for her to retire? What is her +attitude toward him? Note the manner in which the children are +introduced into the story (ll. 324-325) PART II. Give the opening +situation. Discuss the meeting of Tristram and Iseult. What is +revealed by their conversation? What is the purpose in introducing the +Huntsman on the arras? PART III. What is the purpose of ll. 1-4? Give +the opening situation in Part III. How is Iseult trying to entertain +her children? What kind of a life does she lead? Discuss ll. 112-150 +as to meaning and connection with the theme of the poem. Tell the +story of Merlin and Vivian. Why introduced? Compare Arnold's version +of the story of Tristram and Iseult with the version given in the +introductory note to the poem. + + + + [176] +THE CHURCH OF BROU + + + +I. THE CASTLE + +The church of Brou is actually located in a treeless Burgundian plain, +and not in the mountains, as stated by the poet. + + +=1. Savoy=. A mountainous district in eastern France; formerly one of +the divisions of the Sardinian States. + +=3. mountain-chalets=. Properly, herdsmen's huts in the mountains of +Switzerland. + +=17. prickers=. Men sent into the thickets to start the game. + +=35. dais=. Here, a canopy or covering. + +=69. erst=. See note, l. 42, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. ( Formerly. +(Obsolete except in poetry.)) + +=71. chancel=. The part of a church in which the altar is placed. + +=72. nave=. See note, ll. 70-76, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocooen_. + +=77. palmers=. Wandering religious votaries, especially those who bore +branches of palm as a token that they had visited the Holy Land and +its sacred places. + +=109. fretwork=. Representing open woodwork. + + + +II. THE CHURCH + +=17. matin-chime=. Bells for morning worship. + +=21. Chambery=. Capital of the department of Savoy Proper, on the +Leysse. + +=22. Dight=. See l. 277, _Sohrab and Rustum_. (Adorned, dressed.) + +=37. chisell'd broideries=. The carved draperies of the tombs. + + + +III. THE TOMB + +=6. transept=. The transversal part of a church edifice, which crosses +at right angles between the nave and the choir (the upper portion), +thus giving to the building the form of a cross. + + +=39. foliaged marble forest=. Note the epithet. + [177] +=45. leads=. That is, the leaden roof. See l. 1, Part II. (Upon the +glistening leaden roof). + + + + +REQUIESCAT + +This poem, one of Arnold's best-known shorter lyrics, combines with +perfect taste, simplicity and elegance, with the truest pathos. It has +been said there is not a false note in it. + + +=13. cabin'd=. Used in the sense of being cramped for space. + +=16. vasty=. Spacious, boundless. + +What is the significance of strewing on the roses? Why "never a spray +of yew"? (See note, l.140, _The Scholar-Gipsy.)_ What seems to be the +author's attitude toward death? (Read his poem, _A Wish_.) Discuss the +poem as to its lyrical qualities. + + + + +CONSOLATION + +=14. Holy Lassa= (that is, Land of the Divine Intelligence), the +capital city of Thibet and residence of the Dalai, or Grand Lama, the +pontifical sovereign of Thibet and East Asia. Here is located the +great temple of Buddha, a vast square edifice, surmounted by a gilded +dome, the temple, together with its precincts, covering an area of +many acres. Contiguous to it, on its four sides, are four celebrated +monasteries, occupied by four thousand recluses, and resorted to as +schools of the Buddhic religion and philosophy. There is, perhaps, no +other one place in the world where so much gold is accumulated for +superstitious purposes. + + +=17. Muses.= See note, l. 120, _The Strayed Reveller_. + +=18. In their cool gallery=. That is, in the Vatican art gallery at +Rome. + +=19. yellow Tiber.= So called by the ancients because of the +yellowish, muddy appearance of its waters. + [178] +=21. Strange unloved uproar.= At the time this poem was +written,--1849,--the French army was besieging Rome. + +=23. Helicon.= High mountain in Boeotia, legendary home of the +Muses. + +=32. Erst.= See note, l. 32, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=48. Destiny.= That is, Fate, the goddess of human destiny. + +In what mood is the author at the opening of the poem? How does he +seek consolation? How does the calm of the Muses affect him? Can you +see how he might find help in dwelling on the pictures of the blind +beggar and happy lovers? What is the final thought of the poem? Can +you think of any other poem that has this as its central thought? What +do you think of the author's philosophy of life as set forth in this +poem? Discuss the verse form used. + + + + +LINES + +WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS + +The Kensington Gardens form one of the many beautiful public parks of +London. They are located in the Kensington parish, a western suburb of +the city, lying north of the Thames and four miles west-southwest of +St. Paul's. In his poem Arnold contrasts the serenity of nature +with the restlessness of modern life. "Not Lucan, not Vergil, +only Wordsworth, has more beautifully expressed the spirit of +Pantheism."--HERBERT W. PAUL. + + +=4.= The pine trees here mentioned are since dead. + +=14. What endless active life!= Compare with Arnold's sonnet of this +volume, entitled _Quiet Work_, ll. 4-7 and 11-12. + +=21. the huge world.= London. + +=24. Was breathed on by rural Pan.= Note Arnold's classic way of +accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature god. +See note, l. 67, _The Strayed Reveller_. + [179] +=37-42.= Compare the thought here presented with the following lines + from Wordsworth:-- + + "These beauteous forms, + ... have not been to me + As is a landscape to a blind man's eye. + But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din + Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, + ... sensations sweet + Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; + And passing even into my purer mind, + With tranquil restoration." + +Read also Wordsworth's _Lines to the Daffodil_. + +What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently brought it to +the author's mind? How does he show his interest in nature? In human +beings? What inspiration does the author seek from nature, ll. 37-42? +Explain the meaning of the last two lines. + + + + +THE STRAYED REVELLER + +"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, that +perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, which saves +me from being entirely _ennuyx_, professorial and pedantic." (Matthew +Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, 1858.) + +Circe, according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who dwelt in +the island of AEaea, and who possessed the power to transform men +into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' wanderings.) In +Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic potion, by which this +transformation is accomplished, affects not the body, but the mind of +the youth. + + +=12. ivy-cinctured.= That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, +the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned with ivy. See +also l. 33. [180] + +=36. rout.= Consult dictionary. + +=38. Iacchus.= In the Eleusinian mysteries, Bacchus bore the name of +Iacchus. =fane.= A temple. From the Latin _fanum_, a place of worship +dedicated to any deity. + +=48. The lions sleeping.= As Ulysses' companions approached Circe's +palace, following their landing on her island, they found themselves +"surrounded by lions, tigers, and wolves, not fierce but tamed by +Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician." + +=67. Pan's flute music!= Pan, the god of pastures and woodlands, +was the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's flute, with which he +accompanied himself and his followers in the dance. + +=71. Ulysses.= The celebrated hero of the Trojan war; also famous for +his wanderings. One of his chief adventures, on his return voyage from +Troy, was with the enchantress Circe, with whom he tarried a year, +forgetful of his faithful wife, Penelope, at home. + +=72. Art.= That is, are you. (Now used only in solemn or poetic +style.) + +=73. range.= Wander aimlessly about. + +=74. See what the day brings.= That is, the youth. See ll. 24-52 + +=81. Nymphs.= Goddesses of the mountains, forests, meadows, or waters, +belonging to the lower rank of deities. + +=102-107.= Compare in thought with Tennyson's poem, _Ulysses_. + +=110. The favour'd guest of Circe.= Ulysses. See note, l. 71. + +=120. Muses.= Daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne, nine in number. +According to the earliest writers the Muses were only the inspiring +goddesses of song; but later they were looked to as the divinities +presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and over the arts and +sciences. + [181] +=130-135.= Note the poet's device for presenting a series of mental +pictures. Compare with Tennyson's plan in his _Palace of Art_. Does +Arnold's plan seem more or less mechanical than Tennyson's? + +=135-142. Tiresias.= The blind prophet of =Thebes= (l. 142), the chief +city in Boeotia, near the river =Asopus= (l. 138). In his youth, +Tiresias unwittingly came upon Athene while she was bathing, and was +punished by the loss of sight. As a recompense for this misfortune, +the goddess afterward gave him knowledge of future events. The +inhabitants of Thebes looked to Tiresias for direction in times of +war. + +=143. Centaurs.= Monsters, half man, half horse. + +=145. Pelion.= A mountain in eastern Thessaly, famous in Greek +mythology. In the war between the giants and the gods, the former, in +their efforts to scale the heavens, piled Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion +upon Ossa. + +=151-161.= What in these lines enables you to determine the people and +country alluded to? + +=162-167. Scythian ... embers.= The ancient Greek term for the nomadic +tribes inhabiting the whole north and northeast Europe and Asia. As +a distinct people they built no cities, and formed no general +government, but wandered from place to place by tribes, in their rude, +covered carts (see l. 164), living upon the coarsest kind of food (ll. +166-167). + +=177-180. Clusters of lonely mounds, etc.= That is, ruins of ancient +cities. + +=183. Chorasmian stream.= See note, l. 878, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=197. milk-barr'd onyx-stones.= A reference to the white streaks, or +bars, common to the onyx. + +=206. Happy Islands.= Mythical islands lying far to the west, the +abode of the heroes after death. + +=220. Hera's anger.= Hera (or Juno), wife to Jupiter, was noted for +her violent temper and jealousy. She is here represented as visiting +punishment upon the bard, perhaps out of jealousy of the gods who had +endowed him with poetic power, and his life, thus afflicted, seems +lengthened to seven ages. [182] + +=228-229. Lapithae.= In Greek legends, a fierce Thessalian race, +governed by Pirothous, a half-brother to the Centaurs. =Theseus.= The +chief hero of Attica, who, according to tradition, united the several +tribes of Attica into one state, with Athens as the capital. His life +was filled with adventure. The reference here is to the time of the +marriage of Pirothous and Hippodamia, on which occasion the Centaurs, +who were among the guests, became intoxicated, and offered indignities +to the bride. In the fight that followed, Theseus joined with the +Lapithae, and many of the Centaurs were slain. + +=231. Alcmena's dreadful son.= Hercules. On his expedition to capture +the Arcadian boar, his third labor, Hercules became involved in a +broil with the Centaurs, and in self-defence slew several of them with +his arrows. + +=245. Oxus stream.= See note, l. 2, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=254. Heroes.= The demigods of mythology. + +=257. Troy.= The capital of Troas, Asia Minor; the seat of the Trojan war. + +=254-260.= Shortly after the close of the Trojan war, a party of +heroes from all parts of Greece, many of whom had participated in the +expeditions against Thebes and Troy, set out under the leadership of +Jason to capture the Golden Fleece. Leaving the shores of Thessaly, +the adventurers sailed eastward and finally came to the entrance of +the =Euxine Sea= (the =unknown sea=, l. 260), which was guarded by +the Clashing Islands. Following the instructions of the sage Phineus, +Jason let fly a dove between the islands, and at the moment of +rebound the expedition passed safely through. The ship in which the +adventurers sailed was called the Argo, after its builder, Argus; +hence our term Argonauts. + [183] +=261. Silenus.= A divinity of Asiatic origin; foster-father to Bacchus +and leader of the =Fauns= (l. 265), satyr-like divinities, half man, +half goat, sometimes represented in art as hearing torches (l. 274). + +=275. Maenad.= A bacchante,--a priestess or votary of Bacchus. + +=276. Faun with torches.= See note, l. 261. + + +What is the situation at the beginning of the poem? What effect does +the "liquor" have upon the youth? Why is the presence of Ulysses so +much in harmony with the situation? How does he greet Circe; how the +youth? What does his presence suggest to the latter? Why? Note the +vividness of the pictures he describes; also the swiftness with which +he changes from one to another. What power is ascribed to the poet? +Why his "pain"? What effect is gained by closing the poem with the +same words with which it is opened? Why the irregular verse used? + + + + +DOVER BEACH + +In this poem is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, at once +religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is one of his +most passionate interpretations of life. + + +=15. Sophocles= (495-406 B.C.). One of the three great tragic poets of +Greece. His rivals were AEschylus (526-456 B.C.) and Euripides (486-406 +B.C.). + +=16. AEgean Sea.= See note, l. 236, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + + * * * * * + +Image the scene in the opening stanzas. What is the author's mood? +Why does he call some one to look on the scene with him? What is the +"eternal note of sadness"? Why connect it in thought with the sea? Why +does this thought suggest Sophocles? What thought next presents itself +to the author's mind? From what source must one's help and comfort +then be drawn? Why so? Why the irregular versification? State the +theme of the poem. [184] + + + + +PHILOMELA + +"Philomela unites the sensibilities and intellectual experience of +modern Englishmen with the luminousness and simplicity of Greek +poetry."--SAINTSBURY. + +The myth of the nightingale has long been a favorite with the poets, +who have variously interpreted the bird's song. See Coleridge's, +Keats's, and Wordsworth's poems on the subject. The most common +version of the myth, the one followed by Arnold, is as follows:-- + +"Pandion (son of Erichthonius, special ward to Minerva) had two +daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in +marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). This +ruler, after his wife had borne him a son, Itys (or Itylus), wearied +of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to insure her silence, +and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the other sister, +Philomela. Procne, by means of a web, into which she wove her story, +informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In revenge upon Tereus, the +sisters killed Itylus, and served up the child as food to the father; +but the gods, in indignation, transformed Procne into a swallow, +Philomela into a nightingale, forever bemoaning the murdered Itylus, +and Tereus into a hawk, forever pursuing the sisters."--GAYLEY'S +_Classic Myths_. + + +=4.= Use the subjoined questions in studying the poem. + +=5. O wanderer from a Grecian shore.= See note, l. 27. + +=8.= Note the aptness and beauty of the adjectives in this line, not +one of which could be omitted without irreparable loss. + +=18. Thracian wild.= Thrace was the name used by the early Greeks for +the entire region north of Greece. + [185] +=21. The too clear web=, etc. See introductory note to poem for +explanation of this and the following lines. + +=27. Daulis.= A city of Phocis, Greece, twelve miles northeast of +Delphi; the scene of the myth of Philomela. =Cephessian vale.= The +valley of the Cephissus, a small stream running through Doris, Phocis, +and Boeotia, into the Euboean Gulf. + +=29. How thick the bursts=, etc. Compare with the following lines from + Coleridge:-- + + "'Tis the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes, + As he were fearful that an April night + Would be too short for him to utter forth + His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul + Of all its music!" + --_The Nightingale_. + + Also + + "O Nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of a 'fiery heart':-- + These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce; + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a Valentine." + --WORDSWORTH. + + =31-32. Eternal passion! + Eternal pain!= Compare:-- + + "Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains." + --COLERIDGE, _To a Nightingale_. + + and + + "Sweet bird ... + Most musical, most melancholy!" + --MILTON, _Il Penseroso_. + + +Image the scene in the poem. How does the author secure the proper +atmosphere for the theme of the poem? Account for the note of triumph +in the nightingale's song; note of pain. What is shown by the poet's +question, ll. 10-15? What new qualities are added to the nightingale's +song, l. 25? Account for them. Why _eternal_ passion, _eternal_ pain? +Do you feel the form of verse used (Pindaric blank) to be adapted to +the theme? [186] + + + + +HUMAN LIFE + +=4. kept uninfringed my nature's law.= That is, have lived a perfect +life. + +=5. inly-written chart.= The conscience. + +=8. incognisable.= Not to be comprehended by finite mind. + +=23. prore.= Poetical word for _prow_, the fore part of a ship. + +=27. stem.= Consult dictionary. + +What important incident in the destiny of the soul is alluded to in +stanza 1? Interpret ll. 13-14, and apply to your own experience. Why +cannot we live "chance's fool"? Is there any hint of fatalism in the +poem, or are we held accountable for our own destiny? + + + + +ISOLATION + +TO MARGUERITE, ON RETURNING A VOLUME OF THE LETTERS OF ORTIS + +This poem, the fifth in a loosely connected group of lyrics, under the +general name _Switzerland_, is a continuation of the preceding +poem, _Isolation--to Marguerite_, and is properly entitled, _To +Marguerite--Continued_. When printed separately, the above title is +used. + +Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. His +_Ultime Lettere di Ortis_ was translated into the English in 1818. + + [187] +=1. Yes!= Used in answer to the closing thought of the preceding poem. + +=7. moon.= Note the frequency with which reference to the moon, with +its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you give any reason +for this? + +=24.= Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: "_Isolation_ +winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the century--one of +the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of English verse--a +phrase complete and final, with epithets in unerring cumulation." + +Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? Discuss l.2 +as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," l.4? Why "endless +bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling of despair, l.13? Answer the +questions asked in the last stanza. In what frame of mind does the +poem leave you? + + + + +KAISER DEAD + +APRIL 6, 1887 + +Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was most +sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in the minor +key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just lost our dear, dear +mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated from his home in Cobham, +Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very sad." The poem was written the +following July, and was published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for that +month. + + +=2. Cobham.= See note above. + +=3. Farringford,= in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord Tennyson. + +=5. Pen-bryn's bold bard.= Sir Lewis Morris, author of the _Epic of +Hades_, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire. + [188] +=11-12.= In Burns's poem, _Poor Mailie's Elegy_, occur the following +lines:-- + + "Come, join the melancholious croon + O' Robin's reed." + +=20. Potsdam.= The capital of the government district of Potsdam, in +the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's name, _Kaiser_. + +=41. the Grand Old Man.= Gladstone. + +=50. agog.= In a state of eager excitement. + +=65. Geist.= Also remembered in a poem entitled _Geist's Grave_, +included in this volume. + +=76. chiel.= A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow. + + "Buirdly _chiels_ an clever hizzies." + --BURNS, _The Twa Dogs_. + +=Skye.= The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. 7, _Saint +Brandan_. + + + + +THE LAST WORD + +In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a hopeless +struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too strong for +him. + +State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? What +is the _narrow bed_, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With whom has it +been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied in l. 6? What is meant +by _ringing shot_, l. 11? Who are the victors, l. 14? What would they +probably say on finding the body near the wall? Can you think of any +historical characters of whom the poem might aptly have been written? + + + + [189] +PALLADIUM + +At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy a +celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was +reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the belief +was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue remained +within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek champions, succeeded +in entering the city in disguise, stole the Palladium and carried it +off to the besiegers' camp at Argos. It was some time, however, before +the city fell. + +=1. Simois.= A small river of the Troad which takes its rise in the +rocky, wooded eminence which, according to Greek tradition, formed +the acropolis of Troy. The Palladium was set up on its banks near its +source, in a temple especially erected for it (l. 6), and from this +lofty position was supposed to watch over the safety of the city and +her defenders on the plains below. + +=3. Hector.= Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy (Ilium), and his +wife, Hecuba, was the leader and champion of the Trojan armies. He +distinguished himself in numerous single combats with the ablest of +the Greek heroes; and to him was principally due the stubborn defence +of the Trojan capital. He was finally slain by Achilles, aided by +Athene, and his body dragged thrice around the walls of Troy behind +the chariot of his conqueror. + +=14. Xanthus.= The Scamander, the largest and most celebrated river of +the Troad, near which Troy was situated, was presided over by a deity +known to the gods as Xanthus. His contest with Achilles, whom he so +nearly overwhelmed, forms a notable incident of the _Iliad_. + +=15. Ajax, or Aiax.= One of the leading Greek heroes in the siege of +Troy, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. In bravery +and feats of valor he was second only to Achilles. Not being awarded +the armor of Achilles after that hero's death, he slew himself. + [190] +=16.= Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated for +her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to her by +both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in the second +part of _Faust_, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that name, +addresses her thus:-- + + "Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." + +Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3), was the cause +of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek mythology, which +forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, the _Iliad_. + +What is the central thought of the poem? Of what is the Palladium +typical? Explain the thought in stanza 3. What is the force of the +references of stanza 4? Discuss the use of the words "rust" and +"shine," l. 17. Just what is meant by "soul" as the word is used in +the poem? + + + + +SELF-DEPENDENCE + +_Self-Dependence_ is a poem in every respect characteristic of its +author. In it Arnold exhorts mankind to seek refuge from human +troubles in the example of nature. + +Picture the situation in the poem. What is the poet's mood as shown +in the opening stanzas? From what source does he seek aid? Why? What +answer does he receive? What is the source of nature's repose? Where +and how must the human soul find its contentment? + + + + [191] +GEIST'S GRAVE + +This poem appeared in the January number of the _Fortnightly Review_ +for 1881. + + +=12. homily.= Sermon. + +=15. the Virgilian cry.= _Sunt lacrimae rerum!_ These words are +interpreted in the following line. + +=42. On lips that rarely form them now.= Arnold wrote but little +poetry after 1867. + +=55-56. thine absent master.= Richard Penrose Arnold, the poet's only +surviving son. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO LESSING'S LAOCOOeN + +Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a celebrated German dramatist +and critic. For a time he studied theology at Leipsic, then turned his +attention to the stage, and later to criticism. His greatest critical +work (1766) is a treatise on Art, the famous Greek statuary group, +the Laocooen, which gives the work its name, forming the basis for a +comparative discussion of Sculpture, Poetry, Painting, and Music. + + +=1. Hyde Park.= The largest park in London, and the principal +recreation ground of that city. + +=15. Phoebus-guarded ground.= Greece. Phoebus, a name often given +Apollo, the sun god. + +=16. Pausanias.= A noted Greek geographer and writer on art who lived +in the second century. "His work, _The Gazetteer of Hellas_, is our +best repertory of information for the topography, local history, +religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of the different +states of Greece."--K.O. MUeLLER, _History of the Literature of Ancient +Greece_. + [192] +=21-22. Dante= (1265-1321), =Petrarch= (1304-1374), =Tasso= (1544-; +1595), =Ariosto= (1475-1533). Celebrated Italian poets. + +=25. Raphael= (1483-1520). The famous Italian painter. + +=29. Goethe= (1749-1832). The greatest name in German literature. +His works include poetry, dramas, and criticisms. =Wordsworth= +(1770-1850). See the poem, _Memorial Verses_, of this volume. + +=35. Mozart= (1766-1791), =Beethoven= (1770-1827), =Mendelssohn= +(1809-1847). Noted musicians and composers. + +=42. south.= Warm. + +=43-48.= Cyclops Polyphemus, famous in the story of Ulysses, was +a persistent and jealous suitor of Galatea, the fairest of sea +divinities. So ardent was he in his wooings, that he would leave his +flocks to wander at will, while he sang his uncouth lays from the +hilltops to Galatea in the bay below. Her only answers were words of +scorn and mockery. See Andrew Lang's translation of Theocritus, Idyl +VI, for further account. + +=70-76. Abbey towers.= That is, Westminster Abbey, a mile's distance +to the south and east of Hyde Park. The abbey is built in the form of +a cross, the body or lower part of which is termed the nave (l. 73). +The upper portion is occupied by the choir, the anthems of which, with +their organ accompaniments, are alluded to in ll. 74-77. + +=89-106. Miserere Domine!= _Lord, have mercy!_ These words are from +the service of the Church of England. The meaning in these lines is +that Beethoven, in his masterpieces, has transferred the thoughts and +feelings, above inadequately expressed in words, into another and more +emotional tongue; that is, music. + +=107. Ride.= A famous driveway in Hyde Park, commonly called Rotten +Row. + +=119. vacant.= Thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection. + + "For oft, when on my couch I lie + In _vacant_ or in pensive mood." + --WORDSWORTH'S _Lines to the Daffodils_, ll. 19-20. + +=124. hies.= Hastens (poetical). + [193] +=130. painter and musician too!= Arnold held poetry to be equal to +painting and music combined. + +=140. movement.= Activities. Explained in the following lines. + +=163-210.= Note carefully the argument used to prove that poetry +interprets life more accurately and effectively than any of the other +arts. =Homer=, the most renowned of all Greek poets. The time in which +he lived is not definitely known. =Shakespeare= (1504-1616). + +Give the setting of the story. What was the topic of conversation? +What stand did the poet's friend take regarding poetry? Why turn to +Greece in considering the arts? What limitations of the painter's art +are pointed out by the poet? What is his attitude toward music? +What finally is "the poet's sphere," l. 127? Wherein then is poetry +superior to the other arts? Does the author prove his point by his +poem? Discuss the poem as to movement, diction, etc. + + + + + +QUIET WORK + +No poet, not even Wordsworth, was more passionately fond of nature +than Arnold. Note his attitude in the poem. + + +=1. One lesson.= What lesson? + +=4.= Discuss the use of the adjective "loud"; also "noisier," l. 7. + + +Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme +formula, and number of lines. See the introduction to Sharp's _Sonnets +of this Century_. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +Despite this tribute, Arnold considered Homer Shakespeare's equal, if +not his superior. What do Shakespeare's smile and silence imply on +his part? Explain in full the figure used. Do you consider it apt? Why +"Better so," l. 10? What is there in the poem that helps you to see +wherein lay Shakespeare's power to interpret life? Select the lines +which most impress you, and tell why. [194] + + + + +YOUTH'S AGITATIONS + +This sonnet was written in 1852, when the poet was in his thirtieth +year. + + +=5. joy.= Be glad. =heats.= Passions. + +=6. even clime.= That is, in the less emotional years of maturity. + +=12. hurrying fever.= See note, l. 6. + + + + +AUSTERITY OF POETRY + +=1. That son of Italy.= Giacopone di Todi. + +=2. Dante= (1265-1321). Best known as the author of _The Divine +Comedy_. + +=3. In his light youth.= Explain. + +=11. sackcloth.= Symbolic of mourning or mortification of the flesh. + + +Tell the story of the poem and make the application. Explain Arnold's +idea of poetry as set forth in ll. 12-14. + + + + +WORLDLY PLACE + +=3. Marcus Aurelius= (121-180 A.D.), commonly called "the philosopher." +A celebrated Roman emperor, prominent among the ethical teachers +of his time. Arnold himself has been aptly styled by Sharp an +"impassioned Marcus Aurelius, wrought by poetic vision and emotion to +poetic music." [195] + +=6. foolish.= In the sense of unreasonable. =ken.= The Scotch word +meaning sight. + +=7. rates.= Berates, reproves. + + +Give the poem's theme. What is implied by the word "even," l. 1? Does +the author agree with the implication? Why so? Discuss l. 5 as to its +meaning. Interpret the expressions "ill-school'd spirit," l. 11, and +"Some nobler, ampler stage of life," l. 12. Where finally are the aids +to a nobler life to be found? Do you agree with this philosophy of +life? + + + + +EAST LONDON + +=2. Bethnal Green.= An eastern suburb of London. + +=4. Spitalfields.= A part of northeast London, comprising the parishes +of Bethnal Green and Christchurch. + + +Image the scene. What is the purpose of the first four lines? Discuss +l. 6. What is the import of the preacher's response? What are the +poet's conclusions drawn in ll. 9-14? + + + + +WEST LONDON + +=1. Belgrave Square.= An important square in the western part of +London. + + +Tell the situation and the story of the poem. Why did the woman +solicit aid from the laboring men? Why not from the wealthy? Explain +ll. 9-11. What is the poet's final conclusion? + + + + [196] +MEMORIAL VERSES + +APRIL, 1850 + +Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in the Lake, District, April 23, 1850. +These verses, dedicated to his memory, are among Arnold's best-known +lines. For adequacy of meaning and charm of expression, they are +almost unsurpassed; they also contain some of the poet's soundest +poetical criticism. The poem was first published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for June, 1850, and bore the date of April 27. + + +=1. Goethe in Weimar sleeps.= The tomb of Goethe, the celebrated +German author (see note, l. 29, _Epilogue to Lessing's Laocooen_), is +in Weimar, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Weimar is +noted as the literary centre of Germany, and for this reason is styled +the German Athens. + +=2. Byron.= George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated English poet +of the French Revolutionary period, died at Missolonghi, Greece, where +he had gone to help the Greeks in their struggle to throw off the +Turkish yoke. He was preeminently a poet of passion, and, as such, +exerted a marked influence on the literature of his day. His petulant, +bitter rebellion against all law has become proverbial; hence the +term "Byronic." The =Titans= (l. 14) were a race of giants who warred +against the gods. The aptness of the comparison made here is at once +evident. In Arnold's sonnet, _A Picture at Newstead_, also occur these +lines:-- + + "'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry + Stormily sweet, his Titan-agony." + +=17. iron age.= In classic mythology, "The last of the four great ages +of the world described by Hesiod. Ovid, etc. It was supposed to +be characterized by abounding oppression, vice, and misery."-- +_International Dictionary_. The preceding ages, in order, were the +age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass. [197] + +=34-39=. Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was stung to death by a serpent, +and passed to the realm of the dead--Hades. Thither Orpheus descended, +and, by the charm of his lyre and song, persuaded Pluto to restore her +to life. This he consented to do on condition that she walk behind +her husband, who was not to look at her until they had arrived in +the upper world. Orpheus, however, looked back, thus violating the +conditions, and Eurydice was caught back into the infernal regions. + + "The ferry guard + Now would not row him o'er the lake again." + --LANDOR. + +=72. Rotha=. A small stream of the English Lake Region, on which Rydal +Mount, Wordsworth's burial-place, is situated. + + + + +THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY + +"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford who was by +his poverty forced to leave his studies there and at last to join +himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant +people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got +so much of their love and esteem that they discovered to him their +mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, +there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars who had formerly been of +his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the +gipsies, and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him +to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with +were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a +traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the +power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself +had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole +secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the +world an account of what he had learned."--GLANVIL'S _Vanity of +Dogmatizing_, 1661. [198] + + +=2. wattled cotes=. Sheepfolds. Probably suggested by Milton's + _Comus_, l. 344:-- + + "The folded flocks, penned in their _wattled cotes_." + +=9. Cross and recross=. Infinitives depending upon seen, l. 8. + +=13. cruse=. Commonly associated in thought with the story of Elijah +and the widow of Zarephath, 1 _Kings_, xvii: 8-16. + +=19. corn=. See note, l. 156, _Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=30. Oxford towers=. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire and the +seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities in Europe, +is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence of the +Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course the Isis). +It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the tops of +which command a fine view of the city with its domes and +towers."--BAEDEKER'S _Great Britain_, in his _Handbooks for +Travellers_. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, surely, +has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place +and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime, and more than one, +to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily." See also note, l. 19, +_Thyrsis_. + +=31. Glanvil's book=. See introductory note to poem. + +=42. erst=. Formerly. (Obsolete except in poetry.) + +=44-50=. See introductory note to poem. + +=57. Hurst=. Cumner (or Cumnor) Hurst, one of the Cumnor range of +hills, some two or three miles south and west of Oxford, is crowned +with a clump of cedars; hence the name "Hurst." + +=58. Berkshire moors=. Berkshire is the county, or shire, on the south +of Oxford County. + +=69. green-muffled=. Explain the epithet. + [199] +=74. Bablockhithe=. A small town some four miles west and a little +south of Oxford, on the Thames, which at that point is a mere stream +crossed by a ferry. This and numerous other points of interest in the +vicinity of Oxford are frequented by Oxford students; hence Arnold's +familiarity with them and his reference to them in this poem and +_Thyrsis_. See any atlas. + +=79. Wychwood bowers=. That is, Wychwood Forest, ten or twelve miles +north and west of Oxford. See note, l. 74. + +=83. To dance around the Fyfield elm in May=. Fyfield, a parish in +Berkshire, about six miles southwest of Oxford. The reference here is +to the "May-day" celebrations formerly widely observed in Europe, but +now nearly disappeared. The chief features of the celebration in Great +Britain are the gathering of hawthorn blossoms and other flowers, the +crowning of the May-queen and dancing around the May-pole--here the +Fyfield elm. See note, l. 74. Read Tennyson's poem, _The Queen o' the +May_. + +=91. Godstow Bridge=. Some two miles up the Thames from Oxford. + +=95. lasher pass=. An English term corresponding to our _mill race_. +The _lasher_ is the dam, or weir. + +=98. outlandish=. Analyze the word and determine meaning. + +=111. Bagley Wood=. South and west of Oxford, beyond South Hinksey. +See note, l. 125; also note, l. 74. + +=114. tagg'd=. That is, marked; the leaves being colored by frost. + +=115. Thessaly=. The northeastern district of ancient Greece, +celebrated in mythology. Here a forest ground near Bagley Wood. See +note, l. 111; also note, l. 74. + +=125. Hinksey=. North and South Hinksey are unimportant villages a +short distance out from Oxford in the Cumnor Hills. See note, l. 74. + [200] +=129. Christ Church hall=. The largest and most fashionable college +in Oxford; founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. The chapel of Christ +Church is also the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford. + +=130. grange=. Consult dictionary. + +=133. Glanvil=. Joseph Glanvil, 1636-1680. A noted English divine and +philosopher; author of a defence of belief in witchcraft. + +=140. red-fruited yew tree=. The yew tree is very common in English +burial-grounds. It grows slowly, lives long, has a dark, thick +foliage, and yields a red berry. See Wordsworth's celebrated poem, +_The Yew-Tree_. + +=141-170=. "This note of lassitude is struck often--perhaps too +often--in Arnold's poems."--DU PONT SYLE. See also _The Stanzas in +Memory of the Author of Obermann_. For the author's less despondent +mood, see his _Rugby Chapel_, included in this volume. + +=147. teen=. Grief, sorrow; from the old English _teona_, meaning +injury. + +=149. the just-pausing Genius=. Does the author here allude to death? + +=151. Thou hast not lived= (so). That is, as described in preceding +stanza. + +=152. Thou hadst one aim=, etc. What was the Scholar-Gipsy's _one_ +motive in life? + +=157-160. But thou possessest an immortal lot=, etc. Explain. + +=165. Which much to have tried=, etc. Which many attempts and many +failures bring. + +=180. do not we ... await it too=? That is, the spark from heaven. See +l. 171. + +=182-190=. Possibly Carlyle, although the author may have had in mind +a type rather than an individual. + +=208-209. Averse, as Dido did=, etc. Dido, the mythical queen of +Carthage, being deserted by her lover AEneas, slew herself. She +afterward met him on his journey through Hades, but turned from him in +scorn. + [201] + "In vain he thus attempts her mind to move + With tears and prayers and late repenting love; + Disdainfully she looked, then turning round + But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground, + And what he says and swears regards no more + Than the deaf rocks when the loud billows roar." + --DRYDEN'S _Translation_. + +For entire episode, see _AEneid_, vi, 450-476. + +=212. inviolable shade=. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. +Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this and the +preceding line. + +=214=. Why "silver'd" branches? + +=220=. dingles. Wooded dells. + +=231-250=. Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained +image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days of sick +unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. In the +course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt Hutton says of +this poem and this closing picture: "That most beautiful and graceful +poem on the _Scholar-Gipsy_ (the Oxford student who is said to have +forsaken academic study in order to learn, if it might be, those +potent secrets of nature, the traditions of which the gypsies are +supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a digression of the most vivid +beauty.... Nothing could illustrate better than this [closing] passage +Arnold's genius and his art.... His whole drift having been that +care and effort and gain and pressure of the world are sapping human +strength, he ends with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, +which exhibits human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could +quote poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant +digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of +melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is +still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to say, +but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the human +spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources +still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to +feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does not +teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it." [202] + +=232. As some grave Tyrian trader, etc=. Tyre, the second oldest and +most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a strong +competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean. + +=236. AEgean Isles=. The AEgean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean +lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the north, and +Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small islands, many of +which are famous in Greek mythology. + +=238. Chian wine=. Chios, or Scio, an island in the AEgean Sea (see +note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs. + +=239. tunnies=. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in the +Mediterranean Sea. + +=244. Midland waters=. The Mediterranean Sea. + +=245. Syrtes=. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, +the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, =soft Sicily=. Sicily +is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily." + +=247. western straits=. Strait of Gibraltar. + +=250. Iberians=. Inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, formed by +Portugal and Spain. + +What atmosphere is given the poem by the first stanza? What quest is +to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join himself to the +gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, then, did he continue +with them till his death? Why would he avoid others than members of +the gipsy crew? Why his pensive air? To what truth does the author +suddenly awake? How does the Scholar-Gipsy yet live to him? Explain +fully lines 180-200. Note carefully the author's contrast between the +life led by the Scholar-Gipsy and our modern life. Which is better? +Why? Make an application of the figure of the Tyrian trader. Is it +apt? Why used by the poet? Discuss the verse form used. Is it adapted +to the theme of the poem? [203] + + + + +THYRSIS + +A monody to commemorate the author's friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, who +died at Florence, 1861. + +Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding selection, +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, of which it is the companion piece, and, in a +sense, the sequel. It is one of the four great elegies in the English +language. + +Thyrsis is a name common to both ancient and modern literature. In +the Idyls of Theocritus it is used as the name of a herdsman; in the +Eclogues of Vergil, of a shepherd; while in later writings it has come +to mean any rustic. + +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), whose poetry is closely akin in spirit +to Arnold's, was a young man of genius and promise. He studied at both +Rugby and Oxford, where he and Arnold were intimately associated and +became fast friends. In 1869 his health began to fail, and two years +later he died in Florence, Italy, where he had gone in the hope of +being benefited by the climate. + +Arnold, in a letter to his mother dated April, 1866, says of his poem: +"Tell dear old Edward [Arnold] that the diction of the Thyrsis was +modelled on that of Theocritus, whom I have been much reading during +the two years this poem has been forming itself, and that I meant the +diction to be so artless as to be almost heedless. However, there is +a mean which must not be passed, and before I reprint this I will +consider well all objections. The images are all from actual +observation.... The cuckoo in the wet June morning, I heard in the +garden at Woodford, and all those three stanzas, which you like, are +reminiscences of Woodford. Edward has, I think, fixed on the two +stanzas I myself like best: 'O easy access,' and 'And long the way +appears.' I also like 'Where is the girl,' and the stanza before it; +but that is because they bring certain places and moments before +me.... It is probably too quiet a poem for the general taste, but I +think it will stand wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold +wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I think, +solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had long been +in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, and, when I +began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You say, truly, that +there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic side, in fact) which one +cannot deal with in this way.... Still, Clough had the idyllic side, +too; to deal with this suited my desire to deal again with that Cumner +country. Anyway, only so could I treat the matter this time. _Valeat +quantum_." [204] + + +=1.= Note how the tone of the poem is struck in the first line. + +=2. In the two Hinkseys.= That is, North and South Hinksey. See note, +l. 125, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=4. Sibylla's name.= In ancient mythology the Sibyls were certain +women reputed to possess special powers of prophecy, or divination, +and who claimed to make special intercession with the gods in behalf +of those who resorted to them. Do you see why their "name" would be +used on signs as here mentioned? + +=6. ye hills.= See note, l. 30, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + +=14. Ilsley Downs.= The surface of East and West Ilsley parishes, in +Berkshire, some twelve or fourteen miles south of Oxford, is broken by +ranges of plateau-like hills, known in England as _downs_. + +=15. The Vale.= White Horse Vale; the upper valley of the River Ock, +westward from Oxford. =weirs=. See note, l. 95, _The Scholar-Gipsy._ + [205] +=19. And that sweet city with her dreaming spires.= Arnold's intense +love for Oxford and the surrounding country appears in many of his +essays and poems. In the introduction to his _Essays on Criticism_, +Vol. I, occurs the following tribute: "Beautiful city! so venerable, +so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our +century, so serene! + + 'There are our young barbarians all at play!' + +And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments to +the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment of +the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, +keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, +to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from +another side?... Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and +unpopular names and impossible loyalties! what example could ever so +inspire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves, what teacher +could ever so save us from that bondage to which we are all prone, +that bondage which Goethe, in his incomparable lines on the death of +Schiller, makes it his friend's highest praise ... to have left miles +out of sight behind him: the bondage of 'was uns alle baendigt, Das +Gemeine'?" + +=20.= Compare with Lowell's lines on June, in _The Vision of Sir +Launfal_. + +=22-23.= Explain. + +=24. Once pass'd I blindfold here.= That is, at one time I could have +passed here blindfolded, being so familiar with the country. Can you +think of any other possible interpretation? + +=26-30.= Explain. + +=31-40.= Compare the thought here to that of Milton's _Lycidas_, ll. +23-38. A comparison of the two poems entire, in thought and structure, +will be found to be both interesting and profitable. =Shepherd-pipe= +(l. 35). The term =pipe=, also reed (l. 78), is continually used in +pastoral verse as symbolic of poetry and song. [206] + +=38-45. Needs must I lose them=, etc. That is, I must lose them, etc. +Arnold's great ambition was to devote his life to literature, which +circumstances largely prevented; while Clough was eager to take a more +active part in life, not being content with the uneventful career of a +poet, =irk'd= (l. 40). Annoyed; worried. =keep= (l. 43). Here used in +the sense of remain, =silly= (l. 45). Harmless; senseless. The word has +an interesting history. + +=46-50=. Like Arnold, Clough held lofty ideals of life, and grieved to +see men living so far below their privileges. This, with his loss +of faith in God, tinged his poetry with sadness. The storms (l. 49) +allude to the spiritual, political, and social unrest of the last of +the first half, and first of the last half, of the nineteenth century. + +=51-60. So ... So....= Just as the cuckoo departs with the bloom of +the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. =With blossoms red and white= +(l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common in English gardens. + +=62. high Midsummer pomps=. Explained in the following lines. + +=71. light comer=. That is, the cuckoo. Compare + + "O blithe New-comer." + --WORDSWORTH, _Lines to the Cuckoo_. + +=77. swains=. Consult dictionary. + +=78. reed=. See note, l. 35 of poem. + +=79. And blow a strain the world at last shall heed=. On the whole, +Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by the +reviewers. + +=80. Corydon=. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis, +shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music. + +=84. Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate=. Bion of Smyrna, Asia Minor, +a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent the later +years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was poisoned. +His untimely death was lamented by his follower and pupil, Moschus of +Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and genuine pathos. =ditty=. +In a general sense, any song; usually confined, however, to a song +narrating some heroic deed. [207] + +=85. cross the unpermitted ferry's flow=. That is, cross the river +of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to Hades. +Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry being +passed by mortals. See note, ll. 34-39, _Memorial Verses_; also ll. +207-210, _The Scholar-Gipsy_, of this volume. + +=88-89. Proserpine=, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the +underworld, was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as +the goddess of the spring. + +=90. And flute his friend like Orpheus=, etc. See note, ll. 34-39, +_Memorial Verses_. + +=94. She knew the Dorian water's gush divine=. The river Alpheus, +in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus--the country of the +Dorians--disappears from the surface and flows in subterranean +channels for some considerable part of its course to the sea. In +ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again to the surface in +central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite haunt of Proserpine, +as the fountain of Arethusa. + +=95-96. She knew each lily white which Enna yields=, etc. According to +Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers in the vale of Enna +when carried off by Pluto. + +=97. She loved the Dorian pipe=, etc. What reason or reasons can you +give for Proserpine's love of things Dorian? + +=106. I know the Fyfield tree=. See l. 83, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=109. Ensham, Sanford=. Small towns on the Thames; the former, some +four miles above Oxford; the latter, a like distance below. + +=123. Wytham flats=. Some three miles above Oxford, along the Thames. + [208] +=135. sprent. Sprinkled=. The preterit or past participle of _spreng_ +(obsolete or archaic). + +=141-150=. Explain. + +=155. Berkshire=. See note, l. 58, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=167. Arno-vale=. The valley of the Arno, a river in Tuscany, Italy, +on which Florence is situated. + +=175. To a boon ... country he has fled=. That is, to Italy. + +=177. the great Mother=. Ceres, the earth goddess. + +=181-190=. Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral +poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, +who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the +power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make +strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to +death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, +took upon himself the reaping contest with Lityerses, overcame him, +and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, +like the Linus-song, one of the early, plaintive strains of Greek +popular poetry, and used to be sung by the corn reapers. Other +traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph, who exacted from +him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and +was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, +raised him to heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from +which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly +sacrifices. See Servius, _Comment, in Vergil. Bucol_., V, 20, and +VIII, 68. + +=191-200=. Explain the lines. =Sole= (l. 192). See l. 563, _Sohrab and +Rustum_. =soft sheep= (l. 198). Note the use of the adjective _soft_. +Cf. _soft Sicily_, l. 245, _The Scholar-Gipsy_. + +=201-202. A fugitive and gracious light=, etc. What is the light +sought by the Scholar-Gipsy and by the poet? Beginning with l. 201, +explain the succeeding stanzas, sentence by sentence, to the close of +the poem. Then sum up the thought in a few words. + [209] +What is the author's mood, as shown by the first stanza? What is his +purpose in recalling the haunts once familiar to him about Oxford? +Why the mention of the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the significance of the +"tree" so frequently alluded to in the poem? Discuss stanzas 4 and 5 +as to meaning. To what is Thyrsis (Clough) likened in stanzas 6, 7, +and 8? Where, however, is there a difference? Apply ll. 81-84 to +Clough and Arnold. How do you explain the "easy access" of the Dorian +shepherds to Proserpine, l. 91? What digression is made in ll. +131-150? What is the poet's attitude toward life? Why will he not +despair so long as the "lonely tree" remains? What comparison does +he make between Clough and the Scholar-Gipsy? What is the "gracious +light," l. 201? Where found? What voice whispers to him amid the +"heart-wearying roar" of the city? What effect does it have upon him? +Does it give him courage or fortitude? Discuss the verse form and +diction of the poem. + + + + +RUGBY CHAPEL + +_Rugby Chapel_ (1857), one of Arnold's best-known and most +characteristic productions, was written in memory of his father, Dr. +Thomas Arnold, famous as the great head-master at Rugby. Dr. Arnold +was born at East Cowes in the Isle of Wight, June 13, 1795, and as a +boy was at school at Warminster and Winchester. In 1811 he entered +Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and having won recognition as a +scholar, was awarded a fellowship of the Oriel in 1815. Three years +later he settled at Laleham, where, in 1820, he married Mary Penrose, +daughter of Justice Penrose, and where, two years later, was born +Matthew, who was destined to win marked distinction among English men +of letters. In 1827 he was elected head-master at Rugby, and shortly +afterward began those important reforms which have placed him among +the greatest educators of his century. Chief among his writings is +his _History of Rome_, published in several volumes. In 1841 he was +appointed Regius Professor of History at Oxford. He died very suddenly +on Sunday, June 12, 1842, and on the following Friday his remains +were interred in the chancel of Rugby Chapel, immediately under the +communion table. [210] + +In his poem Arnold has drawn a vivid picture of a strong, helpful, +hopeful, unselfish soul, cheering and supporting his weaker comrades +in their upward and onward march--a picture of the guide and companion +of his earlier years; and in so doing he has preserved his father's +memory to posterity in a striking and an abiding way. + + +=1-13=. Note carefully the tone of these introductory lines, and +determine the poet's purpose in opening the poem in this mood. The +picture inevitably calls to mind Bryant's lines, _The Death of +Flowers_. + +=16. gloom=. The key-word to the preceding lines. Explain why it calls +to mind the poet's father. Keats makes a similar use of the word +_forlorn_ in his _Ode to the Nightingale_. + + "... forlorn. + Forlorn! the very word is like a bell + To toll me back from thee to my sole self." + +=30-33=. Discuss the figure as to its aptness. + +=37. shore=. A word common to hymns. + +=38-57=. Discuss the poet's idea of the future life as set forth in +these lines. Can you think of any other author or authors who have +held a like view? + +=58-59=. The poet asks this question only to answer it in the lines +following. Compare and contrast the two classes of men spoken of; +their aims in life and their achievements. Why is the path of those +who have chosen a "clear-purposed goal" pictured so difficult? Who are +they that start well, but fall out by the wayside? [211] + +=90-93=. Compare with Byron's description of a storm in the Alps, +Canto III, _Childe Harold_. + + "Far along, + From peak to peak, the rattling crags among + Leaps the live thunder." + +=98-101=. So unstable is the hold of the "snow-beds" on the mountain +sides that travellers passing beneath them are forbidden by the guides +to speak, lest their voices precipitate an avalanche. See ll. 160-169, +_Sohrab and Rustum_. + +=117-123=. What human frailties are indicated in the answer to the +host's question? Note the contrast in the succeeding lines. + +=124-144=. The imagery of these lines is drawn from Dr. Arnold's +life at Rugby. Under his care frequent excursions were made into the +neighboring Westmoreland Hills. Nothing perhaps gives a better idea of +the man than the description of his "delight in those long mountain +walks, when they would start with their provisions for the day, +himself the guide and life of the party, always on the lookout how +best to break the ascent by gentle stages, comforting the little ones +in their falls and helping forward those who were tired, himself +always keeping with the laggers, that none might strain their strength +by trying to be in front with him; and then, when his assistance was +not wanted, the liveliest of all--his step so light, his eye so +quick in finding flowers to take home to those who were not of the +party."--ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY. + +=171. In the rocks=. That is, among the rocks. + +=190. Ye=. Antecedent? + +=208. City of God=. + + "There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the _city of + God_." + --_Psalms_, xlvi: 4. + + * * * * * + + + +INDEX TO NOTES + +Abbey towers, 192. +Ader-baijan, 166. +AEgean Isles, 202, +Afrasiab, 156. +Agog, 188. +Ajax, 189. +Alcmena's dreadful son, 182. +All red ... bathed in foam, 170. +Aloof he sits, etc., 159. +And that ... more, 169, +Ariosto, 192. +Arno-vale, 208. +Art, 180. +Arthur's court, 169. +Art them not Rustum? 160. +Asopus, 181. +As some grave Tyrian trader, etc., 202 +As when some hunter, etc., 162. +At my boy's years, 156. +Attruck, 158. +_Austerity of Poetry_, 194. +Averse, as Dido did, etc., 200. + +Bablockhithe, 199. +Bagley Wood, 199. +Bahrein, 160. +Beethoven, 192. +Be govern'd, 160. +Belgrave Square, 195. +Bell, 166. +Berkshire moors, 198. +Bethnal Green, 195. +Blessed sign, 171. +Blow a strain the world at last shall heed, 206. +Bokhara, 157. +Bow'd his head, 161. +Breathed on by rural Pan, 178. +Broce-liande, 174. +Bruited up, 162. +Byron, 196. +By thy father's head, 160. + +Cabin'd, 177. +Cabool, 159. +Caked the sand, 163. +Casbin, 157. +Centaurs, 181. +Chambery, 176. +Chancel, 176. +Chatelaine, 170. +Chian wine, 202. +Chiel, 188. +Chisell'd broideries, 176. +Chorasma, 163. +Chorasmian stream, 181. +Christ Church hall, 199 +Cirque, 172. +City of God, 211. +Clusters of lonely mounds, 181 +Cobham, 187. +Common chance, 156. +Common fight, 156. +_Consolation_, 177. +Cool gallery, 177. +Corn, 158. +Corselet, 162. +Corydon,206. +Crest, 161. +Cross and recross, 198. +Cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, 207. +Cruse, 198. +Cunning, 162. +Curdled, 161. + +Dais, 176. +Dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 199. +Dante, 192. +Daphnis, 208. +Daulis, 185. +Dearer to the red jackals, etc., 162. +Destiny, 178. +Device, 160. +Dight, 160. +Dingles, 201. +Ditty, 207. +Dogg'd, 172. +Do not we ... await it too? 200. +_Dover Beach_, 183. + +_East London_, 195. +Empire, 174. +Ensham, 207. +_Epilogue to Rising's Laocooen_, 191. +Erst, 198. +Eternal passion! eternal pain! 185, +Eurydice, 197. +Even clime, 194.-- + +Falcon, 159. +Fane, 180. +Farringford, 187. +Faun with torches, 183. +Favour'd guest of Circe, 180. +Fay,170. +Fay, 174. +Fell-fare, 173. +Ferghana, 158. +Ferment the milk of mares, 157. +Fight unknown and in plain arms,159. +Find a father thou hast never seen,156. +First grey of morning fill'd the east, 155. +Fix'd, 158. +Flowers, 160. +Flute his friend, like Orpheus,' etc., 207. +Foliaged marble forest, 177. +Foolish, 195. +For a cloud, etc., 161. +Fretwork, 176. +Frore, 157. +Fugitive and gracious light, etc. 208. +Full struck, 161. + +Geist, 188. +_Geist's Grave_, 191. +Girl's wiles, 161. +Glad, 161. +Glancing, 161. +Glanvil, 200. +Glanvil's book, 198. +Glass, 162. +Gloom, 210. +Godstow Bridge, 199. +Goethe, 192. +Goethe in Weimar sleeps, 196. +Go to! 159. +Grand Old Man, 188. +Grange, 200. +Great Mother, 208. +Green isle, 169. +Green-muffled, 199. +Griffin, 162. +Gulls, 173. + +Hair that red, 164. +Haman, 157. +Happy Islands, 181. +Hark ... sun, 166. +Have found, 162. +Heap a stately mound, etc., 163. +Heaths starr'd with broom, 166. +Heats, 194. +Hebrides, 164. +Hector, 189. +Helen, 190. +Helm, 161. +Helmund, 163. +Hera's anger, 181. +Heroes, 182. +He spoke ... men, 159. +Hies, 193. +High Midsummer pomps, 206. +Hinksey, 199. +His long rambles ... ground, 170. +Hollow, 161. +Holly trees and juniper, 172. +Holy Lassa, 177. +Holy well, 166. +Homer, 193. +Homily, 191. +Honied nothings, 172. +How thick the bursts, etc., 185. +Huge world, 178. +_Human Life_,186. +Hurrying fever, 194. +Hurst, 198. +Hurtling Polar lights, 164. +Hydaspes, 161. +Hyde Park, 191. +Hyphasis, 161. + +Iacchus, 180. +Iberians, 202. +I came ... passing wind, 162. +I know the Fyfield tree, 207. +Ilsley Downs, 204. +Incognisable, 186. +Indian Caucasus, 159. +In his light youth, 194. +Inly-written chart, 186. +Inviolable shade, 201. +Iran, 159. +Irk'd, 206. +Iron age, 196. +Iron coast, 173. +Iseult, 169. +Is Merlin prisoner, etc., 174. +_Isolation_, 186. +Is she not come? 168. +Ivy-cinctured, 179. + +Jaxartes, 158. +Joppa, 164. +Joy, 194. +Just-pausing Genius, 200. + +Kai Khosroo, 159. +_Kaiser Dead_, 187. +Kalmucks, 158. +Kara Kul, 157. +Keep, 206. +Ken, 195. +Kept uninfringed my nature's law, 186. +Khiva, 157. +Khorassan, 158. +Kindled, 161. +King Marc, 169. +Kipchak, 158. +Kirghizzes, 158. +Kohik, 163. +Kuzzaks, 158. + +Lapithae, 182. +Lasher pass, 199. +Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard, 170. +Leads, 177. +Leaguer, 171. +Leper recollect, 164. +Light comer, 206. +Like that autumn star, 161. +Like that bold Caesar, etc., 173. +_Lines Written in Kensington Gardens_, 178. +Lion's heart, 159. +Lions sleeping, 180. +Lips that rarely form them now, 191. +Lityerses, 208. +Loud Tyntagel's hill, 169. +Lovely orphan child, 170. +Luminous home, 163. +Lyoness, 169. + +Maenad, 183. +Mail, 166. +Marcus Aurelius, 194. +Margaret, 165. +Matin-chime, 176. +_Memorial Verses_, 196. +Mendelssohn, 192. +Midland waters, 202. +Milk-barr'd onyx-stones, 181. +Miserere Domine, 192. +Moon, 187. +Moonstruck knight, 171. +Moorghab, 163. +Mountain-chalets, 176. +Movement, 193 +Mozart, 192. +Muses, 180. +My princess ... good night, 171. + +Needs must I lose them, etc., 206. +Never was that field lost or that foe saved, 160. +New bathed stars, 163. +Northern Sir, 163. +Nymphs, 180. + +O'er ... sea, 169. +Of age and looks, etc., 162. +Old-world Breton history, 173. +Once pass'd I blindfold here, 205. +One lesson, 193. +One slight helpless girl, 159. +On that day, 163. +Orgunje, 163. +Orpheus, 197. +Outlandish, 199. +Oxford towers, 198. +Oxus, 155. +O wanderer from a Grecian shore, 184. + +Painter and musician too, 193. +_Palladium_, 189. +Palmers, 176. +Pamere, 156. +Pan's flute music, 180. +Passing weary, 175. +Pausanias, 191. +Pelion, 181. +Pen-bryn's bold bard, 187. +Peran-Wisa, 156. +Persepolis, 163. +Persian King, 157. +Perused, 160. +Petrarch, 192. +_Philomela_ 184. +Phoebus-guarded ground, 191. +Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate, 206. +Pleasaunce-walks, 169. +Posting here and there, 173. +Potsdam, 188. +Prick'd upon this arm, etc., 162. +Prickers, 176. +Prie-dieu, 173. +Priest, 166. +Prince Alexander, 174. +Prore, 186. +Proserpine, 207. + +_Quiet Work_, 193. + +Range, 180. +Raphael, 192. +Rates, 195. +Recks not, 171. +Red-fruited yew tree, 200. +Reed, 205. +Remember all thy valour, 161. +_Requiescat_, 177. +Ride, 192. +Right for the polar star, 163. +Roman Emperor, 171. +Rotha, 197. +Rout, 180. +_Rugby Chapel_, 209. +Rustum! 161. + +Sackcloth, 194. +_Saint Brandan_, 164. +Samarcand, 156. +Sandford, 207. +Sate, 159. +Savoy, 176. +Sconce, 172. +Scythian ... embers, 181. +Seal'd, 166. +Secret in his breast, 171. +See what the day brings, 180. +Seistan, 156. +_Self-Dependence_, 190. +Self-murder, 164. +Seneschal, 173. +Shakespeare, 193. +_Shakespeare_, 193. +She knew each lily white which Enna yields, etc., 207. +She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, 207. +She loved the Dorian pipe, etc., 207. +Shepherd-pipe, 205. +Shore, 161. +Sibylla's name, 204. +Silenus, 183. +Silly, 206. +Simois, 189. +Skye, 188. +Snow-haired Zal, 159. +Soft sheep, 208. +Soft Sicily, 202. +_Sohrab and Rustum_, 149. +Sole, 162. +Son of Italy, 194. +Sophocles, 183. +So ... So ..., 206. +Soudan, 174. +South, 192. +Spitalfields, 195. +Sprent, 208. +Stagshorn, 173. +Stem, 186. +Stranger-knight, ill-starr'd, 170. +Strange unloved uproar, 178. +Style, 162. +Sunk, 156. +Sun sparkled, etc., 161. +Swains, 206. +Syrtes, 202. + +Tagg'd, 199. +Tale, 160. +Tartar camp, 155. +Tasso, 192. +Teen, 200. +Tejend, 163. +That old king, 162. +That sweet city with her dreaming spires, 205. +Thebes, 181. +_The Church of Brou_, 176. +_The Forsaken Merman_, 165. +_The Last Word_, 188. +There, go! etc., 157. +_The Scholar-Gipsy_, 197. +Thessaly, 199. +_The Strayed Reveller_, 179. +Thine absent master, 191. +Thou had'st one aim, etc., 200. +Thou hast not lived, 200. +Thou possessest an immortal lot etc., 200. +Thou wilt not fright me so, 160. +Thracian wild, 184. +_Thyrsis_, 203. +Tiresias, 181. +Titans, 196. +To a boon ... country he has fled, 208. +Too clear web, etc., 185. +Toorkmuns, 158. +Tower'd, 160. +Transept, 176. +Tried, 160. +_Tristram and Iseult_, 167. +Troy, 182. +Tukas, 158. +Tunnies, 202. +Tyntagel, 169. + +Ulysses, 180. +Unconscious hand, 162. +Unknown sea, 182. +Unnatural, 161. + +Vacant, 192. +Vale, 204. +Vast, 160. +Vasty, 177. +Vaunt, 160. +Virgilian cry, 191. + +Wanders, 169. +Wattled cotes, 198. +Weirs, 204. +Welcomed here, 170. +Western straits, 202. +_West London_, 195. +What boots it, 171. +What endless active life, 178. +What foul fiend rides thee? 171. +Whether that ... or in some quarrel, 157. +Which much to have tried, etc., 200. +Wild white horses, 165. +Wimple, 174. +With a bitter smile, etc., 161. +With blossoms red and white, 206. +Wordsworth, 192. +_Worldly Place_, 194. +Wrack, 161. +Wychwood bowers, 199. +Wytham flats, 207. + +Xanthus, 189. + +Yellow Tiber, 177. +Yes, 187. +_Youth's Agitations_, 194. + +Zal, 157. +Zirrah, 163. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and +Other Poems, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTHEW ARNOLD POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 13364.txt or 13364.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/3/6/13364/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, Lesley Halamek and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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