Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems

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?