[ { "title": "Sohrab and Rustum", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,", "And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.", "But all the Tartar camp along the stream", "Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;", "Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long", "He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;", "But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,", "He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,", "And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,", "And went abroad into the cold wet fog,", "Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.", "", "Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood", "Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand", "Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow", "When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere;", "Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,", "And to a hillock came, a little back", "From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat,", "Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.", "The men of former times had crown'd the top", "With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now", "The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,", "A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.", "And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood", "Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,", "And found the old man sleeping on his bed", "Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.", "And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step", "Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;", "And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:--", "", "\"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.", "Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?\"", "", "But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:--", "\"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.", "The sun is not yet risen, and the foe", "Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie", "Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.", "For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek", "Thy counsel and to heed thee as thy son,", "In Samarcand, before the army march'd;", "And I will tell thee what my heart desires.", "Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first", "I came among the Tartars and bore arms,", "I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,", "At my boy's years, the courage of a man.", "This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on", "The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,", "And beat the Persians back on every field,", "I seek one man, one man, and one alone--", "Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,", "Should one day greet, upon some well fought field,", "His not unworthy, not inglorious son.", "So I long hoped, but him I never find.", "Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask.", "Let the two armies rest to-day; but I", "Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords", "To meet me, man to man; if I prevail,", "Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall--", "Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.", "Dim is the rumour of a common fight,", "Where host meets host, and many names are sunk;", "But of a single combat fame speaks clear.\"", "", "He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand", "Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:--", "", "O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine!", "Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,", "And share the battle's common chance with us", "Who love thee, but must press for ever first,", "In single fight incurring single risk,", "To find a father thou hast never seen?", "That were far best, my son, to stay with us", "Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,", "And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns.", "But, if this one desire indeed rules all,", "To seek out Rustum--seek him not through fight!", "Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms,", "O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son!", "But far hence seek him, for he is not here.", "For now it is not as when I was young,", "When Rustum was in front of every fray;", "But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,", "In Seistan, with Zal, his father old.", "Whether that his own mighty strength at last", "Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age,", "Or in some quarrel with the Persian King.", "There go!--Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes", "Danger or death awaits thee on this field.", "Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost", "To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace", "To seek thy father, not seek single fights", "In vain;--but who can keep the lion's cub", "From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son?", "Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires.\"", "", "So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left", "His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay;", "And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat", "He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet,", "And threw a white cloak round him, and he took", "In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword;", "And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap,", "Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul;", "And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd", "His herald to his side, and went abroad.", "", "The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog", "From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.", "And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed", "Into the open plain; so Haman bade--", "Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled", "The host, and still was in his lusty prime.", "From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;", "As when some grey November morn the files,", "In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes", "Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes", "Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,", "Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound", "For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd.", "The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,", "First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;", "Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come", "And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.", "Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south,", "The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,", "And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;", "Light men and on light steeds, who only drink", "The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.", "And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came", "From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;", "The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks", "Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards", "And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes", "Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste,", "Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray", "Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,", "Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;", "These all filed out from camp into the plain.", "And on the other side the Persians form'd;--", "First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd,", "The Ilyats of Khorassan, and behind,", "The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot,", "Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel.", "But Peran-Wisa with his herald came,", "Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front,", "And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks.", "And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw", "That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back,", "He took his spear, and to the front he came,", "And check'd his ranks, and fix'd them where they stood.", "And the old Tartar came upon the sand", "Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:--", "", "\"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear!", "Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.", "But choose a champion from the Persian lords", "To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man.\"", "", "As, in the country, on a morn in June,", "When the dew glistens on the pearled ears,", "A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy--", "So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,", "A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran", "Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.", "", "But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,", "Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,", "That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow;", "Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass", "Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,", "Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves", "Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries--", "In single file they move, and stop their breath,", "For fear they should dislodge the o'er hanging snows--", "So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.", "", "And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up", "To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came", "And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host", "Second, and was the uncle of the King", "These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said:--", "", "\"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up,", "Yet champion have we none to match this youth.", "He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart.", "But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits", "And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart.", "Him will I seek, and carry to his ear", "The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name.", "Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight.", "Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up.\"", "", "So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried.--", "\"Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said!", "Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man.\"", "", "He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode", "Back through the opening squadrons to his tent.", "But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran,", "And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd,", "Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents.", "Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay", "Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst", "Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around.", "And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found", "Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still", "The table stood before him, charged with food--", "A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread,", "And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate", "Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist,", "And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood", "Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand,", "And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird,", "And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said:--", "", "\"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight.", "What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink.\"", "", "But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said:--", "\"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink,", "But not to-day; to-day has other needs.", "The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze;", "For from the Tartars is a challenge brought", "To pick a champion from the Persian lords", "To fight their champion--and thou know'st his name--", "Sohrab men call him, but his birth is kid.", "O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's!", "He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart;", "And he is young, and Iran's chiefs are old,", "Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee.", "Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!''", "", "He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile:--", "\"Go to! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I", "Am older; if the young are weak, the King", "Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo,", "Himself is young, and honours younger men,", "And lets the aged moulder to their graves.", "Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young--", "The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I.", "For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame?", "For would that I myself had such a son,", "And not that one slight helpless girl I have--", "A son so famed, so brave, to send to war,", "And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,", "My father, whom the robber Afghans vex,", "And clip his borders short, and drive his herds,", "And he has none to guard his weak old age.", "There would I go, and hang my armour up,", "And with my great name fence that weak old man,", "And spend the goodly treasures I have got,", "And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame,", "And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings,", "And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more.''", "", "He spoke, and smiled; and Gudurz made reply:---", "\"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this,", "When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks", "Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks,", "Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say:", "Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame,", "And shuns to peril it with younger men.\"", "", "And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:--", "\"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words?", "Thou knowest better words than this to say.", "What is one more, one less, obscure or famed,", "Valiant or craven, young or old, to me?", "Are not they mortal, am not I myself?", "But who for men of nought would do great deeds?", "Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame!", "But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms;", "Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd", "In single fight with any mortal man.\"", "", "He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran", "Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy--", "Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came.", "But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd", "His followers in, and bade them bring his arms,", "And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose", "Were plain, and on his shield was no device,", "Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold,", "And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume", "Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume.", "So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse,", "Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel--", "Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth,", "The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once", "Did in Bokhara by the river find", "A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home,", "And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest,", "Dight with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green", "Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd", "All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know.", "So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd", "The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd.", "And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts", "Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was.", "And dear as the wet diver to the eyes", "Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore,", "By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf,", "Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night,", "Having made up his tale of precious pearls,", "Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands--", "So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came.", "", "And Rustum to the Persian front advanced,", "And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came.", "And as afield the reapers cut a swath", "Down through the middle of a rich man's corn,", "And on each side are squares of standing corn,", "And in the midst a stubble, short and bare--", "So on each side were squares of men, with spears", "Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand.", "And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast", "His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw", "Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came.", "", "As some rich woman, on a winter's morn,", "Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge", "Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire--", "At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn,", "When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes--", "And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts", "Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed", "The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar", "Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth", "All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused", "His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was.", "For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd;", "Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,", "Which in a queen's secluded garden throws", "Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,", "By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound--", "So slender Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd.", "And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul", "As he beheld him coming; and he stood,", "And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:--", "", "\"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft,", "And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold!", "Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave.", "Behold me! I am vast, and clad in iron,", "And tried; and I have stood on many a field", "Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe--", "Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.", "O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?", "Be govern'd! quit the Tartar host, and come", "To Iran, and be as my son to me,", "And fight beneath my banner till I die!", "There are no youths in Iran brave as thou.\"", "", "So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice,", "The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw", "His giant figure planted on the sand,", "Sole, like some single tower, which a chief", "Hath builded on the waste in former years", "Against the robbers; and he saw that head,", "Streak'd with its first grey hairs;--hope filled his soul,", "And he ran forward and embraced his knees", "And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said:--", "", "\"O, by thy father's head! by thine own soul!", "Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?\"", "", "But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,", "And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul:--", "", "\"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean!", "False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys.", "For if I now confess this thing he asks,", "And hide it not, but say: Rustum is here!", "He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,", "But he will find some pretext not to fight,", "And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts,", "A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way.", "And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall,", "In Samarcand, he will arise and cry:", "`I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd", "Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords", "To cope with me in single fight; but they", "Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I", "Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.'", "So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud;", "Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me.\"", "", "And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:--", "'Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus", "Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd", "By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield!", "Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?", "Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee", "For well I know, that did great Rustum stand", "Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd,", "There would be then no talk of fighting more.", "But being what I am, I tell thee this--", "Do thou record it in thine inmost soul:", "Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield,", "Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds", "Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods,", "Oxus in summer wash them all away.\"", "", "He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet:--", "\"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so!", "I am no girl, to be made pale by words.", "Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand", "Here on this field, there were no fighting then.", "But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here.", "Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I,", "And thou art proved, I know, and I am young--", "But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven.", "And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure", "Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know.", "For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,", "Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate,", "Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.", "And whether it will heave us up to land,", "Or whether it will roll us out to sea,", "Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death,", "We know not, and no search will make us know;", "Only the event will teach us in its hour.\"", "", "He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd", "His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came,", "As on some partridge in the corn a hawk,", "That long has tower'd in the airy clouds,", "Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come,", "And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear", "Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand,", "Which it sent flying wide;--then Sohrab threw", "In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; sharp rang,", "The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear.", "And Rustum seized his club, which none but he", "Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge,", "Still rough--like those which men in treeless plains", "To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers,", "Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up", "By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time", "Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack,", "And strewn the channels with torn boughs--so huge", "The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck", "One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside,", "Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came", "Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand.", "And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell", "To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand;", "And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword,", "And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay", "Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand;", "But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword,", "But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:--", "", "\"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will float", "Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones.", "But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I;", "No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul.", "Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so!", "Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul?", "Boy as I am, I have seen battles too--", "Have waded foremost in their bloody waves,", "And heard their hollow roar of dying men;", "But never was my heart thus touch'd before.", "Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart?", "O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven!", "Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears,", "And make a truce, and sit upon this sand,", "And pledge each other in red wine, like friends,", "And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds.", "There are enough foes in the Persian host,", "Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang;", "Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou", "Mayst fight; fight them, when they confront thy spear!", "But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!\"", "", "He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen,", "And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club", "He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear,", "Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand", "Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,", "The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd", "His stately crest, and dimm'd his glittering arms.", "His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice", "Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way.--", "", "\"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands!", "Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words!", "Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more!", "Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now", "With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance;", "But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance", "Of battle, and with me, who make no play", "Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand.", "Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine!", "Remember all thy valour; try thy feints", "And cunning! all the pity I had is gone;", "Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts", "With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles.\"", "", "He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,", "And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd", "Together, as two eagles on one prey", "Come rushing down together from the clouds,", "One from the east, one from the west; their shields", "Dash'd with a clang together, and a din", "Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters", "Make often in the forest's heart at morn,", "Of hewing axes, crashing trees--such blows", "Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd.", "And you would say that sun and stars took part", "In that unnatural conflict; for a cloud", "Grew suddenly in Heaven, and dark'd the sun", "Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose", "Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain,", "And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair.", "In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone;", "For both the on-looking hosts on either hand", "Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,", "And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream.", "But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes", "And labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shield", "Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear", "Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin,", "And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan.", "Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,", "Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest", "He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume,", "Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;", "And Rustum bow'd his head; but then the gloom", "Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,", "And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,", "Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry;--", "No horse's cry was that, most like the roar", "Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day", "Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side,", "And comes at night to die upon the sand.", "The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,", "And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream.", "But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on,", "And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd", "His head; but this time all the blade, like glass,", "Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm,", "And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone.", "Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes", "Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear,", "And shouted: Rustum!--Sohrab heard that shout,", "And shrank amazed; back he recoil'd one step,", "And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form,", "And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd", "His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side.", "He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground;", "And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,", "And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all", "The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair--", "Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet,", "And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.", "", "Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began:--", "\"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill", "A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse", "And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent.", "Or else that the great Rustum would come down", "Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move", "His heart to take a gift, and let thee go.", "And then that all the Tartar host would praise", "Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,", "To glad thy father in his weak old age.", "Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!", "Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be", "Than to thy friends, and to thy father old.\"", "", "And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:--", "\"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.", "Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!", "No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.", "For were I match'd with ten such men as thee,", "And I were that which till to-day I was,", "They should be lying here, I standing there.", "But that belovиd name unnerved my arm--", "That name, and something, I confess, in thee,", "Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield", "Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe.", "And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate.", "But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear:", "The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!", "My father, whom I seek through all the world,", "He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!\"", "", "As when some hunter in the spring hath found", "A breeding eagle sitting on her nest,", "Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,", "And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,", "And follow'd her to find her where she fell", "Far off;--anon her mate comes winging back", "From hunting, and a great way off descries", "His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks", "His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps", "Circles above his eyry, with loud screams", "Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she", "Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,", "In some far stony gorge out of his ken,", "A heap of fluttering feathers--never more", "Shall the lake glass her, flying over it;", "Never the black and dripping precipices", "Echo her stormy scream as she sails by--", "As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,", "So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood", "Over his dying son, and knew him not.", "", "But, with a cold, incredulous voice, he said:--", "\"What prate is this of fathers and revenge?", "The mighty Rustum never had a son.\"", "", "And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:--", "\"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I.", "Surely the news will one day reach his ear,", "Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long,", "Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;", "And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap", "To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.", "Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!", "What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?", "Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen!", "Yet him I pity not so much, but her,", "My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells", "With that old king, her father, who grows grey", "With age, and rules over the valiant Koords.", "Her most I pity, who no more will see", "Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp,", "With spoils and honour, when the war is done.", "But a dark rumour will be bruited up,", "From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;", "And then will that defenceless woman learn", "That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,", "But that in battle with a nameless foe,", "By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.\"", "", "He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud,", "Thinking of her he left, and his own death.", "He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought.", "Nor did he yet believe it was his son", "Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew;", "For he had had sure tidings that the babe,", "Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,", "Had been a puny girl, no boy at all--", "So that sad mother sent him word, for fear", "Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms.", "And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took,", "By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son;", "Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.", "So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought", "And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide", "Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore", "At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes;", "For he remember'd his own early youth,", "And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,", "The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries", "A far, bright city, smitten by the sun,", "Through many rolling clouds---so Rustum saw", "His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;", "And that old king, her father, who loved well", "His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child", "With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,", "They three, in that long-distant summer-time--", "The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt", "And hound, and morn on those delightful hills", "In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth,", "Of age and looks to be his own dear son,", "Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand,", "Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe", "Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,", "Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,", "And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,", "On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay,", "Lovely in death, upon the common sand.", "And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:--", "", "\"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son", "Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved!", "Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men", "Have told thee false--thou art not Rustum's son.", "For Rustum had no son; one child he had--", "But one--a girl; who with her mother now", "Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us--", "Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.\"", "", "But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath: for now", "The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce,", "And he desired to draw forth the steel,", "And let the blood flow free, and so to die--", "But first he would convince his stubborn foe;", "And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:--", "", "\"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words?", "Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,", "And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.", "I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm I bear", "That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,", "That she might prick it on the babe she bore.\"", "", "He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,", "And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand", "Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand,", "That the hard iron corslet clank'd aloud;", "And to his heart he press'd the other hand,", "And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:--", "", "Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie!", "If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son.\"", "", "Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed", "His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,", "And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points", "Prick'd; as a cunning workman, in Pekin,", "Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,", "An emperor's gift--at early morn he paints,", "And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp", "Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands--", "So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd", "On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.", "It was that griffin, which of old rear'd Zal,", "Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,", "A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks;", "Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved--", "Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign.", "And Sohrab bared that image on his arm,", "And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes,", "And then he touch'd it with his hand and said:--", "", "\"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign", "Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?\"", "", "He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood", "Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry:", "O boy--thy father!--and his voice choked there.", "And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes,", "And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.", "But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast", "His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips,", "And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,", "Trying to call him back to life; and life", "Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,", "And they stood wide with horror; and he seized", "In both his hands the dust which lay around,", "And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,--", "His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;", "And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,", "And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword,", "To draw it, and for ever let life out.", "But Sohrab saw his thoughts, and held his hands", "And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:--", "", "\"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day", "The doom which at my birth was written down", "In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.", "Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,", "When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,", "I know it! but fate trod those promptings down", "Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged", "The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear.", "But let us speak no more of this! I find", "My father; let me feel that I have found!", "Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take", "My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,", "And wash them with thy tears, and say: My son!", "Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life", "And swift; for like the lightning to this field", "I came, and like the wind I go away--", "Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.", "But it was writ in Heaven that this should be.\"", "", "So said he, and his voice released the heart", "Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast", "His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,", "And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts,", "When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse,", "With his head bowing to the ground and mane", "Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe", "First to the one then to the other moved", "His head, as if enquiring what their grief", "Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,", "The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked the sand.", "But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:--", "", "\"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet", "Should first have rotted on their nimble joints,", "Or ere they brought thy master to this field!\"", "", "But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said;--", "\"Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days", "My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,", "My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,", "That I should one day find thy lord and thee.", "Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!", "O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;", "For thou has gone where I shall never go,", "And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home.", "And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan", "And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake", "Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself", "Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,", "Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine,", "And said; O Ruksh! bear Rustrum well!--but I", "Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face,", "Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,", "Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;", "But lodged among my father's foes, and seen", "Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,", "Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,", "And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk", "The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend,", "Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,", "The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream,", "The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.\"", "", "Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:--", "\"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me!", "Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt", "Roll, tumbling in the current o'er my head!\"", "", "But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:--", "\"Desire not that, my father! thou must live.", "For some are born to do great deeds, and live,", "As some are born to be obscured, and die.", "Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,", "And reap a second glory in thine age;", "Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.", "But come! thou seest this great host of men", "Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!", "Let me entreat for them; what have they done?", "They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star.", "Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.", "But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,", "But carry me with thee to Seistan,", "And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,", "Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends.", "And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,", "And heap a stately mound above my bones,", "And plant a far-seen pillar over all.", "That so the passing horseman on the waste", "May see my tomb a great way off, and cry:", "Sohral!, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there,", "Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!", "And I be not forgotten in my grave.\"", "", "And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:--", "\"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,", "So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,", "And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,", "And carry thee away to Seistan,", "And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,", "With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.", "And I will lay thee in the lovely earth,", "And heap a stately mound above thy bones,", "And plant a far-seen pillar over all,", "And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.", "And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!", "Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!", "What should I do with slaying any more?", "For would that all whom I have ever slain", "Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes", "And they who were call'd champions in their time,", "And through whose death I won that fame I have--", "And I were nothing but a common man,", "A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,", "So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!", "Or rather would that I, even I myself,", "Might now be lying on this bloody sand,", "Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,", "Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou;", "And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan;", "And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;", "And say: O son, I weep thee not too sore,", "For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!", "But now in blood and battles was my youth,", "And full of blood and battles is my age,", "And I shall never end this life of blood.\"", "", "Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied.--", "\"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man!", "But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now,", "Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,", "When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship,", "Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo,", "Returning home over the salt blue sea,", "From laying thy dear master in his grave.\"", "", "And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said.--", "\"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea!", "Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.\"", "", "He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took", "The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased", "His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood", "Came welling from the open gash, and life", "Flow'd with the stream;--all down his cold white side", "The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd,", "Like the soil'd tissue of white violets", "Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank,", "By children whom their nurses call with haste", "Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low,", "His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay--", "White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps,", "Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,", "Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them,", "And fix'd them feebly on his father's face;", "Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs", "Unwillingly the spirit fled away,", "Regretting the warm mansion which it left,", "And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.", "", "So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;", "And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak", "Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.", "As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd", "By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear", "His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps", "Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side--", "So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.", "", "And night came down over the solemn waste,", "And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,", "And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night,", "Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,", "As of a great assembly loosed, and fires", "Began to twinkle through the fog; for now", "Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal;", "The Persians took it on the open sands", "Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;", "And Rustum and his son were left alone.", "", "But the majestic river floated on,", "Out of the mist and hum of that low land,", "Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,", "Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste,", "Under the solitary moon;--he flow'd", "Right for the polar star, past Orgunjи,", "Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin", "To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,", "And split his currents; that for many a league", "The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along", "Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles--", "Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had", "In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,", "A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last", "The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide", "His luminous home of waters opens, bright", "And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars", "Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea." ], "linecount": "892" }, { "title": "Hayeswater", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "A region desolate and wild.", "Black, chafing water: and afloat,", "And lonely as a truant child", "In a waste wood, a single boat:", "No mast, no sails are set thereon;", "It moves, but never moveth on:", "And welters like a human thing", "Amid the wild waves weltering.", "", "Behind, a buried vale doth sleep,", "Far down the torrent cleaves its way:", "In front the dumb rock rises steep,", "A fretted wall of blue and grey;", "Of shooting cliff and crumbled stone", "With many a wild weed overgrown:", "All else, black water: and afloat,", "One rood from shore, that single boat." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Thyrsis, a Monody", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!", "In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;", "The village street its haunted mansion lacks,", "And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,", "And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks--", "Are ye too changed, ye hills?", "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.", "", "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,", "The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?--", "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,", "She needs not June for beauty's heightening,", "", "Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!--", "Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power", "Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.", "Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour;", "Now seldom come I, since I came with him.", "That single elm-tree bright", "Against the west--I miss it! is it goner?", "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.", "", "Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,", "But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;", "And with the country-folk acquaintance made", "By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.", "Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd.", "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.", "", "It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest.", "He loved each simple joy the country yields,", "He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,", "For that a shadow lour'd on the fields,", "Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.", "Some life of men unblest", "He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.", "He went; his piping took a troubled sound", "Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;", "He could not wait their passing, he is dead.", "", "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", "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!", "", "Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?", "Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,", "Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,", "Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,", "Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,", "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.", "", "He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!", "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,", "And scent of hay new-mown.", "But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see;", "See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,", "And blow a strain the world at last shall heed--", "For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee!", "", "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;", "And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,", "And relax Pluto's brow,", "And make leap up with joy the beauteous head", "Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair", "Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air,", "And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.", "", "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,", "She knew each lily white which Enna yields", "Each rose with blushing face;", "She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.", "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!", "", "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,", "I know the Fyfield tree,", "I know what white, what purple fritillaries", "The grassy harvest of the river-fields,", "Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,", "And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;", "", "I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?--", "But many a tingle on the loved hillside,", "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,", "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.", "", "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,", "Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among", "And darting swallows and light water-gnats,", "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!", "", "Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night", "In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.", "I see her veil draw soft across the day,", "I feel her slowly chilling breath invade", "The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;", "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.", "", "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!", "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.", "", "But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss", "Of quiet!--Look, adown the dusk hill-side,", "A troop of Oxford hunters going home,", "As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!", "From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come.", "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!", "", "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,", "Yet, happy omen, hail!", "Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale", "(For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep", "The morningless and unawakening sleep", "Under the flowery oleanders pale),", "", "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,", "And now in happier air,", "Wandering with the great Mother's train divine", "(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,", "I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)", "Within a folding of the Apennine,", "", "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;", "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.", "", "There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here", "Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair.", "Despair I will not, while I yet descry", "'Neath the mild canopy of English air", "That lonely tree against the western sky.", "Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,", "Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!", "Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,", "Woods with anemonies in flower till May,", "Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?", "", "A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,", "Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.", "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--", "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.", "", "Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast 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.", "And this rude Cumner ground,", "Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,", "Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time,", "Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!", "And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.", "", "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--", "It fail'd, and thou wage mute!", "Yet hadst thou always 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.", "", "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,", "To chase fatigue and fear:", "Why faintest thou! I wander'd 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." ], "linecount": "240" }, { "title": "Obermann Once More", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "Glion?--Ah, twenty years, it cuts", "All meaning from a name!", "White houses prank where once were huts.", "Glion, but not the same!", "", "And yet I know not! All unchanged", "The turf, the pines, the sky!", "The hills in their old order ranged;", "The lake, with Chillon by!", "", "And, 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff", "And stony mounts the way,", "The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if", "I left them yesterday!", "", "Across the valley, on that slope,", "The huts of Avant shine!", "lts pines, under their branches, ope", "Ways for the pasturing kine.", "", "Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,", "Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,", "Invite to rest the traveller there", "Before he climb the pass--", "", "The gentian-flower'd pass, its crown", "With yellow spires aflame;", "Whence drops the path to Alliиre down,", "And walls where Byron came,", "", "By their green river, who doth change", "His birth-name just below;", "Orchard, and croft, and full-stored grange", "Nursed by his pastoral flow.", "", "But stop!--to fetch back thoughts that stray", "Beyond this gracious bound,", "The cone of Jaman, pale and gray,", "See, in the blue profound!", "", "Ah, Jaman! delicately tall", "Above his sun-warm'd firs--", "What thoughts to me his rocks recall,", "What memories he stirs!", "", "And who but thou must be, in truth,", "Obermann! with me here?", "Thou master of my wandering youth,", "But left this many a year!", "", "Yes, I forget the world's work wrought,", "Its warfare waged with pain;", "An eremite with thee, in thought", "Once more I slip my chain,", "", "And to thy mountain-chalet come,", "And lie beside its door,", "And hear the wild bee's Alpine hum,", "And thy sad, tranquil lore!", "", "Again I feel the words inspire", "Their mournful calm; serene,", "Yet tinged with infinite desire", "For all that might have been--", "", "The harmony from which man swerved", "Made his life's rule once more!", "The universal order served,", "Earth happier than before!", "", "--While thus I mused, night gently ran", "Down over hill and wood.", "Then, still and sudden, Obermann", "On the grass near me stood.", "", "Those pensive features well I knew,", "On my mind, years before,", "Imaged so oft! imaged so true!", "--A shepherd's garb he wore,", "", "A mountain-flower was in his hand,", "A book was in his breast.", "Bent on my face, with gaze which scann'd", "My soul, his eyes did rest.", "", "'And is it thou,' he cried, 'so long", "Held by the world which we", "Loved not, who turnest from the throng", "Back to thy youth and me?", "", "'And from thy world, with heart opprest,", "Choosest thou now to turn?--", "Ah me! we anchorites read things best,", "Clearest their course discern!", "", "'Thou fledst me when the ungenial earth,", "Man's work-place, lay in gloom.", "Return'st thou in her hour of birth,", "Of hopes and hearts in bloom?", "", "'Perceiv'st thou not the change of day?", "Ah! Carry back thy ken,", "What, some two thousand years! Survey", "The world as it was then!", "", "'Like ours it look'd in outward air.", "Its head was clear and true,", "Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,", "No pause its action knew;", "", "'Stout was its arm, each thew and bone", "Seem'd puissant and alive--", "But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone,", "And so it could not thrive!", "", "'On that hard Pagan world disgust", "And secret loathing fell.", "Deep weariness and sated lust", "Made human life a hell.", "", "'In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,", "The Roman noble lay;", "He drove abroad, in furious guise,", "Along the Appian way.", "", "'He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,", "And crown'd his hair with flowers--", "No easier nor no quicker pass'd", "The impracticable hours.", "", "'The brooding East with awe beheld", "Her impious younger world.", "The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd,", "And on her head was hurl'd.", "", "'The East bow'd low before the blast", "In patient, deep disdain;", "She let the legions thunder past,", "And plunged in thought again.", "", "'So well she mused, a morning broke", "Across her spirit grey;", "A conquering, new-born joy awoke,", "And fill'd her life with day.", "", "''Poor world,' she cried, 'so deep accurst,", "That runn'st from pole to pole", "To seek a draught to slake thy thirst--", "Go, seek it in thy soul!'", "", "'She heard it, the victorious West,", "In crown and sword array'd!", "She felt the void which mined her breast,", "She shiver'd and obey'd.", "", "'She veil'd her eagles, snapp'd her sword,", "And laid her sceptre down;", "Her stately purple she abhorr'd,", "And her imperial crown.", "", "'She broke her flutes, she stopp'd her sports,", "Her artists could not please;", "She tore her books, she shut her courts,", "She fled her palaces;", "", "'Lust of the eye and pride of life", "She left it all behind,", "And hurried, torn with inward strife,", "The wilderness to find.", "", "'Tears wash'd the trouble from her face!", "She changed into a child!", "'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood--a place", "Of ruin--but she smiled!", "", "'Oh, had I lived in that great day,", "How had its glory new", "Fill'd earth and heaven, and caught away", "My ravish'd spirit too!", "", "'No thoughts that to the world belong", "Had stood against the wave", "Of love which set so deep and strong", "From Christ's then open grave.", "", "'No cloister-floor of humid stone", "Had been too cold for me.", "For me no Eastern desert lone", "Had been too far to flee.", "", "'No lonely life had pass'd too slow,", "When I could hourly scan", "Upon his Cross, with head sunk low,", "That nail'd, thorn-crowned Man!", "", "'Could see the Mother with her Child", "Whose tender winning arts", "Have to his little arms beguiled", "So many wounded hearts!", "", "'And centuries came and ran their course,", "And unspent all that time", "Still, still went forth that Child's dear force,", "And still was at its prime.", "", "'Ay, ages long endured his span", "Of life--'tis true received--", "That gracious Child, that thorn-crown'd Man!", "--He lived while we believed.", "", "'While we believed, on earth he went,", "And open stood his grave.", "Men call'd from chamber, church, and tent;", "And Christ was by to save.", "", "'Now he is dead! Far hence he lies", "In the lorn Syrian town;", "And on his grave, with shining eyes,", "The Syrian stars look down.", "", "'In vain men still, with hoping new,", "Regard his death-place dumb,", "And say the stone is not yet to,", "And wait for words to come.", "", "'Ah, o'er that silent sacred land,", "Of sun, and arid stone,", "And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,", "Sounds now one word alone!", "", "'Unduped of fancy, henceforth man", "Must labour!--must resign", "His all too human creeds, and scan", "Simply the way divine!", "", "'But slow that tide of common thought,", "Which bathed our life, retired;", "Slow, slow the old world wore to nought,", "And pulse by pulse expired.", "", "'Its frame yet stood without a breach", "When blood and warmth were fled;", "And still it spake its wonted speech--", "But every word was dead.", "", "'And oh, we cried, that on this corse", "Might fall a freshening storm!", "Rive its dry bones, and with new force", "A new-sprung world inform!", "", "'--Down came the storm! O'er France it pass'd", "In sheets of scathing fire;", "All Europe felt that fiery blast,", "And shook as it rush'd by her.", "", "'Down came the storm! In ruins fell", "The worn-out world we knew.", "It pass'd, that elemental swell!", "Again appear'd the blue;", "", "'The sun shone in the new-wash'd sky,", "And what from heaven saw he?", "Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,", "Float on a rolling sea!", "", "'Upon them plies the race of man", "All it before endeavour'd;", "'Ye live,' I cried, 'ye work and plan,", "And know not ye are sever'd!", "", "''Poor fragments of a broken world", "Whereon men pitch their tent!", "Why were ye too to death not hurl'd", "When your world's day was spent?", "", "''That glow of central fire is done", "Which with its fusing flame", "Knit all your parts, and kept you one--", "But ye, ye are the same!", "", "''The past, its mask of union on,", "Had ceased to live and thrive.", "The past, its mask of union gone,", "Say, is it more alive?", "", "''Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,", "Your social order too!", "Where tarries he, the Power who said:", "See, I make all things new?", "", "''The millions suffer still, and grieve,", "And what can helpers heal", "With old-world cures men half believe", "For woes they wholly feel?", "", "''And yet men have such need of joy!", "But joy whose grounds are true;", "And joy that should all hearts employ", "As when the past was new.", "", "''Ah, not the emotion of that past,", "Its common hope, were vain!", "Some new such hope must dawn at last,", "Or man must toss in pain.", "", "''But now the old is out of date,", "The new is not yet born,", "And who can be alone elate,", "While the world lies forlorn?'", "", "'Then to the wilderness I fled.--", "There among Alpine snows", "And pastoral huts I hid my head,", "And sought and found repose.", "", "'It was not yet the appointed hour.", "Sad, patient, and resign'd,", "I watch'd the crocus fade and flower,", "I felt the sun and wind.", "", "'The day I lived in was not mine,", "Man gets no second day.", "In dreams I saw the future shine--", "But ah! I could not stay!", "", "'Action I had not, followers, fame;", "I pass'd obscure, alone.", "The after-world forgets my name,", "Nor do I wish it known.", "", "'Composed to bear, I lived and died,", "And knew my life was vain.", "With fate I murmur not, nor chide;", "At Sиvres by the Seine", "", "'(If Paris that brief flight allow)", "My humble tomb explore!", "It bears: Eternity, be thou", "My refuge! and no more.", "", "'But thou, whom fellowship of mood", "Did make from haunts of strife", "Come to my mountain-solitude,", "And learn my frustrate life;", "", "'O thou, who, ere thy flying span", "Was past of cheerful youth,", "Didst find the solitary man", "And love his cheerless truth--", "", "'Despair not thou as I despair'd,", "Nor be cold gloom thy prison!", "Forward the gracious hours have fared,", "And see! the sun is risen!", "", "'He breaks the winter of the past;", "A green, new earth appears.", "Millions, whose life in ice lay fast,", "Have thoughts, and smiles, and tears.", "", "'What though there still need effort, strife?", "Though much be still unwon?", "Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life!", "Death's frozen hour is done!", "", "'The world's great order dawns in sheen,", "After long darkness rude,", "Divinelier imaged, clearer seen,", "With happier zeal pursued.", "", "'With hope extinct and brow composed", "I mark'd the present die;", "Its term of life was nearly closed,", "Yet it had more than I.", "", "'But thou, though to the world's new hour", "Thou come with aspect marr'd,", "Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power,", "Which best befits its bard--", "", "'Though more than half thy years be past,", "And spent thy youthful prime;", "Though, round thy firmer manhood cast,", "Hang weeds of our sad time", "", "'Whereof thy youth felt all the spell,", "And traversed all the shade--", "Though late, though dimm'd, though weak, yet tell", "Hope to a world new-made!", "", "'Help it to fill that deep desire,", "The want which rack'd our brain,", "Consumed our heart with thirst like fire,", "Immedicable pain;", "", "'Which to the wilderness drove out", "Our life, to Alpine snow,", "And palsied all our word with doubt,", "And all our work with woe--", "", "'What still of strength is left, employ", "That end to help attain:", "One common wave of thought and joy", "Lifting mankind again!'", "", "--The vision ended. I awoke", "As out of sleep, and no", "Voice moved;--only the torrent broke", "The silence, far below.", "", "Soft darkness on the turf did lie.", "Solemn, o'er hut and wood,", "In the yet star-sown nightly sky,", "The peak of Jaman stood.", "", "Still in my soul the voice I heard", "Of Obermann!--away", "I turn'd; by some vague impulse stirr'd,", "Along the rocks of Naye", "", "Past Sonchaud's piny flanks I gaze", "And the blanch'd summit bare", "Of Malatrait, to where in haze", "The Valais opens fair,", "", "And the domed Velan, with his snows,", "Behind the upcrowding hills,", "Doth all the heavenly opening close", "Which the Rhone's murmur fills--", "", "And glorious there, without a sound,", "Across the glimmering lake,", "High in the Valais-depth profound,", "I saw the morning break." ], "linecount": "348" }, { "title": "The Strayed Reveller", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "1 Faster, faster,", "2 O Circe, Goddess,", "3 Let the wild, thronging train", "4 The bright procession", "5 Of eddying forms,", "6 Sweep through my soul!", "", "7 Thou standest, smiling", "8 Down on me! thy right arm,", "9 Lean'd up against the column there,", "10 Props thy soft cheek;", "11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,", "12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,", "13 I held but now.", "", "14 Is it, then, evening", "15 So soon? I see, the night-dews,", "16 Cluster'd in thick beads, dim", "17 The agate brooch-stones", "18 On thy white shoulder;", "19 The cool night-wind, too,", "20 Blows through the portico,", "21 Stirs thy hair, Goddess,", "22 Waves thy white robe!", "", "Circe.", "", "23 Whence art thou, sleeper?", "", "The Youth.", "", "24 When the white dawn first", "25 Through the rough fir-planks", "26 Of my hut, by the chestnuts,", "27 Up at the valley-head,", "28 Came breaking, Goddess!", "29 I sprang up, I threw round me", "30 My dappled fawn-skin;", "31 Passing out, from the wet turf,", "32 Where they lay, by the hut door,", "33 I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff,", "34 All drench'd in dew-", "35 Came swift down to join", "36 The rout early gather'd", "37 In the town, round the temple,", "38 Iacchus' white fane", "39 On yonder hill.", "", "40 Quick I pass'd, following", "41 The wood-cutters' cart-track", "42 Down the dark valley;-I saw", "43 On my left, through the beeches,", "44 Thy palace, Goddess,", "45 Smokeless, empty!", "46 Trembling, I enter'd; beheld", "47 The court all silent,", "48 The lions sleeping,", "49 On the altar this bowl.", "50 I drank, Goddess!", "51 And sank down here, sleeping,", "52 On the steps of thy portico.", "", "Circe.", "", "53 Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?", "54 Thou lovest it, then, my wine?", "55 Wouldst more of it? See, how glows,", "56 Through the delicate, flush'd marble,", "57 The red, creaming liquor,", "58 Strown with dark seeds!", "59 Drink, thee! I chide thee not,", "60 Deny thee not my bowl.", "61 Come, stretch forth thy hand, thee-so!", "62 Drink-drink again!", "", "The Youth.", "", "63 Thanks, gracious one!", "64 Ah, the sweet fumes again!", "65 More soft, ah me,", "66 More subtle-winding", "67 Than Pan's flute-music!", "68 Faint-faint! Ah me,", "69 Again the sweet sleep!", "", "Circe.", "", "70 Hist! Thou-within there!", "71 Come forth, Ulysses!", "72 Art tired with hunting?", "73 While we range the woodland,", "74 See what the day brings.", "", "Ulysses.", "", "75 Ever new magic!", "76 Hast thou then lured hither,", "77 Wonderful Goddess, by thy art,", "78 The young, languid-eyed Ampelus,", "79 Iacchus' darling-", "80 Or some youth beloved of Pan,", "81 Of Pan and the Nymphs?", "82 That he sits, bending downward", "83 His white, delicate neck", "84 To the ivy-wreathed marge", "85 Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves", "86 That crown his hair,", "87 Falling forward, mingling", "88 With the dark ivy-plants--", "89 His fawn-skin, half untied,", "90 Smear'd with red wine-stains? Who is he,", "91 That he sits, overweigh'd", "92 By fumes of wine and sleep,", "93 So late, in thy portico?", "94 What youth, Goddess,-what guest", "95 Of Gods or mortals?", "", "Circe.", "", "96 Hist! he wakes!", "97 I lured him not hither, Ulysses.", "98 Nay, ask him!", "", "The Youth.", "", "99 Who speaks' Ah, who comes forth", "100 To thy side, Goddess, from within?", "101 How shall I name him?", "102 This spare, dark-featured,", "103 Quick-eyed stranger?", "104 Ah, and I see too", "105 His sailor's bonnet,", "106 His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,", "107 With one arm bare!--", "108 Art thou not he, whom fame", "109 This long time rumours", "110 The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves?", "111 Art thou he, stranger?", "112 The wise Ulysses,", "113 Laertes' son?", "", "Ulysses.", "", "114 I am Ulysses.", "115 And thou, too, sleeper?", "116 Thy voice is sweet.", "117 It may be thou hast follow'd", "118 Through the islands some divine bard,", "119 By age taught many things,", "120 Age and the Muses;", "121 And heard him delighting", "122 The chiefs and people", "123 In the banquet, and learn'd his songs.", "124 Of Gods and Heroes,", "125 Of war and arts,", "126 And peopled cities,", "127 Inland, or built", "128 By the gray sea.-If so, then hail!", "129 I honour and welcome thee.", "", "The Youth.", "", "130 The Gods are happy.", "131 They turn on all sides", "132 Their shining eyes,", "133 And see below them", "134 The earth and men.", "", "135 They see Tiresias", "136 Sitting, staff in hand,", "137 On the warm, grassy", "138 Asopus bank,", "139 His robe drawn over", "140 His old sightless head,", "141 Revolving inly", "142 The doom of Thebes.", "", "143 They see the Centaurs", "144 In the upper glens", "145 Of Pelion, in the streams,", "146 Where red-berried ashes fringe", "147 The clear-brown shallow pools,", "148 With streaming flanks, and heads", "149 Rear'd proudly, snuffing", "150 The mountain wind.", "", "151 They see the Indian", "152 Drifting, knife in hand,", "153 His frail boat moor'd to", "154 A floating isle thick-matted", "155 With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants", "156 And the dark cucumber.", "", "157 He reaps, and stows them,", "158 Drifting--drifting;--round him,", "159 Round his green harvest-plot,", "160 Flow the cool lake-waves,", "161 The mountains ring them.", "", "162 They see the Scythian", "163 On the wide stepp, unharnessing", "164 His wheel'd house at noon.", "165 He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal--", "166 Mares' milk, and bread", "167 Baked on the embers;--all around", "168 The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd", "169 With saffron and the yellow hollyhock", "170 And flag-leaved iris-flowers.", "171 Sitting in his cart", "172 He makes his meal; before him, for long miles,", "173 Alive with bright green lizards,", "174 And the springing bustard-fowl,", "175 The track, a straight black line,", "176 Furrows the rich soil; here and there", "177 Cluster of lonely mounds", "178 Topp'd with rough-hewn,", "179 Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer", "180 The sunny waste.", "", "181 They see the ferry", "182 On the broad, clay-laden", "183 Lone Chorasmian stream;--thereon,", "184 With snort and strain,", "185 Two horses, strongly swimming, tow", "186 The ferry-boat, with woven ropes", "187 To either bow", "188 Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief", "189 With shout and shaken spear,", "190 Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern", "191 The cowering merchants, in long robes,", "192 Sit pale beside their wealth", "193 Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,", "194 Of gold and ivory,", "195 Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,", "196 Jasper and chalcedony,", "197 And milk-barred onyx-stones.", "198 The loaded boat swings groaning", "199 In the yellow eddies;", "200 The Gods behold him.", "", "201 They see the Heroes", "202 Sitting in the dark ship", "203 On the foamless, long-heaving", "204 Violet sea.", "205 At sunset nearing", "206 The Happy Islands.", "", "207 These things, Ulysses,", "208 The wise bards, also", "209 Behold and sing.", "210 But oh, what labour!", "211 O prince, what pain!", "212 They too can see", "213 Tiresias;--but the Gods,", "214 Who give them vision,", "215 Added this law:", "216 That they should bear too", "217 His groping blindness,", "218 His dark foreboding,", "219 His scorn'd white hairs;", "220 Bear Hera's anger", "221 Through a life lengthen'd", "222 To seven ages.", "", "223 They see the Centaurs", "224 On Pelion:--then they feel,", "225 They too, the maddening wine", "226 Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain", "227 They feel the biting spears", "228 Of the grim Lapithж, and Theseus, drive,", "229 Drive crashing through their bones; they feel", "230 High on a jutting rock in the red stream", "231 Alcmena's dreadful son", "232 Ply his bow;--such a price", "233 The Gods exact for song:", "234 To become what we sing.", "", "235 They see the Indian", "236 On his mountain lake; but squalls", "237 Make their skiff reel, and worms", "238 In the unkind spring have gnawn", "239 Their melon-harvest to the heart.--They see", "240 The Scythian: but long frosts", "241 Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp,", "242 Till they too fade like grass; they crawl", "243 Like shadows forth in spring.", "", "244 They see the merchants", "245 On the Oxus stream;--but care", "246 Must visit first them too, and make them pale.", "247 Whether, through whirling sand,", "248 A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst", "249 Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,", "250 In the wall'd cities the way passes through,", "251 Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,", "252 On some great river's marge,", "253 Mown them down, far from home.", "", "254 They see the Heroes", "255 Near harbour;--but they share", "256 Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,", "257 Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;", "258 Or where the echoing oars", "259 Of Argo first", "260 Startled the unknown sea.", "", "261 The old Silenus", "262 Came, lolling in the sunshine,", "263 From the dewy forest-coverts,", "264 This way at noon.", "265 Sitting by me, while his Fauns", "266 Down at the water-side", "267 Sprinkled and smoothed", "268 His drooping garland,", "269 He told me these things.", "", "270 But I, Ulysses,", "271 Sitting on the warm steps,", "272 Looking over the valley,", "273 All day long, have seen,", "274 Without pain, without labour,", "275 Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mжnad--", "276 Sometimes a Faun with torches--", "277 And sometimes, for a moment,", "278 Passing through the dark stems", "279 Flowing-robed, the beloved,", "280 The desired, the divine,", "281 Beloved Iacchus.", "", "282 Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!", "283 Ah, glimmering water,", "284 Fitful earth-murmur,", "285 Dreaming woods!", "286 Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling Goddess,", "287 And thou, proved, much enduring,", "288 Wave-toss'd Wanderer!", "289 Who can stand still?", "290 Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me--", "291 The cup again!", "", "292 Faster, faster,", "293 O Circe, Goddess.", "294 Let the wild, thronging train,", "295 The bright procession", "296 Of eddying forms,", "297 Sweep through my soul!" ], "linecount": "307" }, { "title": "The Buried Life", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,", "Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!", "I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.", "Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,", "We know, we know that we can smile!", "But there's a something in this breast,", "To which thy light words bring no rest,", "And thy gay smiles no anodyne.", "Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,", "And turn those limpid eyes on mine,", "And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.", "", "Alas! is even love too weak", "To unlock the heart, and let it speak?", "Are even lovers powerless to reveal", "To one another what indeed they feel?", "I knew the mass of men conceal'd", "Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd", "They would by other men be met", "With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;", "I knew they lived and moved", "Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest", "Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet", "The same heart beats in every human breast!", "", "But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb", "Our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?", "", "Ah! well for us, if even we,", "Even for a moment, can get free", "Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;", "For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!", "", "Fate, which foresaw", "How frivolous a baby man would be--", "By what distractions he would be possess'd,", "How he would pour himself in every strife,", "And well-nigh change his own identity--", "That it might keep from his capricious play", "His genuine self, and force him to obey", "Even in his own despite his being's law,", "Bade through the deep recesses of our breast", "The unregarded river of our life", "Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;", "And that we should not see", "The buried stream, and seem to be", "Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,", "Though driving on with it eternally.", "", "But often, in the world's most crowded streets,", "But often, in the din of strife,", "There rises an unspeakable desire", "After the knowledge of our buried life;", "A thirst to spend our fire and restless force", "In tracking out our true, original course;", "A longing to inquire", "Into the mystery of this heart which beats", "So wild, so deep in us--to know", "Whence our lives come and where they go.", "And many a man in his own breast then delves,", "But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.", "And we have been on many thousand lines,", "And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;", "But hardly have we, for one little hour,", "Been on our own line, have we been ourselves--", "Hardly had skill to utter one of all", "The nameless feelings that course through our breast,", "But they course on for ever unexpress'd.", "And long we try in vain to speak and act", "Our hidden self, and what we say and do", "Is eloquent, is well--but 't#is not true!", "And then we will no more be rack'd", "With inward striving, and demand", "Of all the thousand nothings of the hour", "Their stupefying power;", "Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!", "Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,", "From the soul's subterranean depth upborne", "As from an infinitely distant land,", "Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey", "A melancholy into all our day.", "Only--but this is rare--", "When a belov{'e}d hand is laid in ours,", "When, jaded with the rush and glare", "Of the interminable hours,", "Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,", "When our world-deafen'd ear", "Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd--", "A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,", "And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.", "The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,", "And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.", "A man becomes aware of his life's flow,", "And hears its winding murmur; and he sees", "The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.", "", "And there arrives a lull in the hot race", "Wherein he doth for ever chase", "That flying and elusive shadow, rest.", "An air of coolness plays upon his face,", "And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.", "And then he thinks he knows", "The hills where his life rose,", "And the sea where it goes." ], "linecount": "98" }, { "title": "The Scholar Gypsy", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;", "Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!", "No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,", "Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,", "Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head.", "But when the fields are still,", "And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,", "And only the white sheep are sometimes seen", "Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched green,", "Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!", "", "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,", "And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,", "Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—", "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—", "All the live murmur of a summer's day.", "", "Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped field,", "And here till sundown, 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;", "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.", "", "And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book—", "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,", "One summer-morn forsook", "His friends, and went to learn the gypsy-lore,", "And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood,", "And came, as most men deemed, to little good,", "But came to Oxford and his friends no more.", "", "But once, years after, in the country lanes,", "Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,", "Met him, and of his way of life enquired;", "Whereat he answered, that the gypsy-crew,", "His mates, had arts to rule as they desired", "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 learned, will to the world impart;", "", "But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.\"", "", "This said, he left them, and returned no more.—", "But rumours hung about the countryside,", "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,", "The same the gypsies wore.", "Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;", "At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,", "On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors", "Had found him seated at their entering,", "", "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 passed their quiet place;", "", "Or in my boat I lie", "Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats,", "'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,", "And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills,", "And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.", "", "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 Bablock-hithe,", "Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,", "As the punt's rope chops round;", "And leaning backward in a pensive dream,", "And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers", "Plucked in the shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,", "And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.", "", "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,", "Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,", "Or cross a stile into the public way.", "Oft thou hast given them store", "Of flowers—the frail-leafed white anemony,", "Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves,", "And purple orchises with spotted leaves—", "But none hath words she can report of thee.", "", "And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here", "In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,", "Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass", "Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames,", "To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass,", "Have often passed thee near", "Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown;", "Marked thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare,", "Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air—", "But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone!", "", "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", "For cresses from the rills,", "Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day,", "The springing pastures and the feeding kine;", "And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine,", "Through the long dewy grass move slow away.", "", "In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood—", "Where most the gypsies by the turf-edged way", "Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see", "With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey,", "Above the forest-ground called Thessaly—", "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 withered spray,", "And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.", "", "And once, in winter, on the causeway chill", "Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,", "Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge,", "Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow,", "Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge?", "And thou hast climbed the hill,", "And gained the white brow of the Cumner range;", "Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,", "The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall—", "Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange.", "", "", "But what—I dream! Two hundred years are flown", "Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,", "And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe", "That thou wert wandered from the studious walls", "To learn strange arts, and join a gypsy-tribe;", "And thou from earth art gone", "Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid—", "Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave", "Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave,", "Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade.", "", "- 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", "And numb the elastic powers.", "Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,", "And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,", "To the just-pausing Genius we remit", "Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been.", "", "Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so?", "Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire;", "Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead!", "Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire!", "The generations of thy peers are fled,", "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.", "", "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.", "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.", "", "Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,", "Light half-believers of our casual creeds,", "Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed,", "Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,", "Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled;", "For whom each year we see", "Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;", "Who hesitate and falter life away,", "And lose tomorrow the ground won today—", "Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?", "", "Yes, we await it!—but it still delays,", "And then we suffer! and amongst us one,", "Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly", "His seat upon the intellectual throne;", "And all his store of sad experience he", "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.", "", "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-lipped patience for our only friend,", "Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair—", "But none has hope like thine!", "Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,", "Roaming the countryside, a truant boy,", "Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,", "And every doubt long blown by time away.", "", "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 heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife—", "Fly hence, our contact fear!", "Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!", "Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern", "From her false friend's approach in Hades turn,", "Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!", "", "Still nursing the unconquerable hope,", "Still clutching the inviolable shade,", "With a free, onward impulse brushing through,", "By night, the silvered branches of the glade—", "Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,", "On some mild pastoral slope", "Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales", "Freshen thy flowers as in former years", "With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,", "From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!", "", "But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!", "For strong the infection of out 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.", "Soon, soon thy cheer would die,", "Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers,", "Adn 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.", "", "Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!", "- As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,", "Descried at sunrise and emerging prow", "Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,", "The fringes of a southward-facing brow", "Among the Aegaean isles;", "And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,", "Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,", "Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine—", "And knew the intruders on his ancient home,", "", "The young light-hearted masters of the waves—", "And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;", "And day and night held on indignantly", "O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,", "Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,", "To where the Atlantic raves", "Outside the western straits; and unbent sails", "There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,", "Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;", "And on the beach undid his corded bales." ], "linecount": "250" }, { "title": "Strayed Reveller, The", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "The Youth", "", "Faster, faster,", "O Circe, Goddess,", "Let the wild, thronging train", "The bright procession", "Of eddying forms,", "Sweep through my soul!", "Thou standest, smiling", "Down on me! thy right arm,", "Lean'd up against the column there,", "Props thy soft cheek;", "Thy left holds, hanging loosely,", "The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,", "I held but now.", "Is it, then, evening", "So soon? I see, the night-dews,", "Cluster'd in thick beads, dim", "The agate brooch-stones", "On thy white shoulder;", "The cool night-wind, too,", "Blows through the portico,", "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", "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;", "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", "The rout early gather'd", "In the town, round the temple,", "Iacchus' white fane", "On yonder hill.", "Quick I pass'd, following", "The wood-cutters' cart-track", "Down the dark valley;-I saw", "On my left, through the beeches,", "Thy palace, Goddess,", "Smokeless, empty!", "Trembling, I enter'd; beheld", "The court all silent,", "The lions sleeping,", "On the altar this bowl.", "I drank, Goddess!", "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,", "Through the delicate, flush'd marble,", "The red, creaming liquor,", "Strown with dark seeds!", "Drink, thee! I chide thee not,", "Deny thee not my bowl.", "Come, stretch forth thy hand, thee-so!", "Drink-drink again!", "", "", "The Youth.", "", "Thanks, gracious one!", "Ah, the sweet fumes again!", "More soft, ah me,", "More subtle-winding", "Than Pan's flute-music!", "Faint-faint! Ah me,", "Again the sweet sleep!", "", "", "Circe.", "", "Hist! Thou-within there!", "Come forth, Ulysses!", "Art tired with hunting?", "While we range the woodland,", "See what the day brings.", "", "", "Ulysses.", "", "Ever new magic!", "Hast thou then lured hither,", "Wonderful Goddess, by thy art,", "The young, languid-eyed Ampelus,", "Iacchus' darling-", "Or some youth beloved of Pan,", "Of Pan and the Nymphs?", "That he sits, bending downward", "His white, delicate neck", "To the ivy-wreathed marge", "Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves", "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,", "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?", "", "", "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?", "How shall I name him?", "This spare, dark-featured,", "Quick-eyed stranger?", "Ah, and I see too", "His sailor's bonnet,", "His short coat, travel-tarnish'd,", "With one arm bare!--", "Art thou not he, whom fame", "This long time rumours", "The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves?", "Art thou he, stranger?", "The wise Ulysses,", "Laertes' son?", "", "", "Ulysses.", "", "I am Ulysses.", "And thou, too, sleeper?", "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;", "And heard him delighting", "The chiefs and people", "In the banquet, and learn'd his songs.", "Of Gods and Heroes,", "Of war and arts,", "And peopled cities,", "Inland, or built", "By the gray sea.-If so, then hail!", "I honour and welcome thee.", "", "", "The Youth.", "", "The Gods are happy.", "They turn on all sides", "Their shining eyes,", "And see below them", "The earth and men.", "They see Tiresias", "Sitting, staff in hand,", "On the warm, grassy", "Asopus bank,", "His robe drawn over", "His old sightless head,", "Revolving inly", "The doom of Thebes.", "They see the Centaurs", "In the upper glens", "Of Pelion, in the streams,", "Where red-berried ashes fringe", "The clear-brown shallow pools,", "With streaming flanks, and heads", "Rear'd proudly, snuffing", "The mountain wind.", "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", "And the dark cucumber.", "He reaps, and stows them,", "Drifting--drifting;--round him,", "Round his green harvest-plot,", "Flow the cool lake-waves,", "The mountains ring them.", "They see the Scythian", "On the wide stepp, unharnessing", "His wheel'd house at noon.", "He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal--", "Mares' milk, and bread", "Baked on the embers;--all around", "The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd", "With saffron and the yellow hollyhock", "And flag-leaved iris-flowers.", "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,", "Furrows the rich soil; here and there", "Cluster of lonely mounds", "Topp'd with rough-hewn,", "Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer", "The sunny waste.", "They see the ferry", "On the broad, clay-laden", "Lone Chorasmian stream;--thereon,", "With snort and strain,", "Two horses, strongly swimming, tow", "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", "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,", "Jasper and chalcedony,", "And milk-barred onyx-stones.", "The loaded boat swings groaning", "In the yellow eddies;", "The Gods behold him.", "They see the Heroes", "Sitting in the dark ship", "On the foamless, long-heaving", "Violet sea.", "At sunset nearing", "The Happy Islands.", "These things, Ulysses,", "The wise bards, also", "Behold and sing.", "But oh, what labour!", "O prince, what pain!", "They too can see", "Tiresias;--but the Gods,", "Who give them vision,", "Added this law:", "That they should bear too", "His groping blindness,", "His dark foreboding,", "His scorn'd white hairs;", "Bear Hera's anger", "Through a life lengthen'd", "To seven ages.", "They see the Centaurs", "On Pelion:--then they feel,", "They too, the maddening wine", "Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain", "They feel the biting spears", "Of the grim Lapithж, and Theseus, drive,", "Drive crashing through their bones; they feel", "High on a jutting rock in the red stream", "Alcmena's dreadful son", "Ply his bow;--such a price", "The Gods exact for song:", "To become what we sing.", "They see the Indian", "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", "Parch them in winter-time on the bare stepp,", "Till they too fade like grass; they crawl", "Like shadows forth in spring.", "They see the merchants", "On the Oxus stream;--but care", "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,", "Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,", "On some great river's marge,", "Mown them down, far from home.", "They see the Heroes", "Near harbour;--but they share", "Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,", "Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;", "Or where the echoing oars", "Of Argo first", "Startled the unknown sea.", "The old Silenus", "Came, lolling in the sunshine,", "From the dewy forest-coverts,", "This way at noon.", "Sitting by me, while his Fauns", "Down at the water-side", "Sprinkled and smoothed", "His drooping garland,", "He told me these things.", "But I, Ulysses,", "Sitting on the warm steps,", "Looking over the valley,", "All day long, have seen,", "Without pain, without labour,", "Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mжnad--", "Sometimes a Faun with torches--", "And sometimes, for a moment,", "Passing through the dark stems", "Flowing-robed, the beloved,", "The desired, the divine,", "Beloved Iacchus.", "Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!", "Ah, glimmering water,", "Fitful earth-murmur,", "Dreaming woods!", "Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling Goddess,", "And thou, proved, much enduring,", "Wave-toss'd Wanderer!", "Who can stand still?", "Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me--", "The cup again!", "Faster, faster,", "O Circe, Goddess.", "Let the wild, thronging train,", "The bright procession", "Of eddying forms,", "Sweep through my soul!" ], "linecount": "308" }, { "title": "Mycerinus", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "'Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,", "Not for the thousands whom my father slew,", "Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,", "Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;", "Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,", "Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.", "", "'I will unfold my sentence and my crime.", "My crime--that, rapt in reverential awe,", "I sate obedient, in the fiery prime", "Of youth, self-govern'd, at the feet of Law;", "Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings,", "By contemplation of diviner things.", "", "'My father loved injustice, and lived long;", "Crown'd with grey hairs he died, and full of sway.", "I loved the good he scorn'd, and hated wrong--", "The Gods declare my recompense to-day.", "I look'd for life more lasting, rule more high;", "And when six years are measured, lo, I die!", "", "'Yet surely, O my people, did I deem", "Man's justice from the all-just Gods was given;", "A light that from some upper fount did beam,", "Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven;", "A light that, shining from the blest abodes,", "Did shadow somewhat of the life of Gods.", "", "'Mere phantoms of man's self-tormenting heart,", "Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed!", "Vain dreams, which quench our pleasures, then depart", "When the duped soul, self-master'd, claims its meed;", "When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows,", "Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close!", "", "'Seems it so light a thing, then, austere Powers,", "To spurn man's common lure, life's pleasant things?", "Seems there no joy in dances crown'd with flowers,", "Love, free to range, and regal banquetings?", "Bend ye on these, indeed, an unmoved eye,", "Not Gods but ghosts, in frozen apathy?", "", "'Or is it that some Force, too wise, too strong,", "Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile,", "Sweeps earth, and heaven, and men, and Gods along,", "Like the broad volume of the insurgent Nile?", "And the great powers we serve, themselves may be", "Slaves of a tyrannous necessity?", "", "'Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars,", "Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight,", "And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars,", "Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night?", "Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen,", "Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene?", "", "'Oh, wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be,", "Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream?", "Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see,", "Blind divinations of a will supreme;", "Lost labour! when the circumambient gloom", "But hides, if Gods, Gods careless of our doom?", "", "'The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak,", "My sand runs short; and--as yon star-shot ray,", "Hemm'd by two banks of cloud, peers pale and weak,", "Now, as the barrier closes, dies away--", "Even so do past and future intertwine,", "Blotting this six years' space, which yet is mine.", "", "'Six years--six little years--six drops of time!", "Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane,", "And old men die, and young men pass their prime,", "And languid pleasure fade and flower again,", "And the dull Gods behold, ere these are flown,", "Revels more deep, joy keener than their own.", "", "'Into the silence of the groves and woods", "I will go forth; though something would I say--", "Something--yet what, I know not; for the Gods", "The doom they pass revoke not, nor delay;", "And prayers, and gifts, and tears, are fruitless all,", "And the night waxes, and the shadows fall.", "", "'Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king!", "I go, and I return not. But the will", "Of the great Gods is plain; and ye must bring", "Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil", "Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise,", "The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days.'", "", "--So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn;", "And one loud cry of grief and of amaze", "Broke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,", "And turning, left them there; and with brief pause,", "Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way", "To the cool region of the groves he loved.", "There by the river-banks he wander'd on,", "From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees,", "Their smooth tops shining sunward, and beneath", "Burying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers;", "Where in one dream the feverish time of youth", "Might fade in slumber, and the feet of joy", "Might wander all day long and never tire.", "Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn,", "Rose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down,", "A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloom,", "From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove,", "Revealing all the tumult of the feast--", "Flush'd guests, and golden goblets foam'd with wine;", "While the deep-burnish'd foliage overhead", "Splinter'd the silver arrows of the moon.", "", "It may be that sometimes his wondering soul", "From the loud joyful laughter of his lips", "Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man", "Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale shape", "Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems,", "Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl,", "Whispering: A little space, and thou art mine!", "It may be on that joyless feast his eye", "Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within,", "Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength,", "And by that silent knowledge, day by day,", "Was calm'd, ennobled, comforted, sustain'd.", "It may be; but not less his brow was smooth,", "And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom,", "And his mirth quail'd not at the mild reproof", "Sigh'd out by winter's sad tranquillity;", "Nor, pall'd with its own fulness, ebb'd and died", "In the rich languor of long summer-days;", "Nor wither'd when the palm-tree plumes, that roof'd", "With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall,", "Bent to the cold winds of the showerless spring;", "No, nor grew dark when autumn brought the clouds.", "", "So six long years he revell'd, night and day.", "And when the mirth wax'd loudest, with dull sound", "Sometimes from the grove's centre echoes came,", "To tell his wondering people of their king;", "In the still night, across the steaming flats,", "Mix'd with the murmur of the moving Nile." ], "linecount": "127" }, { "title": "Buried Life, The", "author": "Matthew Arnold", "lines": [ "Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,", "Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!", "I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.", "Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,", "We know, we know that we can smile!", "But there's a something in this breast,", "To which thy light words bring no rest,", "And thy gay smiles no anodyne.", "Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,", "And turn those limpid eyes on mine,", "And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.", "", "Alas! is even love too weak", "To unlock the heart, and let it speak?", "Are even lovers powerless to reveal", "To one another what indeed they feel?", "I knew the mass of men conceal'd", "Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd", "They would by other men be met", "With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;", "I knew they lived and moved", "Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest", "Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet", "The same heart beats in every human breast!", "", "But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb", "Our hearts, our voices?--must we too be dumb?", "", "Ah! well for us, if even we,", "Even for a moment, can get free", "Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;", "For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!", "", "Fate, which foresaw", "How frivolous a baby man would be--", "By what distractions he would be possess'd,", "How he would pour himself in every strife,", "And well-nigh change his own identity--", "That it might keep from his capricious play", "His genuine self, and force him to obey", "Even in his own despite his being's law,", "Bade through the deep recesses of our breast", "The unregarded river of our life", "Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;", "And that we should not see", "The buried stream, and seem to be", "Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,", "Though driving on with it eternally.", "", "But often, in the world's most crowded streets,", "But often, in the din of strife,", "There rises an unspeakable desire", "After the knowledge of our buried life;", "A thirst to spend our fire and restless force", "In tracking out our true, original course;", "A longing to inquire", "Into the mystery of this heart which beats", "So wild, so deep in us--to know", "Whence our lives come and where they go.", "And many a man in his own breast then delves,", "But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.", "And we have been on many thousand lines,", "And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;", "But hardly have we, for one little hour,", "Been on our own line, have we been ourselves--", "Hardly had skill to utter one of all", "The nameless feelings that course through our breast,", "But they course on for ever unexpress'd.", "And long we try in vain to speak and act", "Our hidden self, and what we say and do", "Is eloquent, is well--but 't#is not true!", "And then we will no more be rack'd", "With inward striving, and demand", "Of all the thousand nothings of the hour", "Their stupefying power;", "Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!", "Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,", "From the soul's subterranean depth upborne", "As from an infinitely distant land,", "Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey", "A melancholy into all our day.", "Only--but this is rare--", "When a belov{'e}d hand is laid in ours,", "When, jaded with the rush and glare", "Of the interminable hours,", "Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,", "When our world-deafen'd ear", "Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd--", "A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,", "And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.", "The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,", "And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.", "A man becomes aware of his life's flow,", "And hears its winding murmur; and he sees", "The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.", "", "And there arrives a lull in the hot race", "Wherein he doth for ever chase", "That flying and elusive shadow, rest.", "An air of coolness plays upon his face,", "And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.", "And then he thinks he knows", "The hills where his life rose,", "And the sea where it goes." ], "linecount": "98" } ]