Matthew Arnold
Progress
The Master stood upon the mount, and taught. He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes; ВЂThe old law’, they said, вЂis wholly come to naught! Behold the new world rise! ’ ВЂWas it’,
The Future
A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light,
Philomela
Hark! ah, the nightingale – The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!-what pain! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing
Apollo Musagetes
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame; All Etna heaves fiercely Her forest-clothed frame. Not here, O Apollo! Are haunts meet for thee. But, where Helicon breaks down In cliff to
Worldly Place
Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a
Bacchanalia
The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, The mower’s cry, the dog’s
Self-Dependence
Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea. And a look
Morality
We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight will’d Can be through
Growing Old
What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone.
West London
Crouch’d on the pavement close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet
Requiescat
Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But
To a Republican Friend
God knows it, I am with you. If to prize Those virtues, priz’d and practis’d by too few, But priz’d, but lov’d, but eminent in you, Man’s fundamental life: if to despise The barren
Thyrsis, a Monody
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
Memorial Verses
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease. But one such death remain’d to come; The last poetic voice is dumb We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb. When Byron’s eyes
Cadmus and Harmonia
Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; and there The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, And by the sea, and in the brakes.