Part 4 — MATTHEW ARNOLD

COME, dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us away. This way, this way! Call her once before you go. Call once yet. In a voice that she will know: ‘Margaret! Margaret!’ Children’s voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother’s ear; Children’s voices, wild with pain. Surely she will come again. Call her once and come away. This way, this way! ‘Mother dear, we cannot stay.’ The wild white horses foam and fret. Margaret! Margaret! Come, dear children, come away down. Call no more. One last look at the white-wall’d town, And the little grey church on the windy shore. Then come down. She will not come though you call all day. Come away, come away. Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell? Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream; Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail, and bask in the brine; Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye? When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday? Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell. She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea. She said, ‘I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little grey church on the shore to-day. ’Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.’ I said, ‘Go up, dear heart, through the waves. Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.’ She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday? Children dear, were we long alone? ‘The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan. Long prayers,’ I said, ‘in the world they say. Come,’ I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay. We went up the beach, by the sandy down Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall’d town. Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, To the little grey church on the windy hill. From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs. We climb’d on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: ‘Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here. Dear heart,’ I said, ‘we are long alone. The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.’ But, ah! she gave me never a look, For her eyes were seal’d to the holy book. Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more. Come away, come down, call no more. Down, down, down; Down to the depths of the sea. She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: ‘O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy. For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well. For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun.’ And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the shuttle falls from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand; And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair. Come away, away, children. Come children, come down. The hoarse wind blows colder; Lights shine in the town. She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door; She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl. Singing, ‘Here came a mortal, But faithless was she: And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.’ But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow; When clear falls the moonlight; When spring-tides are low: When sweet airs come seaward From heaths starr’d with broom; And high rocks throw mildly On the blanch’d sands a gloom: Up the still, glistening beaches, Up the creeks we will hie; Over banks of bright seaweed The ebb-tide leaves dry. We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white, sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side— And then come back down. Singing, ‘There dwells a loved one, But cruel is she. She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea.’

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 the sea. Where the moon-silver’d inlets Send far their light voice Up the still vale of Thisbe, O speed, and rejoice! On the sward at the cliff-top, Lie strewn the white flocks; On the cliff-side, the pigeons Roost deep in the rocks. In the moonlight the shepherds, Soft lull’d by the rills, Lie wrapt in their blankets, Asleep on the hills. —What forms are these coming So white through the gloom? What garments out-glistening The gold-flower’d broom? What sweet-breathing Presence Out-perfumes the thyme? What voices enrapture The night’s balmy prime?— ’Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, The Nine. —The Leader is fairest, But all are divine. They are lost in the hollows. They stream up again. What seeks on this mountain The glorified train?— They bathe on this mountain, In the spring by their road. Then on to Olympus, Their endless abode. —Whose praise do they mention Of what is it told?— What will be for ever. What was from of old. First hymn they the Father Of all things: and then, The rest of Immortals, The action of men. The Day in his hotness, The strife with the palm; The Night in her silence, The Stars in their calm.

YES: in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown. Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know. But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour; O then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent! For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent. Now round us spreads the watery plain— O might our marges meet again! Who order’d that their longing’s fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cool’d? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled; And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.

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 her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be. Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound. But for peace her soul was yearning, And now peace laps her round. Her cabin’d, ample Spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. To-night it doth inherit The vasty hall of Death.

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 cropp’d grasses 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-blanch’d 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 cruise, 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. Screen’d is this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d 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 blue 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 that 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 Gipsy lore, And roam’d the world with that wild brotherhood, And came, as most men deem’d, to little good, But came to Oxford and his friends no more. But once, years after, in the country lanes, Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, Met him, and of his way of life inquired. Whereat he answer’d that the Gipsy 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 learn’d, will to the world impart: But it needs Heaven-sent moments for this skill!’ This said, he left them, and return’d no more, But rumours hung about the country-side, That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, The same the Gipsies 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-frock’d 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 pass’d their quiet place; Or in my boat I lie Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats, ‘Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, And watch the warm green-muffled Cumnor hills, And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats. For most, I know, thou lov’st retirèd 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 slow punt swings round: And leaning backwards in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Pluck’d in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers, And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream: 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-leaf’d, white anemone— Dark bluebells drench’d with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves— But none has 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-wing’d swallows haunt the glittering Thames, To bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass, Have often pass’d thee near Sitting upon the river bank o’ergrown: Mark’d thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air; But, when they came from bathing, thou wert gone. At some lone homestead in the Cumnor 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 watching, all an April day, The springing pastures and the feeding kine; And mark’d thee, when the stars come out and shine, Through the long dewy grass move slow away. In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood, Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edged way Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see With scarlet patches tagg’d and shreds of gray, Above the forest-ground call’d 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 wither’d 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 pass’d thee on the wooden bridge Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge? And thou hast climb’d the hill And gain’d the white brow of the Cumnor range; Turn’d once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, The line of festal light in Christ Church hall— Then sought thy straw in some sequester’d 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 wander’d from the studious walls To learn strange arts, and join a Gipsy 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 number’d 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, Vague half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill’d; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day— Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too? Yes, we await it, but it still delays, And then we suffer; and amongst us One, Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne; And all his store of sad experience he 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-lipp’d 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 country-side, 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’ertax’d, 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 silver’d 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 our mental strife, Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix’d thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made: And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! —As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, Descried at sunrise an emerging prow Lifting the cool-hair’d creepers stealthily, The fringes of a southward-facing brow Among the Ægean isles; And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, Green bursting figs, and tunnies steep’d in brine; And knew the intruders on his ancient home, The young light-hearted Masters of the waves; And snatch’d his rudder, and shook out more sail, And day and night held on indignantly O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale, 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.

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 in thy bewilder’d brain That wild, unquench’d, deep-sunken, old-world pain— Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy rack’d heart and brain Afford no balm? Dost thou to-night behold Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and sear’d eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister’s shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor Fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves Again—thou hearest! Eternal Passion! Eternal Pain!

OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill That to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place. Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil’d searching of mortality; And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure, Didst walk on earth unguess’d at. Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow, Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.

IS it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes; That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And while we dream on this Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose? Not much, I know, you prize What pleasures may be had, Who look on life with eyes Estranged, like mine, and sad: And yet the village churl feels the truth more than you; Who’s loth to leave this life Which to him little yields: His hard-task’d sunburnt wife, His often-labour’d fields; The boors with whom he talk’d, the country spots he knew. But thou, because thou hear’st Men scoff at Heaven and Fate; Because the gods thou fear’st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are. I say, Fear not! life still Leaves human effort scope. But, since life teems with ill, Nurse no extravagant hope. Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair.