The Forsaken Merman

COME, dear children, let us away;

Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay,

Now the great winds shoreward blow,

Now the salt tides seaward flow;

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 a 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.

'T will 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 spindle drops from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,

And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare;

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 coldly;

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."

Matthew Arnold

Quiet Work

ONE lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,

One lesson which in every wind is blown,

One lesson of two duties kept at one

Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--

Of toil unsever'd from tranquility!

Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows

Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,

Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,

Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,

Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;

Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,

Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

Matthew Arnold

Shakespeare

OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask -- Thou smilest and art still,

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling place,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foiled searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguessed at. -- Better so.

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

Matthew Arnold

The Buried Life

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 concealed

Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

I knew they lived and moved

Tricked 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 unchained;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordained!

Fate, which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be --

By what distractions he would be possessed,

How he would pour himself in every strife,

And well-nigh change his own identity --

That it might keep him 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 unexpressed.

And long we try in vain to speak and act

Our hidden self, and what we say and do

Is eloquent, is well -- but 'tis not true!

And then we will no more be racked

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 beloved 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-deafened ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed --

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.

Matthew Arnold

The Last Word

CREEP into thy narrow bed,

Creep, and let no more be said!

Vain thy onset! all stands fast.

Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!

Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

Let them have it how they will!

Thou art tired: best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?

Better men fared thus before thee;

Fired their ringing shot and passed,

Hotly charged - and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!

Let the victors, when they come,

When the forts of folly fall,

Find thy body by the wall!

Matthew Arnold

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 were shut in death,

We bow'd our head and held our breath.

He taught us little; but our soul

Had felt him like the thunder's roll.

With shivering heart the strife we saw

Of passion with eternal law;

And yet with reverential awe

We watch'd the fount of fiery life

Which served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:

Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.

Physician of the iron age,

Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

He took the suffering human race,

He read each wound, each weakness clear;

And struck his finger on the place,

And said: Thou ailest here, and here!

He look'd on Europe's dying hour

Of fitful dream and feverish power;

His eye plunged down the weltering strife,

The turmoil of expiring life--

He said: The end is everywhere,

Art still has truth, take refuge there!

And he was happy, if to know

Causes of things, and far below

His feet to see the lurid flow

Of terror, and insane distress,

And headlong fate, be happiness.

And Wordsworth!--Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!

For never has such soothing voice

Been to your shadowy world convey'd,

Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade

Heard the clear song of Orpheus come

Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.

Wordsworth has gone from us--and ye,

Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!

He too upon a wintry clime

Had fallen--on this iron time

Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.

He found us when the age had bound

Our souls in its benumbing round;

He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.

He laid us as we lay at birth

On the cool flowery lap of earth,

Smiles broke from us and we had ease;

The hills were round us, and the breeze

Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;

Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.

Our youth return'd; for there was shed

On spirits that had long been dead,

Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,

The freshness of the early world.

Ah! since dark days still bring to light

Man's prudence and man's fiery might,

Time may restore us in his course

Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;

But where will Europe's latter hour

Again find Wordsworth's healing power?

Others will teach us how to dare,

And against fear our breast to steel;

Others will strengthen us to bear--

But who, ah! who, will make us feel?

The cloud of mortal destiny,

Others will front it fearlessly--

But who, like him, will put it by?

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,

O Rotha, with thy living wave!

Sing him thy best! for few or none

Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.

Matthew Arnold

Rugby Chapel

November, 1857

COLDLY, sadly descends

The autumn evening. The Field

Strewn with its dank yellow-drifts

Of wither'd leaves, and the elms

Fade into dimness apace,

Silent; -- hardly a shout

From a few boys late at their play!

The lights come out in the street,

In the school-room windows; but cold,

Solemn, unlighted, austere,

Through the gathering darkness, arise

The Chapel walls, in whose bound

Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom

Of the autumn evening. But ah!

That word, gloom, to my mind

Brings thee back in the light

Of thy radiant vigour again!

In the gloom of November we pass'd

Days not of gloom at thy side;

Seasons' impair'd not the ray

Of thine even cheerfulness clear.

Such thou wast; and I stand

In the autumn evening, and think

Of bygone autumns with thee.

Fifteen years have gone round

Since thou arosest to tread,

In the summer morning, the road

Of death, at a call unforeseen,

Sudden. For fifteen years,

We who till then in thy shade

Rested as under the boughs

Of a mighty oak, have endured

Sunshine and rain as we might,

Bare, unshaded, alone,

Lacking the shelter of thee.

O strong soul, by what shore

Tarriest thou now? For that force,

Surely, has not bee left vain!

Somewhere, surely, afar,

In the sounding labour-house vast

Of being, is practised that strength,

Zealous, beneficint, firm!

Yes, in some far-shining sphere,

Conscious or not of the past,

Still thou performest the word

Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live,

Prompt, unwearied, as here!

Still thou upraisest with zeal

The humble good from the ground,

Sternly repressest the bad.

Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse

Those who with half-open eyes

Tread the border-land dim

'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,

Succourest; -- this was thy work,

This was thy life upon earth.

What is the course of the life

Of mortal men on the earth? --

Most men eddy about

Here and there -- eat and drink,

Chatter and love and hate,

Gather and squander, are raised

Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,

Striving blindly, achieving

Nothing; and, then they die --

Perish; and no one asks

Who or what they have been,

More than he asks what waves

In the moonlit solitudes mild

Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,

Foam'd for a moment, and gone.

And there are some, whom a thirst

Ardent, unquenchable, fires,

Not with the crowd to be spent,

Not without aim to go around

In an eddy of purposeless dust,

Effort unmeaning and vain.

Ah, yes, some of us strive

Not without action to die

Fruitless, but something to snatch

From dull oblivion, nor all

Glut the devouring grave!

We, we have chosen our path --

Path to a clear-purposed goal,

Path of advance! but it leads,

A long, steep journey, through sunk

Gorges, o'er mountains in snow!

Cheerful, with friends, we set forth;

Then, on the height, comes the storm!

Thunder crashes from rock

To rock, the cataracts reply;

Lightnings dazzle our eyes;

Roaring torrents have breach'd

The track, the stream-bed descends

In the place where the wayfarer once

Planted his footstep -- the spray

Boils o'er its borders; aloft,

The unseen snow-beds dislodge

Their hanging ruin; -- alas,

Havoc is made in our train!

Friends who set forth at our side

Falter, are lost in the storm!

We, we only, are left!

With frowning foreheads, with lips

Sternly compress'd, we strain on,

On -- and at nightfall, at last,

Come to the end of our way,

To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;

Where the gaunt and taciturn Host

Stands on the threshold, the wind

Shaking his thin white hairs --

Holds his lantern to scan

Our storm-beat figures, and asks:

Whom in our party we bring?

Whom we have left in the snow?

Sadly we answer: We bring

Only ourselves; we lost

Sight of the rest in the storm.

Hardly ourselves we fought through,

Stripp'd, without friends, as we are.

Friends. companions, and train

The avalanche swept from our side.

But thou would'st not alone

Be saved, my father! alone

Conquer and come to thy goal,

Leaving the rest in the wild.

We were weary, and we

Fearful and we, in our march,

Fain to drop down and to die.

Still thou turnedst, and still

Beckonedst the trembler, and still

Gavest the weary thy hand!

If, in the paths of the world,

Stones might have wounded thy feet,

Toil or dejection have tried

Thy spirit, of that we saw

Nothing! to us thou wert still

Cheerful, and helpful, and firm.

Therefore to thee it was given

Many to save with thyself;

And, at the end of thy day,

O faithful shepherd! to come

Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.

And through thee I believe

In the noble and great who are gone;

Pure souls honour'd and blest

By former ages, who else --

Such, so soulless, so poor,

Is the race of men whom I see --

Seem'd but a dream of the heart,

Seem'd but a cry of desire.

Yes! I believe that there lived

Others like thee in the past,

Not like the men of the crowd

Who all round me to-day

Bluster or cringe, and make life

Hideous, and arid, and vile;

But souls temper'd with fire,

Fervent, heroic, and good,

Helpers and friends of mankind.

Servants of God! -- or sons

Shall I not call you? because

Not as servants ye knew

Your Father's innermost mind,

His, who unwillingly sees

One of his little ones lost --

Yours is the praise, if mankind

Hath not as yet in its march

Fainted, and fallen, and died!

See! in the rocks of the world

Marches the host of mankind,

A feeble, wavering line.

Where are they tending? -- A God

Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. --

Ah, but the way is so long!

Years they have been in the wild!

Sore thirst plagues them; the rocks,

Rising all round, overawe.

Factions divide them; their host

Threatens to break, to dissolve.

Ah, keep, keep them combined!

Else, of the myriads who fill

That army, not one shall arrive!

Sole they shall stray; in the rocks

Labour for ever in vain,

Die one by one in the waste.

Then, in such hour of need

Of your fainting, dispirited race,

Ye, like angels, appear,

Radiant with ardour divine.

Beacons of hope, ye appear!

Languor is not in your heart,

Weakness is not in your word,

Weariness not in your brow.

Ye alight in our van; at your voice

Panic, depair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall

The stragglers, refresh the outworn,

Praise, re-inspire the brave.

Order, courage, return.

Eyes rekindling, and prayers,

Follow your steps as ye go.

Ye fill up the gaps in our files,

Strengthen the wavering line,

Stablish, continue our march,

On, to the bound of the waste,

On, to the City of God.

Matthew Arnold

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 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 cabined, ample spirit,

  It fluttered, and failed for breath.

Tonight it doth inherit

  The vasty hall of death.

Matthew Arnold