MATTHEW ARNOLD 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, 197 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's1 approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude. Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, 209 With a free outward impulse brushing through, By night, the silver'd branches of the glade Far on the forest skirts, where none pur sue, 216 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 its gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 1 Æneas, cf. Æneid, VI, 450-71, or Gayley, 2 small wooded valleys p. 348 THE LAST WORD Creep into thy narrow bed, Let the long contention cease! 6 8 1 vines hanging down from a cliff over the sea 2 wine of Chios, a Greek island 3 Mediterranean 4 the gulfs of Sidra and Gabes on the north coast of Africa 5 the Straits of Gibraltar 6 habiting the Spanish peninsula and, at this time, a race inparts of the British Islands And round her happy footsteps blow Her beauty haunts him all the night; Most humble when he most aspires, To suffer scorn and cruel wrongs From her he honours and desires. Her graces make him rich, and ask No guerdon; this imperial style Affronts him; he disdains to bask, The pensioner of her priceless smile. Of love's fresh-born magnipotence. To vanquish heaven, and call her Wife. He notes how queens of sweetness still Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate; How, self-consign'd with lavish will, They ask but love proportionate; How swift pursuit by small degrees, Love's tactic, works like miracle; How valour, clothed in courtesies, Brings down the loftiest citadel; And therefore, though he merits not To kiss the braid upon her skirt, His hope discouraged ne'er a jot, Out-soars all possible desert. BOOK I, CANTO VIII. PRELUDES What's that, which, ere I spake, was gone: That, had the splendour lived a year, Did see, could not be now more clear. And nothing transient be desired; ΙΟ 15 20 25 31 35 40 5 ΙΟ 15 |