Matthew Arnold
121
He sees the gentle stir of birth
When morning purifies the earth;
He leans upon a gate and sees
The pastures and the quiet trees.
*******
He gazes—tears
Are in his eyes, and in his ears
The murmur of a thousand years.
Before him he sees life unroll,
A placid and continuous whole—
That general life, which does not cease
Whose secret is not joy, but peace;
That life, whose dumb wish is not miss'd
If birth proceeds, if things subsist;
The life of plants and stones and rain
The life be craves—if not in vain
Fate gave, what chance shall not control,
His sad lucidity of soul.
When morning purifies the earth;
He leans upon a gate and sees
The pastures and the quiet trees.
*******
He gazes—tears
Are in his eyes, and in his ears
The murmur of a thousand years.
Before him he sees life unroll,
A placid and continuous whole—
That general life, which does not cease
Whose secret is not joy, but peace;
That life, whose dumb wish is not miss'd
If birth proceeds, if things subsist;
The life of plants and stones and rain
The life be craves—if not in vain
Fate gave, what chance shall not control,
His sad lucidity of soul.
But that does not contain all the thought on the matter. He tells in a sonnet of that young Italian bride, lovely, gaily garmented, who, perishing in an accident, was found to wear a robe of sackcloth next her "smooth white skin."
Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,
Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground
of thought and of austerity within.
Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground
of thought and of austerity within.
Again, we are told in the Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoon, the poet is to tell of Life's movement; all of it from source to close. It is Life's movement which fascinates the poets. But it is too much for them to bear or to tell. Only a gleam of it here and there can they see, only now and then can they hear a murmur of it; not the whole light, not the full music. A few,
