Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.
Empedocles on Etna, and Other PoemsA Farewell
M
Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,
Sent echoes through the night to wake
Each glistening strand, each heath-fring’d bay.
And the roof’d bridge that spans the stream.
Up the steep street I hurried fast,
Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.
Came flushing to thy languid cheek.
Lock’d in each other’s arms we stood,
In tears, with hearts too full to speak.
A trouble in thine alter’d air.
Thy hand lay languidly in mine—
Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.
To be long lov’d was never fram’d;
For something in its depths doth glow
Too strange, too restless, too untam’d.
Min’d by the fever of the soul—
They seek to find in those they love
Stern strength, and promise of control.
These they themselves have tried and known:
They ask a soul that never sways
With the blind gusts which shake their own.
In a too strong emotion’s sway;
I too have wish’d, no woman more,
This starting, feverish heart, away:
And will like a dividing spear;
Have prais’d the keen, unscrupulous course,
Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.
Thou too wilt surely one day prove,
That will, that energy, though rare,
Are yet far, far less rare than love.
This truth on thee, be mine no more!
They will: for thou, I feel, no less
Than I, wert destin’d to this lore.
But He, who sees us through and through,
Knows that the bent of both our hearts
Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.
Distracted as a homeless wind,
In beating where we must not pass,
In seeking what we shall not find;
Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole;
Shall see ourselves, and learn at last
Our true affinities of soul.
To every thought the mass ignore;
We shall not then call hardness force,
Nor lightness wisdom any more.
Our sooth’d, encourag’d souls will dare
To seem as free from pride and guile,
As good, as generous, as they are.
Will have been lost—the help in strife;
The thousand sweet still joys of such
As hand in hand face earthly life;—
A sympathy august and pure;
Ennobled by a vast regret,
And by contrition seal’d thrice sure.
May then more neighbouring courses ply;
May to each other be brought near,
And greet across infinity.
My sister! to behold with thee
The hush among the shining stars,
The calm upon the moonlit sea.
All our unquiet pulses cease;
To feel that nothing can impair
The gentleness, the thirst for peace—
On this wild earth of hate and fear:
The thirst for peace a raving world
Would never let us satiate here.