Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 23

III

Sprung from the blood of Israel's scatter'd race, At a mean inn in German Aarau born, To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn, Trick'd out with a Parisian speech and face,

Imparting life renew'd, old cla.s.sic grace; Then, soothing with thy Christian strain forlorn, A-Kempis! her departing soul outworn, While by her bedside Hebrew rites have place--

Ah, not the radiant spirit of Greece alone She had--one power, which made her breast its home!

In her, like us, there clash'd, contending powers, Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome.

The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours; Her genius and her glory are her own.

WORLDLY PLACE

_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master's ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen-- Match'd with a palace, is not this a h.e.l.l?

_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame

Some n.o.bler, ampler stage of life to win, I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!

The aids to n.o.ble life are all within."

EAST LONDON

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited.

I met a preacher there I knew, and said: "Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"-- "Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread_."

O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!

Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.

WEST LONDON

Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square, A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied.

A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.

Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, Pa.s.s'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied Across, and begg'd, and came back satisfied.

The rich she had let pa.s.s with frozen stare.

Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers; She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate.

"She turns from that cold succour, which attends The unknown little from the unknowing great, And points us to a better time than ours."

EAST AND WEST

In the bare midst of Anglesey they show Two springs which close by one another play; And, "Thirteen hundred years agone," they say, "Two saints met often where those waters flow.

"One came from Penmon westward, and a glow Whiten'd his face from the sun's fronting ray; Eastward the other, from the dying day, And he with unsunn'd face did always go."

_Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark!_ men said.

The seer from the East was then in light, The seer from the West was then in shade.

Ah! now 'tis changed. In conquering suns.h.i.+ne bright The man of the bold West now comes array'd; He of the mystic East is touch'd with night.

THE BETTER PART

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!

"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are; No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;

"We live no more, when we have done our span."-- "Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?

From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?

Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"

So answerest thou; but why not rather say: "Hath man no second life?--_Pitch this one high!_ Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?--

"_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_ Was Christ a man like us? _Ah! let us try_ _If we then, too, can be such men as he!_"

THE DIVINITY

"Yes, write it in the rock," Saint Bernard said, "Grave it on bra.s.s with adamantine pen!

'Tis G.o.d himself becomes apparent, when G.o.d's wisdom and G.o.d's goodness are display'd,

"For G.o.d of these his attributes is made."-- Well spake the impetuous Saint, and bore of men The suffrage captive; now, not one in ten Recalls the obscure opposer he outweigh'd.[10]