And the calm moonlight seems to say:
Hast thou then still the old unquiet breast,
Which neither deadens into rest,

Nor ever feels the fiery glow

That whirls the spirit from itself away,

But fluctuates to and fro,

Never by passion quite possess'd

And never quite benumb'd by the world's sway?·

And I, I know not if to pray

Still to be what I am, or yield and be

Like all the other men I see.

For most men in a brazen prison live,
Where, in the sun's hot eye,

With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give,
Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.
And as, year after year,

Fresh products of their barren labor fall

From their tired hands, and rest

Never yet comes more near,

Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;

And while they try to stem

The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,

Death in their prison reaches them,

Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.

And the rest, a few,

Escape their prison and depart

On the wide ocean of life anew.

There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart
Listeth, will sail;

Nor doth he know how there prevail,

Despotic on that sea,

Trade-winds which cross it from eternity.
Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd

By thwarting signs, and braves

The freshening wind and blackening waves.
And then the tempest strikes him; and between
The lightning-bursts is seen

Only a driving wreck,

And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck
With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?

Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign
Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great,
Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;

Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,
And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!
I will not say that your mild deeps retain.

A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain

But I will rather say that you remain
A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!

How it were good to abide there, and breathe free;
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still!

QUIET WORK

Matthew Arnold

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 tranquillity!

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

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 lives 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!"

Matthew Arnold

PHILOMELA

Hark! ah, the nightingale

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!—what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain

That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain -
Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?

Dost thou again peruse

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?

Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive, the feathery change

Once more, and once more seem to make resound

With love and hate, triumph and agony,

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?

Listen, Eugenia

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again thou hearest?

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!