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MATTHEW ARNOLD

REQUIESCAT

[Publ. 1849]

STREW on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew: In quiet she reposes;

Ah! would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabined, ample spirit,

It fluttered and failed for breath;, To-night it doth inherit

The vasty hall of death.

RESIGNATION

TO FAUSTA

[Publ. 1849]

To die be given us, or attained!
Fierce work it were, to do again.

So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, prayed
At burning noon; so warriors said,

ΤΟ

Scarfed with the cross, who watched the miles

Of dust which wreathed their struggling files

Down Lydian mountains; so, when snows
Round Alpine summits, eddying rose,
The Goth, bound Rome-wards; so the Hun,
Crouched on his saddle, while the sun
Went lurid down o'er flooded plains
Through which the groaning Danube strains
To the drear Euxine: so pray all,

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race,

To usher for a destined space

(Her own sweet errands all foregone)
The too imperious traveller on.
These, Fausta, ask not this; nor thou,
Time's chafing prisoner, ask it now!

We left just ten years since, you say,
That wayside inn we left to-day.
Our jovial host, as forth we fare,
Shouts greeting from his easy-chair.
High on a bank our leader stands,
Reviews and ranks his motley bands,
Makes clear our goal to every eye,
The valley's western boundary.
A gate swings to! our tide hath flowed
Already from the silent road.
The valley-pastures, one by one,
Are threaded, quiet in the sun;
And now, beyond the rude stone bridge,
Slopes gracious up the western ridge.
Its woody border, and the last
Of its dark upland farms, is past;
Cool farms, with open-lying stores,

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Some two hours' march, with serious air,
Through the deep noontide heats we fare;
The red-grouse, springing at our sound, 70
Skims, now and then, the shining ground;
No life, save his and ours, intrudes
Upon these breathless solitudes.
Oh, joy! again the farms appear.
Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer;
There springs the brook will guide us down,
Bright comrade, to the noisy town.
Lingering, we follow down; we gain
The town, the highway, and the plain.
And many a mile of dusty way,
Parched and road-worn, we made that day;
But, Fausta, I remember well,
That as the balmy darkness fell,

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We bathed our hands with speechless glee, That night, in the wide-gliminering sea.

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Once more we tread this self-same road,
Fausta, which ten years since we trod;
Alone we tread it, you and I,
Ghosts of that boisterous company.
Here, where the brook shines, near its head,
In its clear, shallow, turf-fringed bed;
Here, whence the eye first sees, far down,
Capped with faint smoke, the noisy town,-
Here sit we, and again unroll,
Though slowly, the familiar whole.
The solemn wastes of heathy hill
Sleep in the July sunshine still;
The self-same shadows now, as then;
Play through this glassy upland glen;
The loose dark stones on the green way 100
Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay;
On this mild bank above the stream,
(You crush them!) the blue gentians gleam.
Still this wild brook, the rushes cool,
The sailing foam, the shining pool!
These are not changed; and we, you say,
Are scarce more changed, in truth, than they.

The gypsies, whom we met below, They too have long roamed to and fro;

They ramble, leaving, where they pass, 10
Their fragments on the cumbered grass.
And often to some kindly place
Chance guides the migratory race,
Where, though long wanderings intervene,
They recognize a former scene.
The dingy tents are pitched; the fires
Give to the wind their wavering spires;
In dark knots crouch round the wild flame
Their children, as when first they came;
They see their shackled beasts again
Move, browsing, up the gray-walled lane.
Signs are not wanting, which might raise
The ghost in them of former days, -
Signs are not wanting, if they would;
Suggestions to disquietude.

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For them, for all, time's busy touch,
While it mends little, troubles much.
Their joints grow stiffer - but the year
Runs his old round of dubious cheer;
Chilly they grow-yet winds in March, 13
Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch;
They must live still-and yet, God knows,
Crowded and keen the country grows;
It seems as if, in their decay,
The law grew stronger every day.
So might they reason, so compare,
Fausta, times past with times that are;
But no! they rubbed through yesterday
In their hereditary way,

And they will rub through, if they can, 40
To-morrow on the self-same plan,
Till death arrive to supersede,
For them, vicissitude and need.

The poet, to whose mighty heart
Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart,
Subdues that energy to scan

Not his own course, but that of man.
Though he move mountains, though his day
Be passed on the proud heights of sway,
Though he hath loosed a thousand chains,
Though he hath borne immortal pains, 15
Action and suffering though he know,
He hath not lived, if he lives so.
He sees, in some great-historied land,
A ruler of the people stand,
Sees his strong thought in fiery flood
Roll through the heaving multitude,
Exults yet for no moment's space
Envies the all-regarded place.
Beautiful eyes meet his, and he
Bears to admire uncravingly;
They pass: he, mingled with the crowd,
Is in their far-off triumphs proud.

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From some high station he looks down,
At sunset, on a populous town;
Surveys each happy group which fleets,
Toil ended, through the shining streets, -
Each with some errand of its own,
And does not say, I am alone.
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.
Low, woody hill, with gracious bound,
Folds the still valley almost round;
The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn,
Is answered from the depth of dawn;
In the hedge straggling to the stream,
Pale, dew-drenched, half-shut roses gleam.
But, where the farther side slopes down,
He sees the drowsy new-waked clown
In his white quaint-embroidered frock
Make, whistling, toward his mist-wreathed
flock,

Slowly, behind his heavy tread,

The wet, flowered

head.

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grass heaves

up

its

Leaned on his gate, 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 missed
If birth proceeds, if things subsist;
The life of plants, and stones, and rain,
The life he craves - if not in vain
Fate gave, what chance shall not control,
His sad lucidity of soul.

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You listen; but that wandering smile,
Fausta, betrays you cold the while!
Your eyes pursue the bells of foam
Washed, eddying, from this bank, their
home.

Those gypsies so your thoughts I scan-
Are less, the poet more, than man.
They feel not, though they move and see.
Deeper the poet feels; but he
Breathes, when he will, immortal air,
Where Orpheus and where Homer are.
In the day's life, whose iron round
Hems us all in, he is not bound;
He leaves his kind, o'erleaps their pen,
And flees the common life of men.
He escapes thence, but we abide.
Not deep the poet sees, but wide.

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Judge vain beforehand human cares;
Whose natural insight can discern
What through experience others learn;
Who needs not love and power, to know
Love transient, power an unreal show;
Who treads at ease life's uncheered ways:
Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise!
Rather thyself for some aim pray,
Nobler than this, to fill the day;
Rather that heart, which burns in thee,
Ask, not to amuse, but to set free;
Be passionate hopes not ill resigned
For quiet, and a fearless mind.
And though fate grudge to thee and me
The poet's rapt security,

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Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from chance, have conquered fate.
They, winning room to see and hear,
And to men's business not too near,
Through clouds of individual strife
Draw homeward to the general life.
Like leaves by suns not yet uncurled;
To the wise, foolish; to the world,
Weak: yet not weak, I might reply,
Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye,
To whom each moment in its race,
Crowd as we will its neutral space,
Is but a quiet watershed

Whence, equally, the seas of life and death

are fed.

Enough, we live! and if a life

With large results so little rife,

Though bearable, seem hardly worth

This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,

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"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.
The sun has not yet risen, and the foe
Sleep but I sleep not; all night long I lie
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
In Samarcand, before the army marched; 40
And I will tell thee what my heart desires.
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan
first

I came among the Tartars, and bore arms,
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,
At my boy's years, the courage of a man.
This too thou know'st, that while I still
bear on

The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,

And beat the Persians back on every field, I seek one man, one man, and one alone, Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, Should one day greet, upon some wellfought field,

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His not unworthy, not inglorious son.
So I long hoped, but him I never find.
Come then, hear now, and grant me what I
ask.

Let the two armies rest to-day; but I
Will challenge forth the bravest Persian
lords

To meet me, man to man: if I prevail,
Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-
Old man, the dead need no one, claim no
kin.

Dim is the rumor of a common fight,

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