Resignation
By Matthew Arnold
To die be given us, or attain!
Fierce work it were, to do again.
So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, prayd
At burning noon: so warriors said,
Scarfd with the cross, who watchd the miles
Of dust that wreathd their struggling files
Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows
Round Alpine summits eddying rose,
The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun,
Crouchd on his saddle, when the sun
Went lurid down oer flooded plains
Through which the groaning Danube strains
To the drear Euxine: so pray all,
Whom labours, self-ordaind, enthrall;
Because they to themselves propose
On this side the all-common close
A goal which, gaind, may give repose.
So pray they: and to stand again
Where they stood once, to them were pain;
Pain to thread back and to renew
Past straits, and currents long steerd through.
But milder natures, and more free;
Whom an unblamd serenity
Hath freed from passions, and the state
Of struggle these necessitate;
Whom schooling of the stubborn mind
Hath made, or birth hath found, resignd;
These mourn not, that their goings pay
Obedience to the passing day:
These claim not every laughing Hour
For handmaid to their striding power;
Each in her turn, with torch upreard,
To await their march; and when appeard,
Through the cold gloom, with measurd race
To usher for a destind space,
(Her own sweet errands all foregone)
The too imperious Traveller on.
These, Fausta, ask not this: nor thou,
Times 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 hands;
Makes clear our goal to every eye,
The valleys western boundary.
A gate swings to: our tide hath flowd
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,
Under their burnishd sycamores:
All past: and through the trees we glide
Emerging on the green hill-side.
There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign,
Our wavering, many-colourd line;
There winds, upstreaming slowly still
Over the summit of the hill.
And now, in front, behold outspread
Those upper regions we must tread;
Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells.
The cheerful silence of the fells.
Some two hours march, with serious air,
Through the deep noontide heats we fare:
The red-grouse, springing at our sound,
Skims, now and then, the shining ground;
No life, save his and ours, intrudes
Upon these breathless solitudes.
O 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,
Parchd and road-worn, we made that day;
But, Fausta, I remember well
That, as the balmy darkness fell,
We bathd our hands, with speechless glee,
That night, in the wide glimmering Sea.
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-fringd bed;
Here, whence the eye first sees, far down,
Cappd 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 grassy upland glen:
The loose dark stones on the green way
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 changd: and we, you say,
Are scarce more changd, in truth, than they.
The Gipsies, whom we met below,
They too have long roamd to and fro.
They ramble, leaving, where they pass,
Their fragments on the cumberd 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 pitchd: 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 grey-walld lane.
Signs are not wanting, which might raise
The ghosts in them of former days:
Signs are not wanting, if they would;
Suggestions to disquietude.
For them, for all, Times 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,
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 rubbd through yesterday
In their hereditary way;
And they will rub through, if they can,
To-morrow on the self-same plan;
Till death arrives 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 passd on the proud heights of sway;
Though he hath loosd a thousand chains;
Though he hath borne immortal pains;
Action and suffering though he know;
He hath not livd, 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 moments 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.
From some high station he looks down,
At sunset, on a populous town;
Surveys each happy group that 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 answerd from the depth of dawn;
In the hedge straggling to the stream,
Pale, dew-drenchd, half-shut roses gleam:
But where the further side slopes down
He sees the drowsy new-wakd clown
In his white quaint-embroiderd frock
Make, whistling, towards his mist-wreathd flock;
Slowly, behind the heavy tread,
The wet flowerd grass heaves up its head.
Leand 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 missd
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.
You listen: but that wandering smile,
Fausta, betrays you cold the while.
Your eves pursue the bells of foam
Washd, eddying, from this bank, their home.
Those Gipsies, so your thoughts I scan,
Are less, the Poet more, than man.
They feel not, though they move and see:
Deeply the Poet feels; but he
Breathes, when he will, immortal air,
Where Orpheus and where Homer are.
In the days life, whose iron round
Hems us all in, he is not bound.
He escapes thence, but we abide.
Not deep the Poet sees, but wide.
The World in which we live and move
Outlasts aversion, outlasts love:
Outlasts each effort, interest, hope,
Remorse, grief, joy: and were the scope
Of these affections wider made,
Man still would see, and see dismayd,
Beyond his passions widest range
Far regions of eternal change.
Nay, and since death, which wipes out man,
Finds him with many an unsolvd plan,
With much unknown, and much untried,
Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried,
Still gazing on the ever full
Eternal mundane spectacle;
This World in which we draw our breath,
In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.
Blame thou not therefore him, who dares
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 lifes uncheerd 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 resignd
For quiet, and a fearless mind.
And though Fate grudge to thee and me
The Poets rapt security,
Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquerd Fate.
They, winning room to see and hear,
And to mens business not too near.
Through clouds of individual strife
Draw homewards to the general Life.
Like leaves by suns not yet uncurld:
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, seen hardly worth
This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth;
Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,
The solemn hills around us spread,
This stream that falls incessantly,
The strange-scrawld rocks, the lonely sky,
If I might lend their life a voice,
Seem to bear rather than rejoice.
And even could the intemperate prayer
Man iterates, while these forbear,
For movement, for an ampler sphere,
Pierce Fates impenetrable ear;
Not milder is the general lot
Because our spirits have forgot,
In actions dizzying eddy whirld,
The something that infects the world.