MATTHEW ARNOLD

Yes, we await it, but it still delays,

And then we suffer; and amongst us One,

Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne;

And all his store of sad experience he

Lays bare of wretched days ; Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs,

And how the dying spark of hope was fed,

And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, And all his hourly varied anodynes.

This for our wisest : and we others pine, And wish the long unhappy dream would end,

And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear, With close-lipp'd Patience for our only friend,

Sad Patience, too near neighbour to Despair:

But none has hope like thine. Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,

Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,

Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away.

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

Its heads o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife

Fly hence, our contact fear ! Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood ! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.

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