The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

T o MARGUERITE�CONTINUE D / 135 5 15Farewell!�and thou, thou lonely heart,2 Which never yet without remorse Even for a moment didst depart From thy remote and sphered course To haunt the place where passions reign� Back to thy solitude again! Back with the conscious thrill of shame 202530 Which Luna felt, that summer night, Flash through her pure immortal frame, When she forsook the starry height To hang over Endymion's sleep Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.3 Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved How vain a thing is mortal love, Wandering in Heaven, far removed. But thou hast long had place to prove0This truth�to prove, and make thine own: "Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone." test 35Or, if not quite alone, yet they Which touch thee are unmating things� Ocean and clouds and night and day; Lorn autumns and triumphant springs; And life, and others' joy and pain, And love, if love, of happier men. 40Of happier men�for they, at least, Have dreamed two human hearts might blend In one, and were through faith released From isolation without end Prolonged; nor knew, although not less Alone than thou, their loneliness. 1849 1857

To Marguerite�Continued

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,0 encircled

With echoing straits between us thrown,

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions live alone.

5 The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,

And they are swept by balms of spring,

And in their glens, on starry nights,

2. Presumably the speaker's heart, not Margue-fell in love with Endymion, a handsome shepherd rite's. whom she discovered asleep on Mount Latmos. 3. Luna (or Diana), virgin goddess of the moon,

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135 6 / MATTHEW ARNOLD

10 The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,

Across the sounds and channels pour�

Oh! then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent;

15 For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent!

Now round us spreads the watery plain�

Oh might our marges meet again!

Who ordered that their longing's fire

20 Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled?

Who renders vain their deep desire?�

A God, a God their severance ruled!

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.

1849 1852

The Buried Life

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,

Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!

I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.

Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,

5 We know, we know that we can smile!

But there's a something in this breast,

To which thy light words bring no rest,

And thy gay smiles no anodyne.

Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,

io And turn those limpid eyes on mine, And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal

15 To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the mass of men concealed

Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

20 I knew they lived and moved Tricked0 in disguises, alien to the rest dressed lipOf men, and alien to themselves�and yet

The same heart beats in every human breast! But we, my love!�doth a like spell benumb

25 Our hearts, our voices?�must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get free

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