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,
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,
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
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!
But we, my love!—doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?—must we too be dumb?
Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well—but 't#is not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only—but this is rare—
When a belov{'e}d hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.
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I sensed ...
that this is one of those poems that will echo lines in my own mind for a long time to come. For there is much shared and with a sincerity that is not oft' expressed by men! The reading of his thoughts seemed a bit tedious as to rhythm and rhyme but I pushed on knowing that he was 'on to' something that perhaps I wanted to know and I was not disappointed by the time I finished. I feel that He speaks for many men in his singular voice and us ladies innately know that's how they are! -
I have read this twice now and I am simply at a loss for words. I have never read this poet before now but his style is simply astonishing and what he brings to reader goes so far beyond what I have ever seen or read before. If nothing else, this contest has certainly opened my eyes to the amazing talent that past this way years and years before us. Thank you everyone on the Oldpoetry Team for bringing us such great works!
♥ Kimberly -
Emotions buried so deeply within seem to be visible to Arnold. He captures feelings in ways I have dreamed of having the capability of capturing since around the age of 10. Powerful and beautiful, yet giving the reader something to think on afterward.
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This is one of the most powerful poems ever written. Arnold's capacity to capture the almost unspeakable elements of the human heart is unmatched by any other poet of his time. He discusses the frustration that occurs when we feel that even the one who loves us most cannot understand the 'nameless feelings that course through our breast...forever unexpressed' ('Are even lovers powerless to reveal / To one another what indeed they feel?') I have received so much inspiration from this poem. Arnold makes us realize the rarity of a moment when 'a beloved hand is laid in ours' and our heart finally 'lies plain;' at this point, finally, our exact thoughts can be known and expressed without using resort to a fallen and imperfect language. The rhyming triplet at the end is sublime. Each line has six short, soothing syllables, and we are left with an 'unwonted calm' through Arnold's abundant imagery.
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I'd be careful about viewing this as a positive ending. "And then he thinks he knows" is hardly definitive. There is a sense that this "unwonted calm" is as untrue as the things we say and do in our everyday lives. It is like "Dover Beach" in his desire to use love as something to make up for the lack of support offered by the Christian faith or Romantic nature, but Arnold never seems to fully escape the "darkling plain". Interestingly, both poems were written after his marriage and honeymoon, as if the reality of marriage failed to live up to his expectations...
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