To Marguerite continued
Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
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,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour —Oh! then a longing like
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain —Oh, might our marges meet again!
Who ordered, that their longing's
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
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
Matthew Arnold
Other author posts
Mycerinus
Not by the justice that my father spurn'd, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn'd, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and By day I shall be well again For so the night will more than The hopeless longing of the day
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies Upon the straits;—on the French coast the Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Self-Dependence
Weary of myself, and sick of What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea