4 min read
Слушать

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,

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

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to

To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the mass of men

Their thoughts, for fear that if

They would by other men be

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

I knew they lived and

Trick'd in disguises, alien to the

Of men, and alien to themselves—and

The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!—doth a like spell

Our hearts, our voices?—must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get

Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which

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

His genuine self, and force him to

Even in his own despite his being's law,

Bade through the deep recesses of our

The unregarded river of our

Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;

And that we should not

The buried stream, and seem to

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

After the knowledge of our buried life;

A thirst to spend our fire and restless

In tracking out our true, original course;

A longing to

Into the mystery of this heart which

So wild, so deep in us—to

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

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

Our hidden self, and what we say and

Is eloquent, is well—but 'ts not true!

And then we will no more be

With inward striving, and

Of all the thousand nothings of the

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

As from an infinitely distant land,

Come airs, and floating echoes, and conveyA 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

Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,

When our world-deafen'd

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

The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot

Wherein he doth for ever

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

The hills where his life rose,

And the sea where it goes.

0
0
171
Give Award

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son …

Other author posts

Comments
You need to be signed in to write comments

Reading today

Ryfma
Ryfma is a social app for writers and readers. Publish books, stories, fanfics, poems and get paid for your work. The friendly and free way for fans to support your work for the price of a coffee
© 2024 Ryfma. All rights reserved 12+