For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold
Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand,
He wakes lost echoes from song’s classic shore,
And brings their crystal cadence back once more
To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land
Where God’s truth, cramped and fettered with a band
Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore
Of heroes and the men that long before
Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned.
Still does a cry through sad Valhalla go
For Balder, pierced with Lok’s unhappy spray—
For Balder, all but spared by Frea’s charms;
And still does art’s imperial vista show,
On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away,
Young Sohrab dying in his father’s arms.
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