Poeticous Logo
en
English Español Français Italiano
Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Destiny

Why each is striving, from of old,  
To love more deeply than he can?  
Still would be true, yet still grows cold?  
—Ask of the Powers that sport with man!  
 
They yok’d in him, for endless strife,
A heart of ice, a soul of fire;  
And hurl’d him on the Field of Life,  
An aimless unallay’d Desire.

First published 1852.

#EnglishWriters

1
Liked or faved by...
R. L. Mc Callum
Other works by Matthew Arnold...
Tristram and Iseult (III)

A YEAR had flown, and o’er the s… In Cornwall, Tristram and queen… In 3 King Marc’s chapel, in Tynt… There in a ship they bore those lo… The young surviving Iseult, one b…
The New Sirens

In * the cedar shadow sleeping, Where cool grass and fragrant gloo… Oft at noon have lur’d me, creepin… From your darken’d palace rooms: I, who in your train at morning…
East London

'Twas August, and the fierce sun… Smote on the squalid streets of B… And the pale weaver through his wi… In Spitalfields, looking thrice d… I met a preacher there I knew, an…
Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fa… Upon the straits; on the French c… Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of… Glimmering and vast, out in the tr…
Shakespeare

Others abide our question. Thou a… We ask and ask—Thou smilest and a… Out-topping knowledge. For the lo… Who to the stars uncrowns his maje… Planting his steadfast footsteps i…
To George Cruikshank, Esq.

Artist, whose hand, with horror wi… From the rank life of towns this l… The prodigy of full-blown crime am… Valleys and men to middle fortune… Not innocent, indeed, yet not forl…
Sohrab and Rustum

AND the first grey of morning fil… And the fog rose out of the Oxus… But all the Tartar camp along the… Was hush’d, and still the men were… Sohrab alone, he slept not; all ni…
Self-Deception

SAY, what blinds us, that we clai… Of possessing powers not our share… Since man woke on earth, he knows… But, before we woke on earth, we w… Long, long since, undower’d yet, o…
Lines Written in Kensington Gardens

In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen’d by deep boughs on either… And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown’d, red-boled pin… Birds here make song, each bird ha…
Worldly Place

Even in a palace, life may be led… So spake the imperial sage, purest… Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling… Of common life, where, crowded up… Our freedom for a little bread we…
To an Independent Preacher

‘In harmony with Nature’? Restles… Who with such heat dost preach wha… When true, the last impossibility; To be like Nature strong, like Na… Know, man hath all which Nature h…
Bacchanalia

The evening comes, the fields are… The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wai…
Lines written by a Death-Bed

Yes, now the longing is o’erpast, Which, dogg’d by fear and fought b… Shook her weak bosom day and night… Consum’d her beauty like a flame, And dimm’d it like the desert blas…
Resignation

To die be given us, or attain! Fierce work it were, to do again. So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pra… At burning noon: so warriors said, Scarf’d with the cross, who watch’…
A Caution to Poets

What poets feel not, when they mak… A pleasure in creating, The world, in its turn, will not t… Pleasure in contemplating.



Top