The poetical works of Matthew Arnold/A Southern Night

by Matthew Arnold

A SOUTHERN NIGHT.

The sandy spits, the shore-locked lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.

Dotting the fields of corn and vine,
Like ghosts, the huge gnarled olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain line!
While, by the strand,—

Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the light-house beacons bright
Far in the bay.

Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore²¹
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vexed heart deplore.

But now that trouble is forgot:
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,²²
Possess me quite.

The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave,
There, where Gibraltar's cannoned steep
O'erfrowns the wave.

For there, with bodily anguish keen,
With Indian heats at last foredone,
With public toil and private teen,—
Thou sank'st alone.

Slow to a stop, at morning gray,
I see the smoke-crowned vessel come;
Slow round her paddles dies away
The seething foam.

A boat is lowered from her side;
Ah, gently place him on the bench!
That spirit—if all have not yet died—
A breath might quench.

Is this the eye, the footstep fast,
The mien of youth, we used to see?
Poor, gallant boy! for such thou wast,
Still art, to me.

The limbs their wonted tasks refuse;
The eyes are glazed, thou canst not speak;
And whiter than thy white burnous
That wasted cheek!

Enough! The boat, with quiet shock,
Unto its haven coming nigh,
Touches, and on Gibraltar's rock
Lands thee, to die.

Ah me! Gibraltar's strand is far;
But farther yet across the brine
Thy dear wife's ashes buried are,
Remote from thine.

For there, where morning's sacred fount
Its golden rain on earth confers,
The snowy Himalayan Mount
O'ershadows hers.

Strange irony of fate, alas!
Which, for two jaded English, saves,
When from their dusty life they pass,
Such peaceful graves!

In cities should we English lie,
Where cries are rising ever new,
And men's incessant stream goes by,—
We who pursue

Our business with unslackening stride,
Traverse in troops, with care-filled breast,
The soft Mediterranean side,
The Nile, the East,—

And see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance, and nod, and bustle by;
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.

Not by those hoary Indian hills,
Not by this gracious Midland sea
Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills,
Should our graves be.

Some sage, to whom the world was dead,
And men were specks, and life a play;
Who made the roots of trees his bed,
And once a day

With staff and gourd his way did bend
To villages and homes of man,
For food to keep him till he end
His mortal span,—

And the pure goal of being reach;
Gray-headed, wrinkled, clad in white;
Without companion, without speech,
By day and night

Pondering God's mysteries untold,
And tranquil as the glacier-snows,—
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose.

Some gray crusading knight austere,
Who bore Saint Louis company,
And came home hurt to death, and here
Landed to die;

Some youthful troubadour, whose tongue
Filled Europe once with his love-pain,
Who here outworn had sunk, and sung
His dying strain;

Some girl, who here from castle-bower,
With furtive step and cheek of flame,
'Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower
By moonlight came

To meet her pirate-lover's ship,
And from the wave-kissed marble stair
Beckoned him on with quivering lip
And floating hair,

And lived some moons in happy trance,
Then learnt his death, and pined away,—
Such by these waters of romance
'Twas meet to lay.

But you—a grave for knight or sage,
Romantic, solitary, still,
O spent ones of a work-day age!
Befits you ill.

So sang I; but the midnight breeze,
Down to the brimmed, moon-charmèd main,
Comes softly through the olive-trees,
And checks my strain.

I think of her whose gentle tongue
All plaint in her own cause controlled;
Of thee I think, my brother! young
In heart, high-souled;

That comely face, that clustered brow,
That cordial hand, that bearing free,—
I see them still, I see them now,
Shall always see!

And what but gentleness untired,
And what but noble feeling warm,
Wherever shown, howe'er inspired,
Is grace, is charm?

What else is all these waters are,
What else is steeped in lucid sheen,
What else is bright, what else is fair,
What else serene?

Mild o'er her grave, ye mountains, shine!
Gently by his, ye waters, glide!
To that in you which is divine
They were allied.