# The poetical works of Matthew Arnold/The New Sirens

THE NEW SIRENS.
In the cedar-shadow sleeping, Where cool grass and fragrant glooms Late at eve had lured me, creeping From your darkened palace rooms,— I, who in your train at morning Strolled and sang with joyful mind, Heard, in slumber, sounds of warning; Saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind.
Who are they, O pensive Graces, (For I dreamed they wore your forms) Who on shores and sea-washed places Scoop the shelves and fret the storms? ​Who, when ships are that way tending, Troop across the flushing sands, To all reefs and narrows wending, With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands?
Yet I see, the howling levels Of the deep are not your lair; And your tragic-vaunted revels Are less lonely than they were. Like those kings with treasure steering From the jewelled lands of dawn, Troops, with gold and gifts, appearing, Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.
And we too, from upland valleys, Where some Muse with half-curved frown Leans her ear to your mad sallies Which the charmed winds never drown; By faint music guided, ranging The scared glens, we wandered on, Left our awful laurels hanging, And came heaped with myrtles to your throne.
From the dragon-wardered fountains Where the springs of knowledge are, From the watchers on the mountains, And the bright and morning star; We are exiles, we are falling, We have lost them at your call— O ye false ones, at your calling Seeking ceiled chambers and a palace-hall!
Are the accents of your luring More melodious than of yore? Are those frail forms more enduring Than the charms Ulysses bore? ​That we sought you with rejoicings, Till at evening we descry At a pause of Siren voicings These vexed branches and this howling sky?...
Oh, your pardon! The uncouthness Of that primal age is gone, And the skin of dazzling smoothness Screens not now a heart of stone. Love has flushed those cruel faces; And those slackened arms forego The delight of death-embraces, And yon whitening bone-mounds do not grow.
"Ah!" you say;" the large appearance Of man's labor is but vain, And we plead as stanch adherence Due to pleasure as to pain." Pointing to earth's careworn creatures, "Come," you murmur with a sigh: "Ah! we own diviner features, Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.
"Come," you say, "the hours were dreary; Life without love does not fade; Vain it wastes, and we grew weary In the slumbrous cedarn shade. Round our hearts with long caresses, With low sighings, Silence stole, And her load of steaming tresses Weighed, like Ossa, on the aery soul.
​"Come," you say, "the soul is fainting Till she search and learn her own, And the wisdom of man's painting Leaves her riddle half unknown. Come," you say, "the brain is seeking, While the princely heart is dead; Yet this gleaned, when gods were speaking, Rarer secrets than the toiling head.
"Come," you say, "opinion trembles, Judgment shifts, convictions go; Life dries up, the heart dissembles: Only, what we feel, we know. Hath your wisdom known emotions? Will it weep our burning tears? Hath it drunk of our love-potions Crowning moments with the weight of years?"
I am dumb. Alas! too soon all Man's grave reasons disappear! Yet, I think, at God's tribunal Some large answer you shall hear. But for me, my thoughts are straying Where at sunrise, through your vines, On these lawns I saw you playing, Hanging garlands on your odorous pines;
When your showering locks inwound you, And your heavenly eyes shone through; When the pine-boughs yielded round you, And your brows were starred with dew; And immortal forms, to meet you, Down the statued alleys came, And through golden horns, to greet you, Blew such music as a god may frame.
​Yes, I muse! And if the dawning Into daylight never grew, If the glistering wings of morning On the dry noon shook their dew, If the fits of joy were longer, Or the day were sooner done, Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger, No weak nursling of an earthly sun... Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk the hall with yew!
For a bound was set to meetings, And the sombre day dragged on; And the burst of joyful greetings, And the joyful dawn, were gone. For the eye grows filled with gazing, And on raptures follow calms; And those warm locks men were praising Drooped, unbraided, on your listless arms.
Storms unsmoothed your folded valleys, And made all your cedars frown; Leaves were whirling in the alleys Which your lovers wandered down. —Sitting cheerless in your bowers, The hands propping the sunk head, Do they gall you, the long hours, And the hungry thought that must be fed?
Is the pleasure that is tasted Patient of a long review? ​Will the fire joy hath wasted, Mused on, warm the heart anew? —Or, are those old thoughts returning, Guests the dull sense never knew, Stars, set deep, yet inly burning, Germs, your untrimmed passion overgrew?
Once, like us, you took your station, Watchers for a purer fire; But you drooped in expectation, And you wearied in desire. When the first rose flush was steeping All the frore peak's awful crown, Shepherds say, they found you sleeping In some windless valley, farther down.
Then you wept, and slowly raising Your dozed eyelids, sought again, Half in doubt, they say, and gazing Sadly back, the seats of men; Snatched a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun, And proclaimed your vain ovation For those mimic raptures you had won...
With a sad, majestic motion, With a stately, slow surprise, From their earthward-bound devotion Lifting up your languid eyes— Would you freeze my louder boldness, Dumbly smiling as you go, One faint frown of distant coldness Flitting fast across each marble brow?
​Do I brighten at your sorrow, O sweet pleaders? doth my lot Find assurance in to-morrow Of one joy which you have not? Oh, speak once, and shame my sadness! Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain, Mocked and baffled by your gladness, Mar the music of your feasts in vain!
Scent, and song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow— Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness Which the sorrow-stricken day denies.
Through black depths of serried shadows, Up cold aisles of buried glade; In the mist of river-meadows Where the looming deer are laid; From your dazzled windows streaming, From your humming festal room, Deep and far, a broken gleaming Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.
Where I stand, the grass is glowing: Doubtless you are passing fair! But I hear the north wind blowing, And I feel the cold night-air. ​Can I look on your sweet faces, And your proud heads backward thrown, From this dusk of leaf-strewn places With the dumb woods and the night alone?
Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses,— Mad delight, and frozen calms,— Mirth to-day, and vine-bound tresses, And to-morrow—folded palms; Is this all? this balanced measure? Could life run no happier way? Joyous at the height of pleasure, Passive at the nadir of dismay?
But, indeed, this proud possession, This far-reaching, magic chain, Linking in a mad succession Fits of joy and fits of pain,— Have you seen it at the closing? Have you tracked its clouded ways? Can your eyes, while fools are dozing, Drop, with mine, adown life's latter days?
When a dreary light is wading Through this waste of sunless greens, When the flashing lights are fading On the peerless cheek of queens, When the mean shall no more sorrow, And the proudest no more smile; While the dawning of the morrow Widens slowly westward all that while?
Then, when change itself is over, When the slow tide sets one way, Shall you find the radiant lover, Even by moments, of to-day? ​The eye wanders, faith is failing: Oh, loose hands, and let it be! Proudly, like a king bewailing, Oh, let fall one tear, and set us free!
All true speech and large avowal Which the jealous soul concedes; All man's heart which brooks bestowal, All frank faith which passion breeds,— These we had, and we gave truly; Doubt not, what we had, we gave! False we were not, nor unruly; Lodgers in the forest and the cave.
Long we wandered with you, feeding Our rapt souls on your replies, In a wistful silence reading All the meaning of your eyes. By moss-bordered statues sitting, By well-heads, in summer days. But we turn, our eyes are flitting— See, the white east, and the morning-rays!
And you too, O worshipped Graces, Sylvan gods of this fair shade! Is there doubt on divine faces? Are the blessed gods dismayed? Can men worship the wan features, The sunk eyes, the wailing tone, Of unsphered, discrowned creatures, Souls as little godlike as their own?
Come, loose hands! The wingèd fleetness Of immortal feet is gone; And your scents have shed their sweetness. And your flowers are overblown. ​And your jewelled gauds surrender Half their glories to the day; Freely did they flash their splendor, Freely gave it—but it dies away.
In the pines, the thrush is waking; Lo, yon orient hill in flames! Scores of true-love-knots are breaking At divorce which it proclaims. When the lamps are paled at morning, Heart quits heart, and hand quits hand. Cold in that unlovely dawning, Loveless, rayless, joyless, you shall stand!
Pluck no more red roses, maidens, Leave the lilies in their dew; Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk, oh, dusk the hall with yew! —Shall I seek, that I may scorn her, Her I loved at eventide? Shall I ask, what faded mourner Stands, at daybreak, weeping by my side?... Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens! Dusk the hall with yew!