# The poetical works of Matthew Arnold/Stanzas in Memory of the Author of Obermann

STANZAS
IN MEMORY OF THE AUTHOR OF OBERMANN.
November, 1849.
In front the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack, Close o'er it, in the air.
Behind are the abandoned baths Mute in their meadows lone; The leaves are on the valley-paths, The mists are on the Rhone,—
The white mists rolling like a sea; I hear the torrents roar. —Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee; I feel thee near once more.
I turn thy leaves; I feel their breath Once more upon me roll; That air of languor, cold, and death, Which brooded o'er thy soul.
​Fly hence, poor wretch, whoe'er thou art, Condemned to cast about, All shipwreck in thy own weak heart, For comfort from without!
A fever in these pages burns Beneath the calm they feign; A wounded human spirit turns, Here, on its bed of pain.
Yes, though the virgin mountain air Fresh through these pages blows; Though to these leaves the glaciers spare The soul of their mute snows;
Though here a mountain murmur swells Of many a dark-boughed pine; Though, as you read, you hear the bells Of the high-pasturing kine,—
Yet through the hum of torrent lone, And brooding mountain bee, There sobs I know not what ground-tone Of human agony.
Is it for this, because the sound Is fraught too deep with pain, That, Obermann! the world around So little loves thy strain?
Some secrets may the poet tell, For the world loves new ways: To tell too deep ones is not well,— It knows not what he says.
Yet, of the spirits who have reigned In this our troubled day, ​I know but two who have attained, Save thee, to see their way.
By England's lakes, in gray old age, His quiet home one keeps; And one, the strong much-toiling sage, In German Weimar sleeps.
But Wordsworth's eyes avert their ken From half of human fate; And Goethe's course few sons of men May think to emulate.
For he pursued a lonely road, His eyes on Nature's plan; Neither made man too much a god, Nor God too much a man.
Strong was he, with a spirit free From mists, and sane and clear; Clearer, how much! than ours—yet we Have a worse course to steer.
For, though his manhood bore the blast Of a tremendous time, Yet in a tranquil world was passed His tenderer youthful prime.
But we, brought forth and reared in hours Of change, alarm, surprise,— What shelter to grow ripe is ours? What leisure to grow wise?
Like children bathing on the shore, Buried a wave beneath, The second wave succeeds before We have had time to breathe.
​Too fast we live, too much are tried, Too harassed, to attain Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide And luminous view to gain.
And then we turn, thou sadder sage, To thee! we feel thy spell! —The hopeless tangle of our age, Thou too hast scanned it well.
Immovable thou sittest, still As death, composed to bear; Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill, And icy thy despair.
Yes, as the son of Thetis said, I hear thee saying now: Greater by far than thou are dead; Strive not! die also thou!
Ah! two desires toss about The poet's feverish blood; One drives him to the world without, And one to solitude.
The glow, he cries, the thrill of life, Where, where do these abound? Not in the world, not in the strife Of men, shall they be found.
He who hath watched, not shared, the strife, Knows how the day hath gone: He only lives with the world's life, Who hath renounced his own.
To thee we come, then! Clouds are rolled Where thou, O seer! art set; ​Thy realm of thought is drear and cold— The world is colder yet.
And thou hast pleasures, too, to share With those who come to thee,— Balms floating on thy mountain air, And healing sights to see.
How often, where the slopes are green On Jaman, hast thou sate By some high chalet-door, and seen The summer day grow late;
And darkness steal o'er the wet grass With the pale crocus starred, And reach that glimmering sheet of glass Beneath the piny sward,—
Lake Leman's waters, far below; And watched the rosy light Fade from the distant peaks of snow; And on the air of night
Heard accents of the eternal tongue Through the pine branches play,— Listened, and felt thyself grow young! Listened, and wept— Away!
Away the dreams that but deceive! And thou, sad guide, adieu! I go, fate drives me; but I leave Half of my life with you.
We, in some unknown Power's employ, Move on a rigorous line; Can neither, when we will, enjoy, Nor, when we will, resign.
​I in the world must live; but thou, Thou melancholy shade! Wilt not, if thou canst see me now, Condemn me, nor upbraid.
For thou art gone away from earth, And place with those dost claim, The children of the second birth, Whom the world could not tame;
And with that small transfigured band, Whom many a different way Conducted to their common land, Thou learn'st to think as they
Christian and Pagan, king and slave, Soldier and anchorite, Distinctions we esteem so grave, Are nothing in their sight.
They do not ask, who pined unseen, Who was on action hurled, Whose one bond is, that all have been Unspotted by the world.
There without anger thou wilt see Him who obeys thy spell No more, so he but rest, like thee, Unsoiled; and so, farewell!
Farewell! Whether thou now liest near That much-loved inland sea, The ripples of whose blue waves cheer Vevey and Meillerie;
And in that gracious region bland, Where with clear-rustling wave ​The scented pines of Switzerland Stand dark round thy green grave,—
Between the dusty vineyard-walls Issuing on that green place, The early peasant still recalls The pensive stranger's face,—
And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date Ere he plods on again; Or whether, by maligner fate, Among the swarms of men,—
Where between granite terraces The blue Seine rolls her wave, The Capital of Pleasure sees Thy hardly-heard-of grave,—
Farewell! Under the sky we part, In this stern Alpine dell. O unstrung will! O broken heart! A last, a last farewell!