# The poetical works of Matthew Arnold/Obermann Once More

OBERMANN ONCE MORE.
(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)
Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d'un monde?
Obermann.
Glion? Ah! twenty years, it cuts All meaning from a name! White houses prank where once were huts; Glion, but not the same!
And yet I know not! All unchanged The turf, the pines, the sky! ​The hills in their old order ranged; The lake, with Chillon by;
And 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff And stony mounts the way, The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if I left them yesterday.
Across the valley, on that slope, The huts of Avant shine; Its pines, under their branches, ope Ways for the pasturing kine.
Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare, Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass, Invite to rest the traveller there Before he climb the pass,—
The gentian-flowered pass, its crown With yellow spires aflame; Whence drops the path to Allière down, And walls where Byron came;
By their green river, who doth change His birth-name just below, Orchard and croft and full-stored grange Nursed by his pastoral flow.
But stop! to fetch back thoughts that stray Beyond this gracious bound, The cone of Jaman, pale and gray, See, in the blue profound!
Ah, Jaman! delicately tall Above his sun-warmed firs,— What thoughts to me his rocks recall, What memories he stirs!
​And who but thou must be, in truth, Obermann! with me here? Thou master of my wandering youth, But left this many a year!
Yes, I forget the world's work wrought, Its warfare waged with pain: An eremite with thee, in thought Once more I slip my chain,—
And to thy mountain chalet come, And lie beside its door, And hear the wild bee's Alpine hum, And thy sad, tranquil lore.
Again I feel the words inspire Their mournful calm; serene, Yet tinged with infinite desire For all that might have been,—
The harmony from which man swerved Made his life's rule once more; The universal order served, Earth happier than before.
—While thus I mused, night gently ran Down over hill and wood. Then, still and sudden, Obermann On the grass near me stood.
Those pensive features well I knew,— On my mind, years before, Imaged so oft, imaged so true! —A shepherd's garb he wore;
A mountain flower was in his hand, A book was in his breast, ​Bent on my face, with gaze which scanned My soul, his eyes did rest.
"And is it thou," he cried, "so long Held by the world which we Loved not, who turnest from the throng Back to thy youth and me?
"And from thy world, with heart opprest, Choosest thou now to turn? Ah me! we anchorites read things best, Clearest their course discern!
"Thou fled'st me when the ungenial earth, Man's work-place, lay in gloom: Return'st thou in her hour of birth, Of hopes and hearts in bloom?
"Perceiv'st thou not the change of day? Ah! Carry back thy ken, What, some two thousand years! Survey The world as it was then.
"Like ours it looked in outward air. Its head was clear and true, Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare, No pause its action knew;
"Stout was its arm, each thew and bone Seemed puissant and alive: But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone, And so it could not thrive!
"On that hard Pagan world, disgust And secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell.
​"In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian Way.
"He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers; No easier nor no quicker passed The impracticable hours.
"The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world. The Roman tempest swelled and swelled, And on her head was hurled.
"The East bowed low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again.
"So well she mused, a morning broke Across her spirit gray; A conquering, new-born joy awoke, And filled her life with day.
"'Poor world!' she cried, 'so deep accurst, That runn'st from pole to pole To seek a draught to slake thy thirst.— Go, seek it in thy soul!'
"She heard it, the victorious West, In crown and sword arrayed; She felt the void which mined her breast, She shivered and obeyed.
"She vailed her eagles, snapped her sword, And laid her sceptre down; ​Her stately purple she abhorred, And her imperial crown.
"She broke her flutes, she stopped her sports, Her artists could not please. She tore her books, she shut her courts, She fled her palaces.
"Lust of the eye, and pride of life, She left it all behind, And hurried, torn with inward strife, The wilderness to find.
"Tears washed the trouble from her face; She changed into a child; 'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood,—a place Of ruin,—but she smiled!
"Oh, had I lived in that great day, How had its glory new Filled earth and heaven, and caught away My ravished spirit too!
"No thoughts that to the world belong Had stood against the wave Of love which set so deep and strong From Christ's then open grave.
"No cloister-floor of humid stone Had been too cold for me; For me no Eastern desert lone Had been too far to flee.
"No lonely life had passed too slow, When I could hourly scan Upon his cross, with head sunk low, That nailed, thorn-crownèd Man;
​"Could see the Mother with the Child Whose tender winning arts Have to his little arms beguiled So many wounded hearts!
"And centuries came, and ran their course; And, unspent all that time, Still, still went forth that Child's dear force, And still was at its prime.
"Ay, ages long endured his span Of life,—'tis true received,— That gracious Child, that thorn-crowned Man! —He lived while we believed.
"While we believed, on earth he went, And open stood his grave; Men called from chamber, church, and tent, And Christ was by to save.
"Now he is dead! Far hence he lies In the lorn Syrian town; And on his grave, with shining eyes, The Syrian stars look down.
"In vain men still, with hoping new, Regard his death-place dumb, And say the stone is not yet to, And wait for words to come.
"Ah! from that silent sacred land Of sun, and arid stone, And crumbling wall, and sultry sand, Comes now one word alone!
"From David's lips that word did roll; 'Tis true and living yet,— ​No man can save his brother's soul, Nor pay his brother's debt.
"Alone, self-poised, henceforward man Must labor; must resign His all too human creeds, and scan Simply the way divine;
"But slow that tide of common thought, Which bathed our life, retired; Slow, slow the old world wore to naught, And pulse by pulse expired.
"Its frame yet stood without a breach, When blood and warmth were fled; And still it spake its wonted speech, But every word was dead.
"And oh! we cried, that on this corse Might fall a freshening storm! Rive its dry bones, and with new force A new-sprung world inform!
"—Down came the storm! O'er France it passed In sheets of scathing fire. All Europe felt that fiery blast, And shook as it rushed by her.
"Down came the storm! In ruins fell The worn-out world we knew. It passed, that elemental swell: Again appeared the blue;
"The sun shone in the new-washed sky. —And what from heaven saw he? Blocks of the past, like icebergs high, Float on a rolling sea!
​"Upon them plies the race of man All it before endeavored: 'Ye live,' I cried, 'ye work and plan, And know not ye are severed!
"'Poor fragments of a broken world, Whereon men pitch their tent! Why were ye too to death not hurled When your world's day was spent?
"'That glow of central fire is done Which with its fusing flame Knit all your parts, and kept you one; But ye, ye are the same!
"'The past, its mask of union on, Had ceased to live and thrive: The past, its mask of union gone, Say, is it more alive?
"'Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead, Your social order too. Where tarries he, the Power who said,— See, I make all things new?
"'The millions suffer still, and grieve. And what can helpers heal With old-world cures men half believe For woes they wholly feel?
"'And yet men have such need of joy! But joy whose grounds are true, And joy that should all hearts employ As when the past was new.
"'Ah! not the emotion of that past, Its common hope, were vain! ​Some new such hope must dawn at last, Or man must toss in pain.
"'But now the old is out of date, The new is not yet born. And who can be alone elate, While the world lies forlorn?'
"Then to the wilderness I fled. There among Alpine snows And pastoral huts I hid my head, And sought and found repose.
"It was not yet the appointed hour. Sad, patient, and resigned, I watched the crocus fade and flower, I felt the sun and wind.
"The day I lived in was not mine: Man gets no second day. In dreams I saw the future shine, But ah! I could not stay!
"Action I had not, followers, fame. I passed obscure, alone. The after-world forgets my name, Nor do I wish it known.
"Composed to bear, I lived and died, And knew my life was vain. With fate I murmur not, nor chide, At Sèvres by the Seine
"(If Paris that brief flight allow) My humble tomb explore! It bears: Eternity, be thou My refuge! and no more.
​"But thou, whom fellowship of mood Did make from haunts of strife Come to my mountain solitude, And learn my frustrate life;
"O thou, who, ere thy flying span Was past of cheerful youth, Didst find the solitary man, And love his cheerless truth,—
"Despair not thou as I despaired, Nor be cold gloom thy prison! Forward the gracious hours have fared, And see! the sun is risen!
"He breaks the winter of the past; A green, new earth appears. Millions, whose life in ice lay fast, Have thoughts and smiles and tears.
"What though there still need effort, strife? Though much be still unwon? Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life; Death's frozen hour is done.
"The world's great order dawns in sheen After long darkness rude, Divinelier imaged, clearer seen, With happier zeal pursued.
"With hope extinct, and brow composed, I marked the present die; Its term of life was nearly closed, Yet it had more than I.
"But thou, though to the world's new hour Thou come with aspect marred, ​Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power, Which best befits its bard;
"Though more than half thy years be past, And spent thy youthful prime; Though, round thy firmer manhood cast, Hang weeds of our sad time
"Whereof thy youth felt all the spell, And traversed all the shade,— Though late, though dimmed, though weak, yet tell Hope to a world new-made!
"Help it to fill that deep desire, The want which crazed our brain, Consumed our soul with thirst like fire, Immedicable pain;
"Which to the wilderness drove out Our life, to Alpine snow, And palsied all our word with doubt, And all our work with woe.
"What still of strength is left, employ, This end to help attain: One common wave of thought and joy Lifting mankind again!"
—The vision ended. I awoke As out of sleep, and no Voice moved: only the torrent broke The silence, far below.
Soft darkness on the turf did lie; Solemn, o'er hut and wood, In the yet star-sown nightly sky, The peak of Jaman stood.
​Still in my soul the voice I heard Of Obermann! Away I turned; by some vague impulse stirred, Along the rocks of Naye,—
Past Sonchaud's piny flanks I gaze, And the blanched summit bare Of Malatrait, to where in haze The Valais opens fair,
And the domed Velan, with his snows, Behind the upcrowding hills, Doth all the heavenly opening close Which the Rhone's murmur fills;
And glorious there, without a sound, Across the glimmering lake, High in the Valais-depth profound, I saw the morning break.