<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416391" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Suggested by Matthew Arnold's Stanzas</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">That one long dirge-moan sad and deep,<br>Low, muffled by the solemn stress<br>Of such emotion as doth steep<br>The soul in brooding quietness,<br>Befits our anguished time too well,<br>Whose Life-march is a funeral knell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dirge for a mighty Creed outworn-<br>Its spirit fading from the earth,<br>Its mouldering body left forlorn:<br>Weak idol! feeding scornful mirth<br>In shallow hearts; divine no more<br>Save to some ignorant pagan poor; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And some who know how by Its light<br>The past world well did walk and live,<br>And feel It even now more bright<br>Than any lamp mere men can give;<br>So cling to It with yearning faith,<br>Yet own It almost quenched in death: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">While many who win wealth and power<br>And honours serving at Its shrine,<br>Rather than lose their worldly dower<br>Proclaim their dead thing 'Life divine';<br>And sacrifice to coward lust<br>Their own souls' truth, a peoplc's trust. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And will none mourn the mighty Dead,<br>Pillar of heavenly fire and cloud,<br>Which through this life's wild desert led<br>For whole millenniums each grand crowd<br>Of sages, bards, saints, heroes, all<br>Whose names we glory to recall? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">None mourn Him, dead, with deep-moved soul,<br>Whom, living, all our sires adored?<br>None feel the heavy darkness roll<br>Stifling about us, when the Lord<br>Leaves us to walk by our own light,<br>That one pale speck in boundless Night?-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That earthly lamp when sun and star,<br>When all the heavenly lights are lost:<br>Does it shed radiance round afar?<br>Our pathway is by deep gulfs cross'd<br>It fathoms none. We lift it high:<br>It casts not one beam on the sky. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">If He thus died as no more fit<br>To lead the modern marcli of thought,<br>Supreme,-- commanding, guiding it,<br>With noblest love and wisdom fraught;<br>He was at least Divine; and none<br>Of human souls can lead it on. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We pine in our dark living tomb,<br>Waiting the God-illumined One<br>Who, only, can disperse the gloom;<br>Completing what the Dead begun,<br>Or farther leading us some space<br>Toward our eternal resting-place. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Israel wanders shepherdless,<br>Or gloom-involved unloving lies,<br>And in despair's stark sinfulness<br>Reviles the promised Paradise<br>It cannot reach -- Father divine!<br>Let us not long thus hopeless pine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still the deep dirge-notcs long and low<br>Breathe forth strange anguish to recall --<br>Could we forget -- our direst woe:<br>A proud strong Age fast losing all<br>Earth has of heaven; bereft of faith;<br>And living in Eternal Death. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And loudly boastful of such life:<br>Blinded by our material might,<br>Absorbed in frantic worldly strife,<br>Unconscious of the utter Night<br>Whose palpable and monstrous gloom<br>Is gathering for our spirits' tomb. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We feel as gods in our own hearts;<br>Seeming to conquer Time and Space;<br>Wealth gorging our imperial marts,<br>Earth pregnant, from the fierce embrace<br>Our matter-lusting spirits press,<br>With unexampled fruitfulness. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">God, answering well our worldly prayer,<br>Our hearts' chief prayer through all the hours<br>Of selfish joy and sordid care,<br>Comes down to us in golden showers:<br>God turns to Mammon at our cry;<br>Our souls wealth-crushed, dross-stifled lie. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those few, how rich! while this great mass,<br>Myriads with equal greed for gold,<br>Sink in such want and woe, alas!<br>As never can on earth be told:<br>These starve, and those yet wealthier rise-<br>Meanwhile in both the spirit dies. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hear now the thrilling dirge-notes peal<br>The anguished cry in thunder rolls:-<br>The few yet left who think and feel,<br>Who yearn with strenuous soaring souls<br>For more than earth or time can grant;<br>Where, where shall they appease their want? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Black disbelief, substantial doubt<br>Wreathe-blent into one louring cloud<br>Through which Heaven's light can scarce shine out-<br>Round all the Faiths: all in such shroud<br>Fade ghostlike to th' entombing Past:<br>Our Heaven is wildly overcast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet each Creed, senile, sick, half-dead,<br>With bitter spite and doting rage<br>Reviles all others, Whoso, led<br>By thirst of love to pilgrimage,<br>Seeks now old God-given Wells of Life,<br>Finds drought-dry centres of vain strife; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And turns away in blank despair,<br>To scoff or weep as fits his mood.<br>0 God in Heaven, hear our prayer!<br>We know Thou art, Allwise, Allgood,<br>Yet sink in godless misery:<br>Oh, teach us how to worship Thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PART II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The great Form lies there nerveless still:<br>But as we fix our longing gaze<br>It grows in grandest beauty, till<br>We worship in entranced amaze;<br>Such holy love and wisdom seem<br>To be there rapt in heavenly dream<br>.<br>Oh, if He may once more awake!<br>Oh, if it be not death, but sleep!<br>And He from that dread slumber break<br>Refreshed and strong, full-powered to sweep<br>The darkness from our path again;<br>Once more the Guiding Star of men! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet -- though it be death -- view It well.<br>The brow, how nobly high and broad<br>What love on those shut lips might well!<br>This Form sublimely templed God:<br>And, if not perfect, is a shrine<br>Approaching well the most divine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Do not turn hastily away<br>From mighty death to petty life;<br>Gaze in deep reverence on the clay<br>With such a soul's expression rife:<br>Read here, read long, the features worn<br>By One incarnate Heavenly-born. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So may we hope to recognise<br>That Greater One who shall succeed<br>This death-bound Monarch, who now lies<br>In mute appealing for our need:<br>God cannot long desert His earth;<br>In the Old's death the New has birth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">What say we? -- we know well this truth,<br>There is no death for the Divine,<br>Which lives in ever-perfect youth:<br>The Form alone -- its earthly shrine --<br>Is subject to earth's mortal sway;<br>Sickens, and dies, and rots away. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus each Form in its turn expires,<br>No more with all revealed Truth rife,<br>Which even at that time inspires<br>Some new and nobler form with life,<br>Grander and vaster to express<br>More of Its infinite heavenliness. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus has it been since Time's first birth,<br>Thus must it be for evermore:<br>Still lie, moth-eaten, on the earth<br>Old garments which this Spirit wore;<br>Till, soiled and rent, they were off-thrown,<br>And wider-flowing robes put on. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">They could not grow with His great growth,<br>Pauseless though slow throughout the years;<br>And vainly worshippers-so loath<br>To leave what lengthened use endears --<br>May still the empty robes adore;<br>Their virtue was from Him who wore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let none say the Divine is dead,<br>Although this Form be soul-less quite:<br>The Heavenly Sun doth ever shed<br>His lifeful heat, His saving light;<br>Never our earth doth lose His ray,<br>Save when she turns herself away. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let none say the Divine is dumb,<br>Although His voice no more we hear:<br>It is that we are deaf become.<br>For measured to each eye and ear<br>His glory shines, His voice outspeaks;<br>To each He gives the most it seeks. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our spirits may for ever grow;<br>And He will fill them as before,<br>And still their measure overflow<br>With His unlessened infinite More:<br>He gives us all we can receive;<br>He teaches all we can believe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The pure can see Him perfect -- pure;<br>The strong feel Him, Omnipotence;<br>The wise, All-wise; He is obscure<br>But to the gross and earth-bound sense:<br>Alas for us with blinded sight<br>Who dare to cry, There is no light!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PART III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, ask us not to rise and leave<br>Him from whom power and life seem gone;<br>Say not that it is weak to grieve;<br>Duty does not, now, urge us on:<br>In vain ye urge; too well we know<br>We cannot by our own strength go. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Vainly ye choose you Saviours now<br>Of men, -- however good and wise<br>Be those your mean faith would endow<br>With power to which no man can rise:<br>No best men living lure our faith<br>From the Divine though veiled in death. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Vainly ye wander every way<br>Throughout the earth in search of Heaven,<br>Changing your useless path each day<br>With each new transient impulse given<br>By human guides, who still agree<br>In naught but fallibility. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We should know better from the lore<br>Of worldly wisdom -- keen mistrust --<br>On which our minds so love to pore;<br>Nor leave for any child of dust<br>This One Divine: to Him adhere<br>Till the diviner One appear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">My brothers, let us own the truth,<br>Bitter and mournful though it be, --<br>That we who spent our dreary youth<br>In foul and sensual slavery,<br>Are all too slavish, too unmanned,<br>For Conquerors of the Promised Land. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In unprogressive wanderings<br>We plod the desert to and fro;<br>And fiery serpents' mortal stings,<br>Earthquake and sword and weary woe<br>And pestilence deal fearful death<br>Amongst us for our want of faith. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Far-scattered o'er the Waste forlorn<br>Our bones shall whiten through the years,<br>And startle pilgrims yet unborn;<br>Our noblest captains, priests and seers,<br>Dark death shall one by one remove,<br>For lack of wisdom, faith, or love. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet be we patient, meek and pure,<br>Unselfishly resigned to God's<br>Mysterious judgements; and endure<br>Our sore scarce-intermitted loads<br>Of grief and weary pain, imbued<br>With sternly passive fortitude: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And pray that those who shall succeed<br>Prove worthy of a happier life<br>Than we dare ask for as our meed;<br>That they a constant noble strife<br>Victorious against Ill may wage,<br>And gain the glorious heritage. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cease now to cry and storm, and move,<br>By such tumultuous toil opprcst<br>As, without guidance, vain must prove.<br>When God keeps still can ye not rest?<br>When He sends night so dark and deep,<br>Why shrink from renovating sleep? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sleep, to His care resigned, a space;<br>That when He rises in His might<br>To lead our hosts from this dire place,<br>We may have strength and heart to fight<br>All evils that would bar our way,<br>And march unfaltering all the day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, let us stay in loving grief,<br>Which patient hope and trust yet cheer,<br>Silent beside our silent Chief,<br>Till His Successor shall appear;<br>Till death's veil fall from off His face,<br>Or One anointed take His place. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, -- our adoring love should have<br>More faith than to believe that He,<br>Before Another comes to save,<br>Can leave us in blind misery<br>Without a Guide: God never can<br>So utterly depart from man. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We will move onward! -- Let us trust<br>That there is life and saving power<br>In this dear Form which seems but dust.<br>Arise, arise! though darkness lower,<br>Earnest, bold-hearted, cease to mourn;<br>It shall before our hosts be borne. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Triumphantly He ever led<br>Our faithful armies while alive;<br>What though His form be cold and dead,<br>His Spirit doth that death survive:<br>We conquer by that Soul this Form<br>Enshrined, not ill, while free and warm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus men have honoured fellow men,<br>Who dying left a lofty fame;<br>And won most glorious victories then<br>By inspiration of a Name:<br>If in men's names such life abode,<br>Shall there not in His, -- Son of God? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A dawn-light creeps throughout the gloom,<br>Sullenly sinks the storm of wrath;<br>Life blossoms in our desert tomb;<br>Mysteriously we find a path<br>Which leadeth on to Paradise.<br>Thus to our love's faith He replies! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, while the dirge still rolls away<br>In passionate thunders wildly blent<br>With mournful moanings, let us pray --<br>Still on our Holy War intent --<br>'O God, revive the seeming Dead;<br>Or send Another in His stead! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The wintry midnight drear is past,<br>But still the dawn gleams grey and cold;<br>Dread phantoms haunt each restless blast,<br>Our stumblings still are manifold:<br>Oh, let Thy cloudless Sun rise soon,<br>And flood us with His summer noon!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Thomson">James Thomson</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416391" data-title="Suggested by Matthew Arnold's Stanzas de James Thomson" data-description="That one long dirge-moan sad and deep, Low, muffled by the solemn stress Of such emotion as doth steep The soul in brooding quietness, Befits our anguished time too well, Whose Life-march is a funeral knell. Dirge for a mighty Creed outworn- Its..."></div> </div> </div>

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