TO MARGUERITE
by: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
- ES: in the
sea of life enisled,
- With echoing straits between us thrown.
- Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
- We mortal millions live alone.
- The islands feel the enclasping flow,
- And then their endless bounds they know.
-
- But when the moon their hollow lights,
- And they are swept by balms of spring,
- And in their glens, on starry nights,
- The nightingales divinely sing;
- And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
- Across the sounds and channels pour;
-
- O then a longing like despair
- Is to their farthest caverns sent!
- For surely once, they feel, we were
- Parts of a single continent.
- Now round us spreads the watery plain--
- O might our marges meet again!
-
- Who order'd that their longing's fire
- Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
- Who renders vain their deep desire?--
- A God, a God their severence ruled;
- And bade betwixt their shores to be
- The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.
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POEMS BY MATTHEW ARNOLD |
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