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Matthew Arnold
(1822-1888)

Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, Arnold was, through the years, 1857-67, the professor of Poetry at Oxford. I have put up three of my favourites, "Dover Beach," "Shakespeare" and "The Scholar-Gipsy."

IMMORTALITY

Foiled by our fellow-men, depressed, outworn
We leave the brutal world to takes its way,
And, Patience, in another life we say,
The world shall be thrust down and we up-born.
And will not, then, the immortal armies, scorn
The world’s poor, routed leavoings? or will they,
Who failed under the heat of this life’s day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flaggged not in the early strife,
From strength to strength advancing - only he,
His soul well knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, te eternal life.  

© 2002 Elena and Yakov Feldman