Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,

Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night-air came the answer: "Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see, These demand not that the things without them

Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

"And with joy the stars perform their shining,

And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll; For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting

All the fever of some differing soul.

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,
Who finds himself, loses his misery!"

DOVER BEACH

MATTHEW ARNOLD

The sea is calm tonight,

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

(1852)

Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

(1867)

WHERE LIES THE LAND TO WHICH THE SHIP WOULD GO?

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?

Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;

Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,

How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!

The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?

Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

"CARPE DIEM”

[From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859]

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain-This Life flies;

One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through,

No one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of that After-life to spell:

And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd, "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell":

Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire