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Is she wrong'd?-To the rescue of her honour,

My heart!

Is she poor?

What cost it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ("Nay, list!"— bade Kate the queen ;

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"'T is only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

I SAID

I

Then, dearest, since 't is so,

Since now at length my fate I know,

Since nothing all my love avails,

Since all, my life seem'd meant for, fails,

Since this was written and needs must be

My whole heart rises up to bless

Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,— I claim
Only a memory of the same,

And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.

II

My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fix'd me a breathing-while or two

With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenish'd me again;

My last thought was at least not vain :
I and my mistress, side by side

Shall be together, breathe and ride,

So, one day more am I deified.

Who knows but the world may end to-night?

III

Hush! if you saw some western cloud

All billowy-bosom'd, over-bow'd

By many benedictions - sun's
And moon's and evening star's at once

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And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near, Till flesh must fade for heaven was here! Thus leant she and linger'd-joy and fear! Thus lay she a moment on my breast.

IV

Then we began to ride. My soul
Smooth'd itself out, a long-cramp'd scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.

What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well
She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.

V

Fail I alone, in words and deeds?

Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
We rode; it seem'd my spirit flew,

Saw other regions, cities new,

As the world rush'd by on either side.
I thought, All labour, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,

This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.

VI

What hand and brain went ever pair'd? What heart alike conceived and dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen?

We ride and I see her bosom heave.

There's many a crown for who can reach.
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones,
A soldier's doing! what atones?

They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
My riding is better, by their leave.

VII

What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you express'd
You hold things beautiful the best,

And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 'Tis something, nay 't is much: but then, Have you yourself what's best for men? poor, sick, old ere your time Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who never have turn'd a rhyme? Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.

Are you

VIII

And you, great sculptor — so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!

You acquiesce, and shall I repine ?
What, man of music, you grown grey
With notes and nothing else to say,
Is this your sole praise from a friend,

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Greatly his opera's strains intend,

But in music we know how fashions end!" I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.

IX

Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate
Proposed bliss here should sublimate

My being had I sign'd the bond

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Still one must lead some life beyond,

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.

This foot once planted on the goal,

This glory-garland round my soul,

Could I descry such? Try and test!

I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. `

X

And yet
she has not spoke so long!
What if heaven be that, fair and strong
At life's best, with our eyes upturn'd
Whither life's flower is first discern'd,

We, fix'd so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two,
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity,

And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride?

I

ΧΙ

MATTHEW ARNOLD

(1822-1888)

T is hard to think of Matthew Arnold the schoolmaster, the literary critic, the author

of "Literature and Dogma," and "St. Paul and Protestantism," as a writer of passionate if melancholy love songs such as "Tristram and Iseult" and "Switzerland." Switzerland." But there are the songs, filled with sadness, yet inspired, too, with a courage and a hope, and breathing a kind of melancholy joy which youth fairly hugs to its breast. Youth is melancholy, yet courageous; and Matthew Arnold seems peculiarly the poet of disappointed youth. He lived to do and be what we know. We shall live and do and be, though for the moment we seem to carry in our arms a dead infant, and all around is a boundless waste. We read him because we feel that he has beheld the same youthful mirages that we have beheld, he has yearned for the same love that we thought we could not do without, and he has walked into the same valley of barrenness and chilly night that we are in.

The sentiment of melancholy is ingrained in the human heart, and it seems as if out of it alone could come conceptions of the deepest poetic beauty, the truest sympathy with humanity. The sadness of Matthew Arnold is the universal sadness of the human heart; and as the

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