Poems

by Matthew Arnold

TRISTRAM.

The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel’s sails;
Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales,
And overhead the cloudless sky of May.
“Ah! would I were in those green fields at play,
Not pent on shipboard this delicious day!
Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy,
Reach me my golden cup that stands by thee,
But pledge me in it first for courtesy.”
Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanched like mine
Child, ’tis no water this, ’tis poisoned wine!
Iseult!...
. . . . . . . . . .
Ah, sweet angels, let him dream!
Keep his eyelids; let him seem
Not this fever-wasted wight
Thinned and paled before his time,
But the brilliant youthful knight
In the glory of his prime,
Sitting in the gilded barge,
At thy side, thou lovely charge,
Bending gayly o’er thy hand,
Iseult of Ireland!
And she too, that princess fair,
If her bloom be now less rare,
Let her have her youth again,
Let her be as she was then!
Let her have her proud dark eyes,
And her petulant quick replies;
Let her sweep her dazzling hand
With its gesture of command,
And shake back her raven hair
With the old imperious air!
As of old, so let her be,
That first Iseult, princess bright,
Chatting with her youthful knight
As he steers her o’er the sea,
Quitting at her father’s will
The green isle where she was bred,
And her bower in Ireland,
For the surge-beat Cornish strand;
Where the prince whom she must wed
Dwells on loud Tyntagel’s hill,
High above the sounding sea.
And that golden cup her mother
Gave her, that her future lord,
Gave her, that King Marc and she,
Might drink it on their marriage-day,
And forever love each other,—
Let her, as she sits on board,
—Ah! sweet saints, unwittingly!—
See it shine, and take it up,
And to Tristram laughing say,—
“Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy,
Pledge me in my golden cup.”
Let them drink it; let their hands
Tremble, and their cheeks be flame,
As they feel the fatal bands
Of a love they dare not name,
With a wild delicious pain,
Twine about their hearts again!
Let the early summer be
Once more round them, and the sea
Blue, and o’er its mirror kind
Let the breath of the May-wind,
Wandering through their drooping sails,
Die on the green fields of Wales;
Let a dream like this restore
What his eye must see no more.

TRISTRAM.

Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks are drear:
Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here?
Were feet like those made for so wild a way?
The southern winter-parlor, by my fay,
Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day!—
“Tristram!—nay, nay—thou must not take my hand!—
Tristram!—sweet love!—we are betrayed—out-planned.
Fly—save thyself—save me! I dare not stay.”
One last kiss first!—“’Tis vain—to horse—away!”
. . . . . . . . . .
Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move
Faster surely than it should,
From the fever in his blood!
All the spring-time of his love
Is already gone and past,
And instead thereof is seen
Its winter, which endureth still,—
Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,
The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen,
The flying leaves, the straining blast,
And that long, wild kiss,—their last.
And this rough December-night,
And his burning fever-pain,
Mingle with his hurrying dream,
Till they rule it; till he seem
The pressed fugitive again,
The love-desperate, banished knight,
With a fire in his brain,
Flying o’er the stormy main.
—Whither does he wander now?
Haply in his dreams the wind
Wafts him here, and lets him find
The lovely orphan child again
In her castle by the coast;
The youngest, fairest chatelaine,
That this realm of France can boast,
Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,—
Iseult of Brittany.
And—for through the haggard air,
The stained arms, the matted hair,
Of that stranger-knight ill-starred,
There gleamed something which recalled
The Tristram who in better days
Was Launcelot’s guest at Joyous Gard—
Welcomed here, and here installed,
Tended of his fever here,
Haply he seems again to move
His young guardian’s heart with love,
In his exiled loneliness,
In his stately, deep distress,
Without a word, without a tear.
—Ah! ’tis well he should retrace
His tranquil life in this lone place;
His gentle bearing at the side
Of his timid youthful bride;
His long rambles by the shore
On winter-evenings, when the roar
Of the near waves came, sadly grand,
Through the dark, up the drowned sand;
Or his endless reveries
In the woods, where the gleams play
On the grass under the trees,
Passing the long summer’s day
Idle as a mossy stone
In the forest-depths alone,
The chase neglected, and his hound
Couched beside him on the ground.
—Ah! what trouble’s on his brow?
Hither let him wander now;
Hither, to the quiet hours
Passed among these heaths of ours
By the gray Atlantic sea,—
Hours, if not of ecstasy,
From violent anguish surely free!

TRISTRAM.

All red with blood the whirling river flows,
The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows.
Upon us are the chivalry of Rome;
Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.
“Up, Tristram, up!” men cry, “thou moonstruck knight!
What foul fiend rides thee? On into the fight!”
—Above the din, her voice is in my ears;
I see her form glide through the crossing spears.—
Iseult!...
. . . . . . . . . .
Ah! he wanders forth again;
We cannot keep him: now, as then,
There’s a secret in his breast
Which will never let him rest.
These musing fits in the green wood,
They cloud the brain, they dull the blood!
—His sword is sharp, his horse is good;
Beyond the mountains will he see
The famous towns of Italy,
And label with the blessed sign
The heathen Saxons on the Rhine.
At Arthur’s side he fights once more
With the Roman Emperor.
There’s many a gay knight where he goes
Will help him to forget his care;
The march, the leaguer, heaven’s blithe air,
The neighing steeds, the ringing blows,—
Sick pining comes not where these are.
—Ah! what boots it, that the jest
Lightens every other brow,
What, that every other breast
Dances as the trumpets blow,
If one’s own heart beats not light
On the waves of the tossed fight,
If one’s self cannot get free
From the clog of misery?
Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale
Watching by the salt sea-tide,
With her children at her side,
For the gleam of thy white sail.
Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!
To our lonely sea complain,
To our forests tell thy pain.

TRISTRAM.

All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,
But it is moonlight in the open glade;
And in the bottom of the glade shine clear
The forest-chapel and the fountain near.
—I think I have a fever in my blood;
Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,
Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.
—Mild shines the cold spring in the moon’s clear light.
God! ’tis her face plays in the waters bright!
“Fair love,” she says, “canst thou forget so soon,
At this soft hour, under this sweet moon?”—
Iseult!...
. . . . . . . . . .
Ah, poor soul! if this be so,
Only death can balm thy woe.
The solitudes of the green wood
Had no medicine for thy mood;
The rushing battle cleared thy blood
As little as did solitude.
—Ah! his eyelids slowly break
Their hot seals, and let him wake;
What new change shall we now see?
A happier? Worse it cannot be.

TRISTRAM.

Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire!
Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright;
The wind is down; but she’ll not come to-night.
Ah, no! she is asleep in Cornwall now,
Far hence; her dreams are fair, smooth is her brow.
Of me she recks not, nor my vain desire.
—I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page,
Would take a score years from a strong man’s age;
And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear,
Scant leisure for a second messenger.
—My princess, art thou there? Sweet, ’tis too late!
To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by;
To-night my page shall keep me company.
Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me!
Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I:
This comes of nursing long and watching late.
To bed—good night!
. . . . . . . . . .
She left the gleam-lit fireplace,
She came to the bedside;
She took his hands in hers, her tears
Down on her slender fingers rained.
She raised her eyes upon his face,
Not with a look of wounded pride,
A look as if the heart complained;
Her look was like a sad embrace,—
The gaze of one who can divine
A grief, and sympathize.
Sweet flower! thy children’s eyes
Are not more innocent than thine.