The Sunday Night Poem - Matthew Arnold

His poetry endures because of its directness, and the literal fidelity of his beautifully circumstantial description of nature, of scenes, and places, imbued with a kind of majestic sadness which takes the place of music.

-British Authors of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Stanley Kunitz. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1936. 16-18.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) is generally considered to be one of the three greatest poets of the Victorian Age (the other two being Tennyson and Browning). As lasting as his body of poetry is, his critical essays were more influential to the generations of poets who followed. Arnold's poems, however, are more accessible to the general reader [speaking from experience, no doubt -Ed.].

Arnold lived in an era of violent intellectual turmoil (gee, sound familiar?) which is reflected in his body of work. His devotion to the cause of poetry, as well as his ideas about man's new role in the modern world are beyond the scope of this blog post, not to mention the intelligence of the post-writer. Pray stay a moment longer, therefore, [is that Victorian talk? What a mutton-chops -Ed.] and read this passage written in 1918 by Robert Huntington Fletcher for a sample of Arnold's thought and passion:

To his Romantic nature, however, mere knowledge and mere modern science, which their followers were so confidently exalting, appeared by no means adequate to the purpose; rather they seemed to him largely futile, because they did not stimulate the emotions and so minister to the spiritual life. Further, the restless stirrings of his age, beginning to arouse itself from the social lethargy of centuries, appeared to him pitifully unintelligent and devoid of results. He found all modern life, as he says in 'The Scholar-Gypsy,' a 'strange disease,' in which men hurry wildly about in a mad activity which they mistake for achievement.

Such weltschmerz can be found in many of his works. Tonight, with your kind permission, I would endeavor to share the following verse with you. Thank you, and I wish you a pleasant journey.

Quiet Work

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--

Of toil unsever'd from tranquility!
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

-Matthew Arnold