Isolation: To Marguerite
Isolation: To Marguerite
Original Text
Matthew Arnold, Poems by Matthew Arnold: Third Edition (1857).
1We were apart; yet, day by day,
2I bade my heart more constant be.
3I bade it keep the world away,
4And grow a home for only thee;
5Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
6Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.
7The fault was grave! I might have known,
8What far too soon, alas! I learn'd--
9The heart can bind itself alone,
10And faith may oft be unreturn'd.
11Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell--
12Thou lov'st no more;--Farewell! Farewell!
13Farewell!--and thou, thou lonely heart,
14Which never yet without remorse
15Even for a moment didst depart
16From thy remote and spher{`e}d course
17To haunt the place where passions reign--
18Back to thy solitude again!
19Back! with the conscious thrill of shame
21Flash through her pure immortal frame,
22When she forsook the starry height
24Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.
25Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved
26How vain a thing is mortal love,
27Wandering in Heaven, far removed.
28But thou hast long had place to prove
29This truth--to prove, and make thine own:
30"Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone."
31Or, if not quite alone, yet they
32Which touch thee are unmating things--
33Ocean and clouds and night and day;
34Lorn autumns and triumphant springs;
35And life, and others' joy and pain,
36And love, if love, of happier men.
37Of happier men--for they, at least,
38Have dream'd two human hearts might blend
39In one, and were through faith released
40From isolation without end
41Prolong'd; nor knew, although not less
42Alone than thou, their loneliness.
Notes
20] Luna: daughter of Hyperion and Terra, the moon, and hence equivalent to Diana. Back to Line
23] Endymion: a lovely shepherd lad courted by Diana after she discovered him asleep one evening on Mt. Latmos. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1857
RPO poem Editors
H. Kerpneck
RPO Edition
3RP 3.246.
Rhyme
Form