Suggested by Matthew Arnold's Stanzas
That one long dirge-moan sad and deep,
Low, muffled by the solemn stress
Of such emotion as doth steep
The soul in brooding quietness,
Befits our anguished time too well,
Whose Life-march is a funeral knell.
Dirge for a mighty Creed outworn-
Its spirit fading from the earth,
Its mouldering body left forlorn:
Weak idol! feeding scornful mirth
In shallow hearts; divine no more
Save to some ignorant pagan poor;
And some who know how by Its light
The past world well did walk and live,
And feel It even now more bright
Than any lamp mere men can give;
So cling to It with yearning faith,
Yet own It almost quenched in death:
While many who win wealth and power
And honours serving at Its shrine,
Rather than lose their worldly dower
Proclaim their dead thing 'Life divine';
And sacrifice to coward lust
Their own souls' truth, a peoplc's trust.
And will none mourn the mighty Dead,
Pillar of heavenly fire and cloud,
Which through this life's wild desert led
For whole millenniums each grand crowd
Of sages, bards, saints, heroes, all
Whose names we glory to recall?
None mourn Him, dead, with deep-moved soul,
Whom, living, all our sires adored?
None feel the heavy darkness roll
Stifling about us, when the Lord
Leaves us to walk by our own light,
That one pale speck in boundless Night?--
That earthly lamp when sun and star,
When all the heavenly lights are lost:
Does it shed radiance round afar?
Our pathway is by deep gulfs cross'd
It fathoms none. We lift it high:
It casts not one beam on the sky.
If He thus died as no more fit
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poem by James Thomson
Added by Poetry Lover
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