Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/102

 finds himself loses misery! Nay, I answer, gains it. Who loses himself, he alone loses misery, and it is the only way to lose it. That, too, is the poem of a fragment of the problem.

Kensington Gardens, a lovelier poem, has the same thought at its root. He contrasts the peace of the quiet meadows, trees, and water with the impious and raving uproar of men, the sound of which he vaguely hears. Here is quietude, always new; the sheep, the birds, the flowers, the children sleep. Calm soul of all things, he cries, give me—

Peace! Like Dante, but without his power, Arnold sought for peace. Could he now have loved more, could he have more fulfilled his prayer to feel with others more than with himself, could he have not had that foolish desire to know himself—the utmost thing the Pagan reached—he would soon have gained it. "Know thyself," said Socrates, and man, because this dictum flattered his pride, thought it the ultimate wisdom. It is rather the ultimate foolishness. The true thing to say is this—"Know Nature, man, and God; get outside of thyself into their glory and beauty. Only then, thou canst begin to justly know thyself; only then, at union through love with all that is without thee, lost in joy, beyond self-disturbance,