Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/105

 the same; and he records the change in another poem in 1867, addressed to the same person. Obermann once more. The similar titles make it plain that he intended to reveal the change that had passed over the temper in which he viewed the world.

Obermann, as Arnold conceived him in 1852, had fled from the world, in which, like Arnold, he moved a stranger, to find what peace he could in the pastoral life of Switzerland, and in a chalet on the lower hills, whence he saw the solemn snows of the high peaks rise in ethereal purity and calm. Nature, in her quiet order, might heal his heart; and though Obermann's pain did not leave him, yet he saw his way to as much peace as he could find; and for that threw everything else away. And that was some attainment. Only two others Arnold thought, had been as bold, as self-certain in the whole of Europe—Wordsworth and Goethe; and Wordsworth saw only half of human life, and Goethe's clear and lonely soul few of the sons of men could follow. But our time, he says to Obermann, is worse than theirs—a hopeless tangle—and we turn for help to the immovable composure of thy icy despair. Thou hast renounced the world and thy life in it; at least thou hast the peace of renunciation, and the majestic pleasures which Nature brings. Half my soul I leave with thee and Nature, but the other half Fate takes, and forces it to abide in the world. May I live there, like thee, unsoiled by wrong, unspotted by the world, and bear the pain of these miserable days.