Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/82

 But Arnold had no belief in the popular cries, and he hated the disturbance and the noise. Out of these, he thought, no salvation comes. And weariness of the turmoil fell upon him, and desire that he had been born at another and a quieter time, By this also his personal sadness was deepened, and it drove him into a longing for solitude and calm outside tortured world.

We can trace these impressions all through his first three volumes of poems; and we can read what was his temper with regard to revolutionary Europe in the two sonnets addressed to Clough, entitled To a Republican Friend. The first says how far he agrees with his friend, and it would not have been thought worth much by the enthusiasm of Clough. The second says where he parts from his friend; and it is full of his suppressed anger with, and disbelief in, the revolutionary movement. More impressive than these, more personal, expressing that which was deepest in him at this time, that which he most desired—and more important for our knowledge of him, because he chose it as a preface to his third volume, published three years after his first—is the sonnet with which the volume of 1849 opens:—

To work with Nature's constancy, but without turbulent passion; like her sleepless ministers "Their