Page:Matthew Arnold (IA matthewarnold00harr).pdf/19

 Sohrab and Rustum, a fine poem all through, if just a little academic, has some noble passages, some quite majestic lines and Homero-eid similes. But the magic of music, the unforgotten phrase is not there. Arnold, who gave us in prose so many a memorable phrase, has left us in poetry hardly any such as fly upon the tongues of men, unless it be—'The weary Titan, staggering on to her goal,' or 'that sweet city with her dreaming spires.' These are fine, but not enough.

Undoubtedly Arnold from the first continually broke forth into some really Miltonic lines. Of Nature he cries out;—

Still do thy sleepless ministers move on Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting—

Or again, he says,

Whereo'er the chariot wheels of life are roll'd In cloudy circles to eternity.

In the Scholar-Gypsy, he says, Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed.

Arnold has at times the fluid movement, but only at moments and on occasions, and he has a pure and highly trained sense of metrical rhythm. But he has not the yet finer and rarer sense of melodious music. We must even say more. He is insensitive to cacophonies that would have made Tennyson or Shelley 'gasp and stare.' No law of Apollo is more sacred than this: that he shall not attain the topmost crag of Parnassus who crams his mouth while singing with a handful of gritty consonants.

It is an ungracious task to point to the ugly features of poems that have unquestionably refined modulation and exquisite polish. But where Nature has withheld the ear for music, no labour and no art can supply the want. And