Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/290

252 Heat to fire,

Breath to air:

They were well born, they will be well entombed.

But mind?...

And we might gladly share the fruitful stir

Down in our mother earth's miraculous womb;

Well would it be

With what rolled of us in the stormy main;

We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,

Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.

But mind, but thought,

If these have been the master part of us,—

Where will they find their parent element?

What will receive them, who will call them home?

But we shall still be in them, and they in us;

And we shall be the strangers of the world;

And they will be our lords, as they are now,

And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,

And never let us clasp and feel the All

But through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.

And we shall be unsatisfied as now;

And we shall feel the agony of thirst,

The ineffable longing for the life of life

Baffled forever; and still thought and mind

Will hurry us with them on their homeless march

Over the unallied unopening earth,

Over the unrecognizing sea; while air

Will blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,

And fire repel us from its living waves.

And then we shall unwillingly return

Back to this meadow of calamity,

This uncongenial place, this human life: