MATTHEW ARNOLD'S NEW POEMS.
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sponse from natural things unseen, or from the lips of their own wisest, confronts their fancies as before.
Happiness mocked our prayer,
I think, might make us fear
A like event elsewhere;
Make us, not fly to dreams, but moderate desire."
Nor finally, when all is said, need the wise despair or re pine because debarred from dreams of a distant and dubious happiness in a world outside of ours.
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done?"
The poorest villager feels that it is not so small a thing that he should not be loth to lose the little that life can yield him. Let the wiser man, like him, trust without fear the joys that are; life has room for effort and enjoyment, though at sight of the evil and sorrow it includes one may have abjured false faith and foolish hope and fruitless fear.
The majesty and composure of thought and verse, the perfect clearness and competence of words, distinguish this from other poetry of the intellect now more approved and applauded. The matter or argument is not less deep and close than clear and even in expression; although this lucidity and equality of style may diminish its material value in eyes used to the fog and ears trained to the clatter of the chaotic school. But a poem throughout so flowerless and pallid would miss much of the common charm of poetry, however imbued with the serene and