Fathers Day Poem: Matthew Arnold - Rugby Chapel 1857

Matthew Arnold, Rugby Chapel, November eighteen fifty seven. Coldly, sadly descends the autumn evening, the field strewn with its dank yellow drifts of withered leaves, and the elms fade into dimness, apace silent, hardly a shout from a few boys laid at their play. The lights come out in the street, in the schoolroom windows, but cold, solemn, unlighted austere, through the gathering darkness, arise the chapel walls, in whose bound thou my father art, laid there Thou dost lie in the gloom of the autumn evening. But ah, the word gloom to my mind brings thee back in the light of thy radiant vigor. Again in the gloom of November, we passed days not dark at thy side, seasons impaired, not the ray of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear such thou wast an. I stand in the autumn evening and think of bygone autumns with THEE. Fifteen years have gone round since thou arosest to tread in the summer morning, the road of death at a call unforeseen sudden. For fifteen years we who till then in thy shade, rested as under the bows of a mighty oak, have endured sunshine and rain, as we might bear unshaded alone, lacking the shelter of thee O strong soul, by what shore tarriest thou now? For that force surely has been up and left vain somewhere, surely afar in the sounding labor house, vast of being is practicized that strength, zealous, beneficent, firm. Yes, in some far shining sphere, consciousness or not of the past, Still Thou performest the word of the spirit in whom thou dost live, prompt, unwearied. As here still thou unpraisest the zeal, the humble good from the ground, sternly represseth the bad. Still like a trumpet, thou'st rose. Those who with half open eyes tread the border land dim TwixT vice and virtue, revisit this was Thy work, This was Thy life upon the earth. What is the course of the life of mortal men on the earth? Most men ettie about here and there, eat and drink, chatter and love and hate, gather and squander, are raised aloft, are hurled in the dust, striving blindly, achieving nothing. And then they die, perish, and no one asks who or what they have been, more than he asks what waves in the moonlit solitudes mild of the midmost ocean have swelled, foamed for a moment, and gone. And there are some whom athirst ardent, unquenchable fires, not with the crowd, to be spent, not without aim, to grow, go round in an eddy of purposeless dust, effort, unmeaning and vain. Ah. Yes, some of us strive, not without action to die fruitless, but something to snatch from dull oblivion, nor all glut, the devouring grave. We we have chosen our path, path to a clear, purposed goal, path of advance. But it leads a long steep journey through sunk gorges, over mountains and snow. Cheerful with friends, we set forth. Then on the height comes the storm. Thunder crashes from the rock to rock, the cataract's reply lightnings dazzle our eyes. Roaring torrents have breached the track. The stream bed descends in the place where the wayfarer once planted his footsteps. The spray boils over its borders, aloft the unseen snow beds dislodge their hanging ruin, alas havoc is made in our train. Friends who set forth at our side falter are lost in the storm. We we only are left with frowning foreheads, with lips sternly compressed. We strain on on, and at nightfall at last come to the end of our way, to the lonely inn mid the rocks, where the gaunt and taciturn host stands on the threshold. The wind, shaking its thin white hairs, holds his lantern to scan our storm beat figures, and asks whom in our party we bring, whom we have left in the snow. Sadly we answer, we bring only ourselves. We lost sight of the rest in the storm, hardly ourselves. We fought through, stripped without friends, as we are friends, companions and train. The avalanche swept from our side. But thou wouldst not alone be saved my father alone, conquer and come to thy goal, leaving the rest in the wild. We were weary, and we were fearful, and we in our march, fain to drop down and to die. Still thou turnest and still beckonst to trembler, and still gavest the weary thy hand. If in the paths of the world stones might have wounded thy feet toil or dejection have tried thy spirit, of that we saw nothing to us thou wast still cheerful and helpful and firm. Therefore to THEE it was given many to save with thyself. And at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd, to come, bring thy sheep in thy hand, and through THEE I believe, and the noble and the great who are gone, pure souls, honored and blessed by former ages. Who else such so soulless, so poor is the race of men whom I see seem but a dream of the heart, seen, but a cry of desire. Yes, I believe that there lived others like THEE in the past, Not like the men of the crowd, who all round me day to day bluster or cringe and make life hideous and arid and vile. But souls tempered with fire, fervent, heroic and good helpers and friends of mankind, servants of God or sons. Shall I not call you, because not as servants, ye knew your father's innermost mind, his who unwillingly sees one of his little ones lost. Yours is the praise. If mankind hath not as yet in its march, fainted and fallen and died. See in the of the world marches the host of mankind a feeble, wavering line. Where are they tending? A God marshal them, gave them their goal. Ah, but the way is so long. Years they have been in the wild, sore, thirst, plagues than the rocks rising all around over all factions divide them. Their host threatens to break, to dissolve. Ah, keep keep them combined. Else, of the myriads who fill that army, not one shall arrive. So they shall stray in the rocks, stagger forever in vain, and die one by one in the waste. Then, in such hour of need of your fainting, dispirited race, ye like the angels, appear radiant with ardor divine beacons of hope, Ye appear. Languor is not in the heart. Weakness is not in ye your word, Weariness not on your brow. Yeay a light in our vein lay a light in our van at your voice, panic, despair, flee away, Ye, move through the ranks, recall the stragglers, refresh the out one, praise, reinspire the brave order, courage return, eyes rekindling in prayers. Follow your steps as you go. Ye, fill up the gaps in our files, strengthen the wavering line, establish continue our march on to the bound of the waste, on to the City of God.