ARNOLD ON FAITH

 

                ARNOLD ON FAITH

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic (1822-1888). He was the

eldest son of DR. Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby school.

 

He is known for preserving   eternal values in a changing society and makes severe attacks on rising  cultural anarchy.

 

He was a romantic poet influenced by the spiritual values of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) who said “The world is too much with us”.  He spurned the materialistic tastes and manners of the contemporary aristocracy and through his writings wanted to revive the classical values of urbanity.     

 

Given below are his famous lines on “The Sea of Faith.”

 

“The Sea of Faith

Was once , too, at the full and round the earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! For the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help, nor pains;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

28^th December 2023