[ Introduction
] | [ Poems ] | [ Essays
]
[ Editions & Bibliography ] |
[ Criticism ]
[ Information & Credits ] | [
Escape & Comment ]
My interest in Matthew Arnold also developed in tandem with
my interest in the English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, who
wrote the lovely work 'An Oxford Elegy', which combined two of
Arnold's poems ('The Scholar Gipsy' and 'Thyrsis'), pared them
down, and set them to rather haunting, mournful music. This is
a comparatively rare piece, and I know of only one recording of
it, on a Nimbus Records CD (and it may now be out-of-print). If
Arnold or Vaughn Williams interest you, I would recommend the
work quite highly.
- more to come -
-- William Nedblake
Absence
In this fair stranger's eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love, I see.
I shudder: for the passing day
Had borne me far from thee.
This is the curse of life: that not
A nobler calmer train
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot
Our passions from our brain;
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok'd souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.
I struggle toward the light; and ye,
Once-long'd-for storms of love!
If with the light ye cannot be,
I bear that ye remove.
I struggle towards the light; but oh,
While yet the night is chill,
Upon Time's barren, stormy flow,
Stay with me, Marguerite, still!
- more to come -
This brief archive is part of a series of ongoing projects
on authors that interest me. This is, perhaps, not the most liberal
of criteria, but as it is personal taste that drive these works,
one should not expect much more. All material reproduced is outside
the domain of copyright to the best of my knowledge, and sources
are cited where there is a possible conflict. All opinions expressed,
while reasoned, insightful, and thoroughly defensible, are mine
own, and therefore not the business of people who cannot accept
the views of others.