"
It will be remembered that in _A Wish_, the poet, contemptuously
discarding the conventional consolations of a death-bed, entreats his
friends to place him at the open window, that he may see yet once
again--
Bathed in the sacred dews of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread--
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead;
Which never was the friend of _one_,
Nor promised love it could not give.
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.
There let me gaze, till I become
In soul, with what I gaze on, wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind--instead
Of the sick room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath--
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death!
Thus feeling, gazing, might I grow
Composed, refresh'd, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!
This solemn love and reverence for the continuous life of the physical
universe may remind us that Arnold's teaching about humanity, subtle and
searching as it is, has done less to endear him to many of his
disciples, than his feeling for Nature.
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