12 Matthew Arnold Quotes on Death

Matthew Arnold quotes on death

19. Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew. In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too.

20. Her cabin'd, ample Spirit, It flutter'd and fail'd for breath. To-night it doth inherit The vasty Hall of Death.

22. Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.

52. Singing, 'Here came a mortal, But faithless was she: And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.'

56. Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.

89. He went; his piping took a troubled sound Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead!

90. The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.

91. Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. I see her veil draw soft across the day, I feel her slowly chilling breath invade The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey; I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train; - The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.

92. Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!- Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; To a boon southern country he is fled, And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's train divine (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) Within a folding of the Apennine.

98. Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said!

100. Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall.

103. What is the course of the life Of mortal men on the earth?- Most men eddy about Here and there-eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate, Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurl'd 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 swell'd, Foam'd for a moment, and gone.