| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems | | Sonnets: To George Cruikshank, Esq. |
| | ON SEEING FOR THE FIRST TIME HIS PICTURE OF ‘THE BOTTLE’, IN THE COUNTRY
[First published 1849. Reprinted 1853, ’54, ’57.]
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ARTIST, whose hand, with horror wing’d, hath torn | |
| From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung | |
| The prodigy of full-blown crime among | |
| Valleys and men to middle fortune born, | |
| Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn: | 5 |
| Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude, | |
| Like comets on the heavenly solitude? | |
| Shall breathless glades, cheer’d by shy Dian’s horn, | |
| Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul | |
| Breasts her own griefs: and, urg’d too fiercely, says: | 10 |
| ‘Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man | |
| May be by man effac’d: man can control | |
| To pain, to death, the bent of his own days. | |
| Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.’ | | | |
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