They beat upon my ear again,
Those melancholy tones so sweet and still.
Those lute-like tones which in far distant years,
Did steal into mine ear—
Blew such a thrilling summons to my will,
Yet could not shake it;
Made my tost heart its very life-blood spill,[1]
Yet could not break it.
In these many ways he turned the problem of life. One would think that among them there would be, brought up as he had been, a cry for freedom and salvation, an appeal to the Power who is with us in the night. Once at least, and suddenly as it seems, Arnold, in the mouth of Stagirius, a young monk to whom St. Chrysostom addressed three books, made this cry. We cannot miss the personal passion in these verses, nor fail to feel that they are the outburst of long-endured distress which having tried many ways of escape in vain, fled at last to the fatherhood of God. "I do not know Thee clearly," they seem to say, "but there is that within me which bids me take my chance with Thee."
Finally, to close the eventful history of this volume, there is the last poem, entitled Resignation. It represents that to which the struggle had brought him, what he thought the wisest manner of life, the groove in which he desired to move onwards.
- ↑ Note.—In the first edition this line is better said:
Drained all the life my full heart had to spill.
