The Buried Life

(I wrote this post forever ago. In the midst of my mid-terms. Now that I'm in the midst of finals, I thought of it again. This is such a lovely poem. Read it all and you'll be glad you did)


Really loving this poem from Matthew Arnold right now

Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,

We know, we know that we can smile!

But there's a something in this breast, 

to which thy light words bring no rest...

Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,

and turn those limpid eyes on mine,

and let me read there, love! they inmost soul

I knew the mass of men concealed

Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

I knew they lived and moved

Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest

of men, and alien to themselves - and yet

the same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love! doth like a spell benumb

Our hearts, our voices? - must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we, 

Even for a moment can get free

Our heart, and have our lips unchained;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordained

Fate foresaw the distractions that would possess man,

How he would pour himself in every strife, and well-night change his own identity - 

that it might keep from his capricious play

His genuine self ....

and that we should not see 

The buried stream, and seem to be

eddying at large in blind uncertainty,

Though driving on with it eternally

and the best part:


Only - but this is rare - 
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, 
When our world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed -
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.