Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.

The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems

To my Friends

LAUGH, my Friends, and without blame

Lightly quit what lightly came:

Rich to-morrow as to-day

Spend as madly as you may.

I, with little land to stir,

Am the exacter labourer.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

But my Youth reminds me—‘Thou

Hast liv’d light as these live now:

As these are, thou too wert such:

Much hast had, hast squander’d much.’

Fortune’s now less frequent heir,

Ah! I husband what’s grown rare.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Young, I said: ‘A face is gone

If too hotly mus’d upon:

And our best impressions are

Those that do themselves repair.’

Many a face I then let by,

Ah! is faded utterly.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Marguerite says: ‘As last year went,

So the coming year’ll be spent:

Some day next year, I shall be,

Entering heedless, kiss’d by thee.’

Ah! I hope—yet, once away,

What may chain us, who can say?

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that lilac kerchief, bound

Her soft face, her hair around:

Tied under the archest chin

Mockery ever ambush’d in.

Let the fluttering fringes streak

All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that figure’s pliant grace

As she towards me lean’d her face,

Half refus’d and half resign’d,

Murmuring, ‘Art thou still unkind?’

Many a broken promise then

Was new made—to break again.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,

Eager tell-tales of her mind:

Paint, with their impetuous stress

Of inquiring tenderness,

Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie

An angelic gravity.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

What, my Friends, these feeble lines

Show, you say, my love declines?

To paint ill as I have done,

Proves forgetfulness begun?

Time’s gay minions, pleas’d you see,

Time, your master, governs me.

Pleas’d, you mock the fruitless cry

‘Quick, thy tablets, Memory!’

Ah! too true. Time’s current strong

Leaves us true to nothing long.

Yet, if little stays with man,

Ah! retain we all we can!

If the clear impression dies,

Ah! the dim remembrance prize!

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!