My Favorite Love Poem, A Review of Matthew Arnold's "The Buried Life" Options

[Maggie]

My Favorite Love Poem (A Review of Matthew Arnold's 'The Buried Life')

My son's wedding was in July of 2000, and the mother of the bride and I were each to read something appropriate. I chose a section from my favorite love poem "The Buried Life" by Matthew Arnold. As a back-up I held a copy as I recited the treasured words.

Ah, to be able to write "Alas! Is even love too weak/To unlock the heart and let it speak?/Are even lovers powerless to reveal/To one another what indeed they feel?" Arnold goes on with "But we, my love!-doth a like spell benumb/Our hearts, our voices?-must we too be dumb?" He's talking about lack of self-knowledge there, not shyness, for later in the poem he points out that shyness goes by the wayside when certain feelings occur.

Arnold next explains why mankind often can't know its own feelings: That inability is part of grand design. He speaks of fate: "That it might keep from his capricious play/His genuine self, and force him to obey/Even in his own despite his being's law,/Bade through the deep recesses of our breast/The unregarded river of our life/Pursue with indiscernible flow its way. . . ."

The poet understands a man's desire to know himself. "But often in the world's most crowded streets,?But often in the din of strife,/There arises and unspeakable desire/After the knowledge of our buried life...."

He says we have "A longing to inquire/Into the mystery of this heart which beats/So wild, so deep in us-to know/Whence our lives come and where they go."

Bemoaning our lack of self knowledge, the poet writes that we "Hardly had skill to utter one of all/The nameless feelings that course through our breast,/But they course on for ever unexpressed." With this inability "From the soul's subterranean depth upborn/As from an infinitely distant land,/Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey/A melancholy into all our day."

Now Arnold gets to the heart of the matter-the reconnection of a person with his feelings and destiny. This self-knowledge comes with true love; the deepest emotional involvement with another brings the deepest awareness of self. This is rare according to Arnold, but his words indicate the poet experienced it himself.

"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.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow. . . . "

When this happens, Arnold says "An air of coolness plays upon his face/And an unwonted calm pervades his breast./And then he thinks he knows/The hills where his life rose,/And the sea where it goes."

So don't wait for a wedding or Valentine's Day. Google "The Buried Life." Print it out and share it now with the love of your life.

Peggy Carpenter Harwood

[Guest_Nina_*]

done

Nina

[Maggie]

done

Nina

Hi Nina,

Thank you!

Peggy