The last poem on our walk-through of the classics is my favorite on the issue of the human condition. If you haven’t read the other poems on this theme, you should do that before reading this one, as this poem, “The Buried Life,†by Matthew Arnold, is the longest and most complex of the lot. And yet, when understood, this poem is absolutely beautiful and deep. In order to read this poem correctly, it’s important to get a feeling of the mood the author is in. In this poem, there is obviously something deeply troubling the author that he himself cannot clearly define. We see it in the initial lines:
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears my eyes are wet.
I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll.â€
From this setup, the author goes on to explain that he himself doesn’t even know what he’s feeling. There’s just something terribly wrong with life, and he cannot clearly define what it is. To him, it’s as though there’s a “Buried Life,†waiting just beneath the surface, feelings and passions that no one can define, that come and go like the wind. My favorite lines of the poem come in the fifth stanza:
But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life,
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course.â€
There is a deep desperation in this poem that reminds me very much of Ecclesiastes in the Bible in which Solomon struggles with all his might to, in essence, find true life. As you read this poem, keep in mind that feeling. It is a long poem and some of the meanings are difficult to grasp, but one thing is clear. “The Buried Life†is a call to live life to the full, to cherish every moment and live as we were truly meant to live. So, without further ado, “The Buried Life:â€
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears my eyes are wet.
I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll.
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,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.
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?
I knew the mass of men conceal’d
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reprov’d:
I knew they lived and mov’d
Trick’d 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 – does a like 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 unchain’d
For that which seals them hath been deep ordain’d
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be,
By what distractions he would be possess’d,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity;
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;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying about in blind uncertainty
Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life,
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart that beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our thoughts come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas, none ever mines:
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown on each talent and power,
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on forever unexpress’d.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well – but ‘tis not true:
And then we will no more be rack’d
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, they benumb us at our call:
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
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-deafen’d ear
Is by the tones of a lov’d voice caress’d –
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,
And hears its winding murmur, and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
he Hills where his life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.â€
Matthew Arnold
Thanks for bearing with the poem and reading it all. I had to read it a few times before I felt as though I understood everything he was saying. I hope you’ll do the same and really appreciate this poem for all it’s worth. On the subject of the human heart, and the human condition, this poem is unmatched. This is the last of the poems in our walk-through. I hope you’ve enjoyed the rest. Thank you so much for enjoying these classic poems with me.
