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7.6
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(11
votes)
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Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
Matthew Arnold
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Read poems about / on: strength, world, life
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by
Matthew Arnold
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comments about this poem (Immortality by
Matthew Arnold
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saltedpeanut blank
(9/7/2009 11:45:00 PM) |
personally I think it reminds me of Norse mythology with only the brave souls in battle who have resolve to fight to the end for what they believe or their lively hood and die in battle. Of course I don't suppose I should give any one a history on the Valkyrie that take the souls of these men to Valhalla. I mean either that or the crusades fought in the medieval ages were both sides claimed they had a holy right to Jerusalem, and yes the crusaders we know now were mostly driven by money, but I don't think that would have been what Arnold learned of at any university of that time what with the subject of any corruption within the church such a touchy subject even hundreds of years later. I guess I'm trying to say Arnold died a while ago and I don't think he could be talking about the current war on terror, but rather the heroic Templar knights or maybe viking warriors. I mean that's just my thought on the subject take it how you want.
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Frank James Ryan, Jr.
(9/7/2009 5:34:00 PM) |
As usual, fellow members, Mr.''look at me''Pruchniki has his literary interpretations as skewed-up as he does his handle on modern day history! Unless i've been reading the wrong newaspapers, speaking to the wrong politicians or watching the wrong wars, (live, on CNN, no less) ....It is not today's Christians who go to War for God, or for an alleged guaranteed ticket to Paradise Hereafter.
BTW: An excellent poem by a quantumly talented wordsmith, one Matthew Arnold.
FjR
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Michael Pruchnicki
(9/7/2009 4:14:00 PM) |
Let's see now - Ravi tells us that the poet Matthew Arnold is not concerned with the subject of his sonnet 'Immortality, ' that 'such dreams in no way harm the world'! Straw asserts that 'Immortality' in no way comports with the Sermon on the Mount, which ignores all the advice in the Sermon to 'give alms in secrecy, ' to not pray like the hypocrites with many meaningless words, and to perform religious duties where only God may see!
It seems to me that Arnold takes a page from Christ's Sermon to warn the reader in the final lines of the sestet that at best to gain salvation just barely by the skin of one's teeth requires all the goodness one can muster in a lifetime of striving to reach the peak of one's goal - immortality in the eyes of God! Pagans do not have the same desire as a Christian who girds his loins and engages in daily combat for the glory of God!
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Ravi A
(9/7/2009 1:44:00 PM) |
Whether we have a life hereafterwards or not, let us live in grace and dignity in this life. This is all we can do. The rest will be decided by time. Heaven is a wishful thinking to maintain continuity of this mortal world. Man needs such dreams to keep low of the fear of death. It is a mindset. Nobody has come back from death to tell us about heaven. If people need the dream about heaven for their mental existence, let them have it. Such dreams in no way harm the world.
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Yodit Mussie
(9/7/2009 11:47:00 AM) |
its nice poem i really really love it
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Yodit Mussie
(9/7/2009 11:47:00 AM) |
its nice poem i really really love it
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Yodit Mussie
(9/7/2009 11:47:00 AM) |
its nice poem i really really love it
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Yodit Mussie
(9/7/2009 11:47:00 AM) |
its nice poem i really really love it
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Kevin Straw
(9/7/2009 6:16:00 AM) |
This view of heaven does not agree with the Sermon on the Mount in which the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek etc will be rewarded in the afterlife. This view of life as a kind of wrestling match with a 'brutal' world seems to me pagan rather than Christian.
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