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Poem by Matthew Arnold


Shakespeare


Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 



Matthew Arnold

Poem Theme: William Shakespeare

Matthew Arnold's other poems:
  1. To George Cruikshank
  2. To the Duke of Wellington
  3. Stanzas Composed at Carnac
  4. Heine’s Grave
  5. Written in Butler’s Sermons


Poems of the other poets with the same name:

  • Robert Herrick Shakespeare ("THOU soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream")
  • Thomas Gent Shakespeare ("While o'er this pageant of sublunar things")
  • Henry Longfellow Shakespeare ("A vision as of crowded city streets")
  • Vachel Lindsay Shakespeare ("Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came")
  • Lucretia Davidson Shakespeare ("Shakspeare! with all thy faults")

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