Skip to content
Linespedia

In Utrumque Paratus

By Matthew Arnold

Topics: classic

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,     At first imagind lay     The sacred world; and by procession sure     From those still deeps, in form and colour drest,     Seasons alternating, and night and day,     The long-musd thought to north south east and west     Took then its all-seen way:     O waking on a world which thus-wise springs!     Whether it needs thee count     Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things     Ages or hours: O waking on Lifes stream!     By lonely pureness to the all-pure Fount     (Only by this thou canst) the colourd dream     Of Life remount.     Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow;     And faint the city gleams;     Rare the lone pastoral huts: marvel not thou!     The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,     But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams:     Alone the sun arises, and alone     Spring the great streams.     But, if the wild unfatherd mass no birth     In divine seats hath known:     In the blank, echoing solitude, if Earth,     Rocking her obscure body to and fro,     Ceases not from all time to heave and groan,     Unfruitful oft, and, at her happiest throe,     Forms, what she forms, alone:     O seeming sole to awake, thy sun-bathd head     Piercing the solemn cloud     Round thy still dreaming brother-world outspread!     O man, whom Earth, thy long-vext mother, bare     Not without joy; so radiant, so endowd,     (Such happy issue crownd her painful care)     Be not too proud!     O when most self-exalted most alone,     Chief dreamer, own thy dream!     Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown;     Who hath a monarchs hath no brothers part;     Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem.     O what a spasm shakes the dreamers heart, ,     I too but seem!

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,..."

Matthew Arnold's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "In Utrumque Paratus"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Attribution & Rights

Author:Matthew Arnold

"If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,..." by Matthew Arnold

For usage rights, copyright concerns, or to report an issue with this content, please visit our Copyright & Report page.

Related lines

"Down the Savoy valleys sounding,     Echoing round this castle old,     Mid the distant mountain chalets     Hark! what bell for church is tol"

"Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! Now my brothers call from the bay, Now the great winds shoreward blow, Now the salt tides s"

"As the kindling glances, Queen-like and clear, Which the bright moon lances From her tranquil sphere At the sleepless waters Of a lonely mere, O"

"A thousand knights have reind their steeds     To watch this line of sand-hills run,     Along the never silent Strait,     To Calais glitteri"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Matthew Arnold

About Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was an English poet and critic whose poems "Dover Beach" and "The Scholar Gipsy" explore Victorian doubt and the search for meaning. His critical work "Culture and Anarchy" (1869) remains influential in literary and cultural studies.

Full Bibliography
Continue Reading

"Down the Savoy valleys sounding,     Echoing round..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.