Explore "Youth and Calm" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, / And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There's nothing can dismarble now / The smoothness of that limpid brow.
But is a calm like this, in truth, / The crowning end of life and youth, / And when this boon rewards the dead, / Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light, / Its step so firm, its eye so bright, / Because on its hot brow there blows / A wind of promise and repose / From the far grave, to which it goes; / Because it hath the hope to come, / One day, to harbour in the tomb?
Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one / For daylight, for the cheerful sun, / For feeling nerves and living breath --
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death!
It dreams a rest, if not more deep, / More grateful than this marble sleep.
It hears a voice within it tell: / "Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well."
'Tis all perhaps which man acquires, / But 'tis not what our youth desires.