Explore "East London" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead / Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, / And the pale weaver, through his windows seen / In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited; / I met a preacher there I knew, and said: / "Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"
"Bravely! " said he; "for I of late have been / Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, the living bread."
O human soul! as long as thou canst so / Set up a mark of everlasting light, / Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, / To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam, / Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.