the Buried Life

i am a poetry fan. i would not say i am obsessed or that i am an expert in the poetry genre BUT i do enjoy reading and writing poetry.

one of my favorite poems, which i discovered in college, is by English poet Matthew Arnold. I love this poem because it suggests that as humans we have a depth of emotion and thought that sometimes we do not even know exists. He talks about how in the most unassuming moments, in the times where we are most surrounded, distracted that we soon discover an inexplicable well of emotion, knowledge, whatever in ourselves. We suddenly identify with others or received a clarity about life we had not experienced before.

that at least is what i get out of the poem. But see that's what i love about poetry in the first place--you may read this. love it. but get a completely different message from it. {kind of like scripture...but that's another post}

here is an excerpt from "The Buried Life." If you have time you should read the whole thing BUT for now enjoy this snippet.


The Buried Life
By: Matthew Arnold


But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves--
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.

And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour

Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only--but this is rare--
When a belov'ed hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd--
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.