THE SCHOLAR GIPSY -- MATHEW ARNOLD

 THE SCHOLAR GIPSY —MATHEW ARNOLD 

 

Go, for they call you, Shepherd from the hill;

Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes;

No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,

 

Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,

Nor the cropp’d grasses shoot another head.

But when the fields are still,

 

And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen

Cross and recross the strips of moon-blench’d green;

Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest.

 

Here, where the reaper was at work of late,

In this high field’s dark corner, where he leaves

His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,

 

And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves;

Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use:

Here will I sit and wait.

 

While to my ear from uplands far away

The bleating of the folded flocks is borne

With distant cries of reapers in the corn

All the live murmur of a summer’s day.

 

Screen’d is this nook over the high, half-reap’d field,

And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be.

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,

 

And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see

Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep:

And air swept lindens yield

 

Their scant, and rustle down their perfum’d showers

Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,

And bower me from me from the August sun with shade;

And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers:

 

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book

Come, let me read the oft-read tale again,

The Story of that Oxford Scholar poor

 

Of pregnant parts quick inventive brain,

Who, tired of knocking at preferment’s door

One summer morn forsook

 

 

His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy lore,

And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood:

And came, as most men deem’d, to little good,

But came to Oxford and his friends no more.

 

But once, years after, in the country lanes,

Two scholars whom at college erst he knew

Met him, and of his way of life inquired

Whereat he answer’d, that the Gipsy crew,

His mates, had arts to rule as they desired

The workings of men’s brains;

 

And they can bind them to what thoughts they will:

‘And I,’ he said, ‘the secret of their art,

When fully learned, will to the world impart:

But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.’

 

This said, he left them, and return’d no more,

But rumours hung about the country side

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray.

 

Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey. 

The same the Gipsies wore. 

 

Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock’d boors

Had found him seated at their entering,

 

But ’mid their drink and clatter, he would fly;

And I myself seem half to know thy looks,

And put the shepherds wanderer, on thy trace;

 

And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks

I ask if thou hast pass’d their quiet place;

Or in my boat I lie

 

Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats,

Mid wide wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,

And watch the warm green muffled Cumner hills.

And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats;

 

For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground.

Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe,

Retuning home on summer nights, have met

Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe,

Trailling in the cool stream thy fingers wet,

As the slow punt swings round:

And leaning backwards in a pensive dream,

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers

Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers

And thine eyes resting on the moonlight stream:

 

And then they land, and thou art seen no more.

Maidens who from the distant hamlets come

To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,

Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,

 

Or cross a stile into the public way;

Oft thou hast given them store

Of flowers —the frail—leafed, white anemone—

Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves—

 

And purple orchises with spotted leaves—

But none has words she can report of thee.

 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hey-time’s here

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass

Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames.

 

To bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass,

Have often pass’d thee near

 

Sitting upon the river bank o’ergrown:

Mark’d thy outlandish garb, thy figure spare,

Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air;

But, when they came from bathing, thou wert gone.

 

At some lone homestead in the Cummer hills,

Where at her open door the housewife darns,

Thou hast been seem, or hanging on a gate

 

To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.

Children, who early range these slopes and late

For cresses from the rills.

 

Have known thee watching all an April day,

The springing pastures and the feeding kine,

And mark’d thee, when the stars come out and shine.

 

Through the long dewy grass move slow away.

In Autumn, on the skirts of Bagley wood,

Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edg’d way

Pitch their smok’d tents, and every bush you see

With scarlet patches tagg’d and shreds of grey,

Above the forest ground call’d Thessaly—

The black-bird picking food

 

Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;

So often has he known thee past him stray

Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither’d spray,

And waiting for the spark from Heaven to fall.

 

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill

Where home through flooded fields foot travellers go,

Have I not pass’d thee on the wooden bridge

 

Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,

Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge?

Abd thou hast climb’d the hill.

 

And gain’d the white brow of the Cummer range,

Turn’d once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,

The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall—

Then sought thy straw in some sequester’d grange.

 

But what— I dream! Two hundred years are flown

Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,

And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe

 

That thou wert wander’d from the studious walls

To learn strange arts, and join a Gipsy tribe;

And thou from earth art gone

 

Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid;

Some country nook, whereo’er thy unknown grave

Tall grasses and white flowering nettlet wave—

Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree’s shade.

 

—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours.

For what wears out the life of mortal men?

’Tis that from change to change their being rolls;

Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 

And numb the elastic powers.

 

Till having us’d our nerves with bliss and teen,

And tir’d upon a thousand schemes our with,

And to the just-pausing Genius we remit

 

Our worn-out life and are— what we have been,

Thou hast not liv’d, why should’st thou perish, so?

Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire:

Else were thou long since number’d with the dead—

 

Else hadst thou spent like other men, thy fire.

The generations of thy peers are fled.

And we ourselves shall go;

 

But thou possessest an immortal lot,

And we imagine thee exempt from age

And living as thou liv’st on Glanvil’s page,

Because thou hadst-what we, alas, have not!

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers

Fresh, undiverted to the world, without,

Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;

Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,

Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.

 

O life unlike to ours!

Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,

Of whom each strives, not knows for what he strives,

 

And each half lives a hundred different lives;

Who wait like thee, but not like thee, in hope,

 

Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven; and we,

Vague half-believers of our casual creeds,

Who never deeply felt, our clearly will’d

 

Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,

Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill’d;

For whom each year we see

 

Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;

Who hesitate and falter life away,

 

And loose to-morrow the ground won to-day—

Ah, do not we, wanderer, await it too?

Yes, we await it, but it still delays,

And then we suffer, and amongst us one.

Who most has suffered takes, dejectedly

 

His seat upon the intellectual throne:

And all his store of sad experience he 

Lays bare of wretched days;

 

Tells us his misery’s birth and growth and sighs,

And how the dying spark of hope was fed,

And how the breast was sooth’d and how the head,

And all his hourly varied anodynes.

 

This for our wisest; and we others pine,

And wish the long unhappy dream would end,

And waive all claim to bliss and try to bear,

With close lipp’d Patience for our only friend,

Sad patience, too near neighbour to Despair;

But none has hope like thine.

Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray.

Roaming the country side, a truant boy,

Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,

And every doubt blown by time away,

 

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,

And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;

Before this strange disease of modern life,

With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife

Fly hence, our contact fear!

 

Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!

Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern

From her false friend’s approach in Hades turn,

Wave us away, and keep thy solitude,

 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope,

Still clutching the inviolable shade,

With a free onward impulse brushing through,

By night, the silver’d branches of the glade —

Far on the forest skirts, where none pursue,

On some mild pastoral slope

Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales,

Freshen thy flowers, as in former years,

With dew: or listen with enchanted ears,

From the dark dingles, to the nightingales.

 

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!

For strong the infection of our mental strife,

Which, thou it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;

And we should win thee from thy own fair life,

Like us distracted, and like us unblest.

Soon, soon thy cheer would die.

 

Thy hopes frow timorous, and unfix’d thy powers,

And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made:

And then thy glad perennial youth would fade.

Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.

 

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!

—As some grave Tyrian trader; from the sea,

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow

Lifting the cool-hair’d creepers stealthily,

The fringes of a southward-facing brow

Among the Aegean isles;

 

And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,

Green bursting figs, and tunnies steep’d in brine;

And knew the intruders on his ancient home,

The young light-hearted Masters of the waves;

And snatch’d his rudder: and shook out more sail,

And day and night held on indignantly

O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale,

Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,

To where the Atlantic raves

Outside the Western Straits, and unbent sails

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,

 

Shy traffickers, the dark lberians come:

And on the beach undid his corded bales.

 

                              *****

 

 

 THE SCHOLAR GIPSY – MATTHEW ARNOLD

 

“THE SCHOLAR GIPSY” is a thought provoking and melancholic poem written by Matthew Arnold in the year 1853 of 19^th century. The poem revolves around the intriguing and mythical figure of the “Scholar Gipsy”, a wandering scholar of great wisdom and intellect who belongs to the Romani (gipsy) Community.

 

The setting of the poem “THE SCHOLAR GIPSY” is the Oxford countryside, where the narrator learns about the existence of the Scholar Gipsy from a local shepherd. The Scholar Gipsy was once a diligent and studious oxford student who decided to forsake traditional academic pursuits for a simpler and more profound way of learning. He leaves the confines of the academic world, seeking knowledge and wisdom from nature and the open road.

 

Arnold portrays the character of the Scholar Gipsy as a symbol of the pursuit of knowledge beyond the confines of formal education. He suggests that the traditional scholastic environment may not always be the ideal place to find true wisdom and enlightenment. Instead, the Scholar Gipsy represents the idea that knowledge can be found in the untamed and unexplored aspects of life, away from the trappings of conventional society.  

 

The poem blends elements of nature, nostalgia, and existential contemplation, presenting a wistful narrative of a life devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. The “THE SCHOLAR GIPSY” becomes and embodiment of a romanticized and idyllic existence, living on the fringes of society while seeking a deeper understanding of life’s mysteries.

 

Arnold’s “THE SCHOLAR GIPSY” raises questions about the value of formal education, the allure of the unknown, and the potential rewards of an unconventional life dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom. The poem’s introspective and contemplative tone leaves readers reflecting on the nature of knowledge, the choices we make in our lives, and the eternal quest for enlightenment.

 

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 mastanappa puletipalli      

 

 

 

Resolution and Independence - William Wordsworth

 RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE

 

I

There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

The birds are singing in the distant woods;

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

 

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;

The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops; —on the moors

The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth

Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

 

III

I was a Traveller then upon the moor;

I saw the hare that raced about with joy;

I heard the woods and distant waters roar;

Or heard them not, as happy as a boy: 

The pleasant season did my heart employ:

My old remembrances went from me wholly;

And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

 

IV

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might

Of joy in minds that can no further go,

As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low;

To me that morning did it happen so;

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;

Dim sadness —and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

 

V

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;

And I bethought me of the playful hare:

Even such a happy Child of earth am I;

Even as these blissful I walk, and from all care;

But there may come another day to me—

Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

 

VI

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,

As if life’s business were a summer mood;

As if all needful things would come unsought

To genial faith, still rich in genial good;

But how can He expect that others should

Build for him, sow foe him, and at his call 

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

 

VII

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,

The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;

Of Him who walked in glory and in joy

Following his plough, along the mountain-side:

By our own spirits are we deified:

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

 

VIII

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,

A leading from above, a something given,

Yet it befell that, in this lonely place,

When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,

Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven 

I saw a Man before me unawares:

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

 

IX

As a huge stone is sometimes seem to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence;

Wonder to all who do the same espy,

By what means it could thither come, and whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense:

Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf

Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

 

X

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,

Nor all asleep —in his extreme old age:

His body was bent double, feet and head

Coming together in life’s pilgrimage;

As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage

Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

 

XI

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,

Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:

And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,

Upon the margin of that Moorish flood

Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,

That heareth not the loud winds when they call;

And moveth all together, if it move at all.

 

XII

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond

Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look

Upon the muddy water, which he conned,

As if he had been reading in a book;

And now a stranger’s privilege I took;

And, drawing to his side, to him did say,

“This morning gives us promise of a glorious day,”

 

XIII

A gentle answer did the old Man make,

In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:

And him with further words I thus bespake,

“What occupation do you there pursue?

This is a lonesome place for one like you.”

Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise

Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes.

 

XIV

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,

But each in solemn order followed each,

With something of a lofty utterance drest—

Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach

Of ordinary men; a stately speech;

Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,

Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

 

XV

He told, that to these waters he had come

To gather leeches, being old and poor:

Employment hazardous and wearisome!

And he had many hardships to endure:

From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;

Housing, with God’s good help, by choice or chance:

And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

 

XVI

The old Man still stood talking by my side;

But now his voice to me was like a stream

Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;

And the shole body of the Man did seem

Like one whom I had met with in a dream;

Or like a man from some far region sent,

To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

 

XVII

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;

And hope that is unwilling to be fed;

Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills:

And mighty Poets in their misery dead.

—Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,

My question eagerly did I renew,

“How is it that you live, and what is it you do?”

 

XVIII

He with a smile did then his words repeat;

And said that, gathering leeches, far and wide

He travelled; stirring thus about his feet

That waters of the pools where they abide

“Once I could meet with them on every side;

But they have dwindled long by slow decay;

Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may.”

 

                                    XIX

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,

The old Man’s shape, and speech —all troubled me:

In my mind’s eye I seemed to see him pace

About the weary moors continually,

Wandering about alone and silently.

While I these thoughts within myself pursued.

He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

 

                                   XX

And soon with this he other matter blended,

Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,

But stately in the main; and, when he ended,

I could have laughed myself to scorn to find

In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.

“God”, said I, “be my help and stay secure;

I’ll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!”

 

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—William Wordsworth

 

 

 

 Resolution and Independence – William Wordsworth

 

“Resolution and Independence” is a narrative poem written by the renowned English Romantic Poet William Wordsworth. The poem first published in 1807 as part of his collection “Poems in Two Volumes”, delves into the themes of nature, human perseverance, and the wisdom of experience. 

 

The poem recounts a speaker’s encounter with an old, humble leech-gatherer (a person who collects medicinal leeches) during a solitary walk in the country side. The speaker is initially filled with feelings of despondency and doubt, contemplating the struggles and uncertainties of life. However, upon meeting the leech-gatherer, the speaker witnesses a contrasting example of resilience and fortitude in the face of hardship.

 

The leech-gatherer is portrayed as an emblem of steadfastness and resolution. Despite his old age and arduous profession, he maintains a cheerful and contented demeanor, deriving wisdom from his long experience with the natural world. Through their conversation, the speaker comes to appreciate the wisdom that can be gained through endurance and patient observation of nature’s cycles.  

 

The poem presents a stark contrast between the speaker’s initial melancholy and the leech-gatherer’s unyielding spirit, ultimately leading to a sense of moral rejuvenation and hope for the future. The encounter serves as a reminder of the profound lessons that nature and human experience can offer, encouraging the speaker, and by extension, the reader, to find solace and strength in life’s trials and tribulations.

 

“Resolution and Independence” exemplifies Wordsworth’s signature themes of the power of nature, the beauty of simplicity and the transformative potential of encounters with ordinary people. It remains an enduring work that highlights the Romantic Belief in the redemptive qualities of the natural world and indomitable spirit of the human soul.

 

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 mastanappa puletipalli