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In Memory Of Matthew Arnold
24th December 1822
– 15th April 1888
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This memorial website was created in the memory of
Matthew Arnold, born
in Laleham, Surrey
on the 24th December 1822
and passed away on the 15th April 1888, 65 years of age.
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| Biography |
| Full Name: Matthew Arnold |
| Born: 24th December 1822 |
| Passed Away: 15th April 1888 |
| Age: 65 years of age |
| Location: Laleham, Surrey |
| Country: The United Kingdom |
| Father: Thomas Arnold |
| Birth Place: Laleham, Surrey |
| Occupation: poet and literary critic |
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This memorial was created by John on
7 Apr 2006(update)
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To a British poet whose works, though old, dusty and deprived of sunlight, laying closed on most collector's shelves, has inspired many. And his life ends in a poetic expression of emotion. His daughter married an American and moved away from home to the former colonies. When she returned to present to him his first and only grandchild, so was his joy at seeing them that when racing to meet them, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He is buried in All Saints' Churchyard, Laleham, Surrey, Middlesex.
On his personal, observations about religion:
"There is a text which evangelical Protestantism--and for that matter Catholicism too--translates wrong and takes in a sense too narrow. The text is that well-known one: 'Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Instead of again, we ought to translate from above; and instead of taking the kingdom of God in the sense of a life in Heaven above, we ought to take it, as its speaker meant it, in the sense of the reign of saints, a renovated and perfected human society on earth, the ideal society of the future. In the life of such a society, in the life from above, the life born of inspiration or the spirit--in that life elevation and beauty are not everything; but they are much, and they are indispensable. Humanity cannot reach its ideal while it lacks them: 'Except a man be born from above, he cannot have part in the society of the future."
Growing Old, by Matthew Arnold
What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.
Is it to feel our strength -
Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?
Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
'Tis not to have our life
Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!
'Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!
It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.
It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion -none.
It is -last stage of all -
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.
The Longing, excerpt, by Matthew Arnold
" Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me! "
Immortality, by Matthew Arnold
Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
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Condolence Guest Book
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6 Apr 2007 – RonPrice
from George Town Tasmania
STAGIRIUS
In 1844 the British poet Matthew Arnold(1822-1888), who had started writing poetry in his teens, began writing a poem entitled Stagirius.1 That same year Arnold graduated from Oxford and began teaching the classics at Rugby School. Arnold’s poem Stagirius was not published until 1849 and then in 1855. In this poem Arnold asks release from doubt and spiritual pride. In 1857 he was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His poetry reveals the spiritual unrest and distraction of...
» read more
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Visitor Flowers
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leave my own flower
The following flowers have been placed by visitors to the online memorial of Matthew Arnold.
We invite you to leave your own flower at this memorial by entering clicking 'leave my own flower' above.
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4 May 2011
John placed this flower
& wrote: Rest in God's peace
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Visitor Candles
The following candles have been lit by visitors to the online memorial of Matthew Arnold.
We invite you to light your own candle at this memorial by entering your name below and clicking 'Light Candle'.
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John lit this candle on 4 May 2011
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Jane Castrignano lit this candle on 2 Nov 2010
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Teresa lit this candle on 2 Jul 2007
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John lit this candle on 31 Dec 2006
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Maryanne lit this candle on 30 Dec 2006
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What's New
4th May 2011 flower placed by John 4th May 2011 candle lit by John 2th November 2010 candle lit by Jane Castrignano 6th April 2007 guestbook signed by RonPrice [view]
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