{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-buried-life",
 "title": "The Buried Life",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "empedocles-on-etna",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1852,
  "venue": "Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/empedoclesonetna00arno"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/matthew-arnold_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 98,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We know, we know that we can smile;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But there’s a something in this breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To which thy light words bring no rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thy gay smiles no anodyne.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And turn those limpid eyes on mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Alas, is even Love too weak",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To unlock the heart, and let it speak?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are even lovers powerless to reveal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To one another what indeed they feel?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew the mass of men conceal’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They would by other men be met",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With blank indifference, or with blame reprov’d:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew they liv’d and mov’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trick’d in disguises, alien to the rest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men, and alien to themselves⁠—and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The same heart beats in every human breast!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But we, my love⁠—doth a like spell benumb",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hearts⁠—our voices?⁠—must we too be dumb?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, well for us, if even we,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Even for a moment, can get free",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our heart, and have our lips unchain’d:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain’d.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fate, which foresaw",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How frivolous a baby man would be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By what distractions he would be possess’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How he would pour himself in every strife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And well-nigh change his own identity;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it might keep from his capricious play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His genuine self, and force him to obey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even in his own despite, his being’s law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bade through the deep recesses of our breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unregarded River of our Life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that we should not see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The buried stream, and seem to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eddying about in blind uncertainty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though driving on with it eternally.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But often, in the din of strife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There rises an unspeakable desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After the knowledge of our buried life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thirst to spend our fire and restless force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In tracking out our true, original course;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A longing to inquire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the mystery of this heart that beats",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So wild, so deep in us, to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whence our thoughts come and where they go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And many a man in his own breast then delves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But deep enough, alas, none ever mines:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we have been on many thousand lines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we have shown on each talent and power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But hardly have we, for one little hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hardly had skill to utter one of all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nameless feelings that course through our breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they course on for ever unexpress’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And long we try in vain to speak and act",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hidden self, and what we say and do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is eloquent, is well⁠—but ’tis not true:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then we will no more be rack’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With inward striving, and demand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the thousand nothings of the hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their stupefying power;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As from an infinitely distant land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A melancholy into all our day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only⁠—but this is rare⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When a belovèd hand is laid in ours,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When, jaded with the rush and glare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the interminable hours,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When our world-deafen’d ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is by the tones of a lov’d voice caress’d⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hears its winding murmur, and he sees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And there arrives a lull in the hot race",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein he doth for ever chase",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An air of coolness plays upon his face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then he thinks he knows",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Hills where his life rose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the Sea where it goes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}