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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848 by MATTHEW ARNOLD

Poet Analysis

First Line: GOD KNOWS IT, I AM WITH YOU. IF TO PRIZE
Last Line: THEN AM I YOURS, AND WHAT YOU FEEL, I SHARE.
Subject(s): CLOUGH, ARTHUR HUGH (1819-1861); FREEDOM; LIBERTY;

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true--
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at the long heart-wasting show
Wherein earth's great ones are disquieted:
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed:--
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.



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