Quote#Truth
All are before me! I behold
Quote byMatthew Arnold · 1822–1888
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855), Sts. 11 and 12.
English (original)
All are before me! I behold The House, the Brotherhood austere! — And what am I, that I am here? For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb?
— Matthew Arnold
More from Matthew Arnold
A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.
Yes: in the sea of life enisl’d, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone.
Calm soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city’s jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and cannot mar.
We cannot kindle when we will The fire that in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; — But tasks, in hours of insight willed, Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
I keep saying, Shakspeare, Shakspeare, you are as obscure as life is.
With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day and wish’t were done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern.