To Marguerite

We mortal millios live alone (from To Marguerite by Matthew Arnold)Matthew Arnold

YES: in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown.

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions live alone.

     The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know.

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But when the moon their hollows lights,

And they are swept by balms of spring,

And in their glens, on starry nights,

The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,

Across the sounds and channels pour;

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Mathew Arnold1

O then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent!

—For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent.

Now round us spreads the watery plain—

O might our marges meet again!

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Who order’d that their longing’s fire

Should be, as soon as kindled, cool’d?

Who renders vain their deep desire?—

     A God, a God their severance ruled;

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.

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The poem was first published with the title To Marguerite, in Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis in 1852 in a volume titled Empedocles on Etna and other Poems, published anonymously. The volume is very scarce and was withdrawn from circulation before fifty copies were sold. In 1857, the poem was published as To Marguerite: Continued, a sequel to the poem Isolation: To Marguerite.1

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The punctuation and formatting used for the poem on this page is from an 1896 compilation of Arnold’s poetry.2

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Glossary

  • Enisl’d; ​to make into an island
  • Enclasping: ​to clasp or hold in an embrace
  • Balms: ​a substance which soothes
  • Marges: ​edges, margins
  • Severance: ​breaking apart
  • Bade: ​ordered
  • Betwixt: ​between
  • Unplumb’d: ​a depth which cannot be measured
  • Estranging: ​pushing apart

References and Interpretations

Biographical information on Matthew Arnold

  1. Elliott & Fry. Matthew Arnold. c. 1883. National Portait Gallery, London. In National Portrai Gallery.
  2. To Marguerite: Continued. Wikipedia. last edit February 02, 2016. Accessed July 11, 2019.
  3. Arnold, Matthew. To Margurite, In Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis. In Alaric at Rome: And Other Poems, edited by Clement K. Shorter, 170. London: Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1896.
July 12, 2019