'Say it clearly . . . with style'

 

“Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can.  That is the only secret of style.”  - Matthew Arnold

 

Arnold, born in Liverpool in 1822, is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning.  "Poetry," he wrote, "is simply the most beautiful, impressive and widely effective mode of saying things."  For Saturday's Poem, here is Arnold's,

 

Longing

 

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!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

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.