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To George Cruikshank, Esq.

By Matthew Arnold

Topics: classic

Artist, whose hand, with horror wingd, hath torn     From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung     The prodigy of full-blown crime among     Valleys and men to middle fortune born,     Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn:     Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude,     Like comets on the heavenly solitude?     Shall breathless glades, cheerd by shy Dians horn.     Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul     Breasts her own griefs: and, urgd too fiercely, says:     Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man     May be by man effacd: man can control     To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.     Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.

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"Artist, whose hand, with horror wingd, hath torn..."

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Author:Matthew Arnold

"Artist, whose hand, with horror wingd, hath torn..." by Matthew Arnold

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Matthew Arnold

About Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was an English poet and critic whose poems "Dover Beach" and "The Scholar Gipsy" explore Victorian doubt and the search for meaning. His critical work "Culture and Anarchy" (1869) remains influential in literary and cultural studies.

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"Down the Savoy valleys sounding,     Echoing round..."

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