This superb selection of the poetry of Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) offers rich evidence of the poetic gifts that made him famous in his day, and that continue to rank him among the most loved and admired of Victorian poets. In addition to the title poem, it includes such masterpieces as "The Scholar Gipsy," "Thyrsis," "The Forsaken Merman," "Memorial Verses," and "Rugby Chapel."
Although as a literary critic, Arnold championed the serene poise and impersonal grandeur of the classics, his own poems were often more romantic than classical in nature — intimate, personal, sentimental, even nostalgic. Yet it is these engaging qualities, together with his poems' lyrical inspiration and lofty meditative character, that continue to endear Matthew Arnold to lovers of poetry.