by Elliott & Fry, published by Bickers & Son, woodburytype, circa 1883; published 1886

In writing about lost Liverpool poets, one particular poet came to mind that wasn’t actually from Liverpool, but who is remembered there due to his untimely death in the city. Matthew Arnold was born in 1822 in Middlesex, he went to Rugby then Oxford, and was close to another Liverpool poet Arthur Hugh Clough. Arnold is sometimes characterised as a ‘sage writer’, a writer who informs the reader on contemporary social issues, and this form of social comment certainly comes through in the themes of some of his poetry, a theme that can be found in Immortality:

‘And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn

The world’s poor, routed leavings? or will they,

Who fail’d under the heat of this life’s day,

Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?’

In A Dream, Arnold paints a more idyllic picture of the world, a dream filled, hazy image of Alpine streams and the warm scents of nature, stimulating his Muse like a Romantic poet adrift:

‘Was it a dream? We sail’d, I thought we sail’d,

Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream,

Border’d, each bank, with pines; the morning sun,

On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,

On the red pinings of their forest-floor,

Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines

The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change

Of bright-leaf’d chestnuts and moss’d walnut-trees

And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.’

There is a primary school named after Matthew Arnold in the Dingle, south Liverpool, which is certainly fitting as Arnold was an inspector of schools. He died in 1888 after suffering heart failure while running to catch a tram in Liverpool, he was due to meet his daughter at a landing stage on the river as she was returning from the United States. He is buried in Surrey. Arnold’s poetry is beautiful to behold, and in capturing the social issues of Victorian England, his poetry certainly deserves more attention from syllabuses in English schools and colleges.