On his way to meet his daughter in Liverpool,
Matthew Arnold died rushing to catch a tram.
April 15, 1888
It's difficult to imagine a legend Matthew Arnold died rushing to catch a tram.
April 15, 1888
standing on his porch, juggling
his newspaper, umbrella, keys,
struggling to lock the door. What was it
like to step onto the gravel sidewalk,
approach the bridge, a fine Mersey rain
falling around him, the sleeves
of his coat speckled with pin-sized
droplets, in each the reflection
of the black umbrella's underside:
the rayed spokes, each thin silver spine?
Praise his last passage. His stark being
cutting across the street. His heart battling
the blood in his chest as he broke into a run.
Sir Edmund Chambers once said his poems
contained a "majestic sadness", like music.
And like music he surged, the tram
pulling away from his outstretched hand
as a violence gripped him from within.
The orchestra of his body played
its final cadence while his oldest daughter
waited on the docks beneath a plumed
English sky. With her suitcase.
In her best dress.
Maybe she touched
a passing stranger on the shoulder
and asked for the time.
