Poem by Matthew Arnold

East and West

IN the bare midst of Anglesey they show
Two springs which close by one another play,
And, “thirteen hundred years agone,” they say,
“Two saints met often where those waters flow.

“One came from Penmon, westward, and a glow
Whitened his face from the sun’s fronting ray.
Eastward the other, from the dying day;
And he with unsunned face did always go.”

“Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark,” men said.
The Seer from the East was then in light,
The Seer from the West was then in shade.

Ah! now ’t is changed. In conquering sunshine bright
The man of the bold West now comes arrayed;
He of the mystic East is touched with night.

1. Religious Isolation
2. To George Cruikshank
3. Written in Butler’s Sermons
4. Quiet Work
5. Written in Emerson’s Essays

Ella Wilcox East and West ("The Day has never understood the Gloaming or the Night")

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