A Picture At Newstead

A poem by Matthew Arnold

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?
’Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry
Stormily sweet, his Titan agony;
It was the sight of that Lord Arundel

Who struck, in heat, the child he loved so well,
And the child’s reason flickered, and did die.
Painted (he will’d it) in the gallery
They hang; the picture doth the story tell.

Behold the stern, mail’d father, staff in hand!
The little fair-hair’d son, with vacant gaze,
Where no more lights of sense or knowledge are!

Methinks the woe which made that father stand
Baring his dumb remorse to future days,
Was woe than Byron’s woe more tragic far.