try to be himself. The speaker realizes for hardly have we, for one little hour,/ Been on our own line, have we been ourselves. He desperately wants to be true to himself, for now he tries to bring out his hidden self, his true identity. Many people try to find their true identity but few actually do. Stanza six ends on a sad note describing a land where comes airs, and floating echoes, and convey/ A melancholy into all our day. This melancholy disrupts an individuals ability to find someone who he can have distinct feelings about. It is perhaps only When a beloved hand is laid in ours that a man becomes aware of his lifes flow: And then he thinks he knows/ The hills where his life rose,/ And the sea where it goes. The style of Arnolds writing influences the theme of his work The Buried Life. The stanzas within the poem vary in length. However, there seems to be a pattern in stanza length. The poem begins with two long stanzas, then is followed by two shorter stanzas, and finally ends with four longer stanzas. The second and third stanzas are different from the rest because the speaker asks questions in them. These questions emphasize the thoughts of the speaker. They show he is in a reflective and inward mood. The poem also reflects the word choice of Matthew Arnold. Arnolds use of certain words grabs the readers attention. One example is the use of the word anodyne in the sentence And thy gay smiles no anodyne. The average reader would probably have to look up the word anodyne in the dictionary to understand its meaning. Another uncommon word in the poem is subterranean in the sentence From the souls subterranean depth upborne. Arnold selects the word subterranean to emphasize th...
