Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.
Empedocles on Etna, and Other PoemsCourage
T
True, we must bow to Nature’s law:
Must bear in silence many an ill;
Must learn to wait, renounce, withdraw.
When Fate and Circumstance are strong,
And in their rush the human race
Are swept, like huddling sheep, along;
Who, though the tendence of the whole
They less than us might recognize,
Kept, more than us, their strength of soul.
Not that he took the course to die—
But that, when ’gainst himself he rais’d
His arm, he rais’d it dauntlessly.
If not thy fierce and turbid song,
Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire,
Thy fiery courage still was strong.
Did with such cold derision shine,
He crush’d thee not with his disdain—
He had his glow, and thou hadst thine.
Is weakness, is a faltering course.
Oh that past times could give our day,
Join’d to its clearness, of their force!