Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.
Empedocles on Etna, and Other PoemsSelf-Deception
S
Of possessing powers not our share?—
Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,
But, before we woke on earth, we were.
Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God:
Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit;
Ask’d an outfit for its earthly road.
Strain’d, and long’d, and grasp’d each gift it saw.
Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing
Stav’d us back, and gave our choice the law.
Man’s blank spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who sway’d our choice, and who decided
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?
Shreds of gifts which he refus’d in full.
Still these waste us with their hopeless straining—
Still the attempt to use them proves them null.
Powers stir in us, stir and disappear.
Ah, and he, who placed our master-feeling,
Fail’d to place our master-feeling clear.
Ends we seek we never shall attain.
Ah, some power exists there, which is ours?
Some end is there, we indeed may gain?