Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Matthew Arnold. 18221888754. From the Hymn of Empedocles
IS it so small a thing | |
To have enjoy’d the sun, | |
To have lived light in the spring, | |
To have loved, to have thought, to have done; | |
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes; | 5 |
That we must feign a bliss | |
Of doubtful future date, | |
And while we dream on this | |
Lose all our present state, | |
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose? | 10 |
Not much, I know, you prize | |
What pleasures may be had, | |
Who look on life with eyes | |
Estranged, like mine, and sad: | |
And yet the village churl feels the truth more than you; | 15 |
Who ‘s loth to leave this life | |
Which to him little yields: | |
His hard-task’d sunburnt wife, | |
His often-labour’d fields; | |
The boors with whom he talk’d, the country spots he knew. | 20 |
But thou, because thou hear’st | |
Men scoff at Heaven and Fate; | |
Because the gods thou fear’st | |
Fail to make blest thy state, | |
Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are. | 25 |
I say, Fear not! life still | |
Leaves human effort scope. | |
But, since life teems with ill, | |
Nurse no extravagant hope. | |
Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair. | 30 |