< Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf
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MATTHEW ARNOLD'S NEW POEMS.
135
"Like us, the lightning fires
Love to have scope and play;
The stream, like us, desires
An unimpeded way;
Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at large.
Love to have scope and play;
The stream, like us, desires
An unimpeded way;
Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at large.
"Streams will not curb their pride
The just man not to entomb,
Nor lightnings go aside
To leave his virtues room;
Nor is that wind less rough which blows a good man's barge.
The just man not to entomb,
Nor lightnings go aside
To leave his virtues room;
Nor is that wind less rough which blows a good man's barge.
"Nature, with equal mind,
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away:
Allows the proudly-riding and the founder'd bark."
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away:
Allows the proudly-riding and the founder'd bark."
Again, there are "the ill-deeds of other men" to fill up the account against us of painful and perilous things. And we, instead of doing and bearing all we can under our conditions of life, must needs "cheat our pains" like children after a fall who "rate the senseless ground:"
"So, loth to suffer mute,
We, peopling the void air,
Make gods to whom to impute
The ills we ought to bear;
With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
We, peopling the void air,
Make gods to whom to impute
The ills we ought to bear;
With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
"Yet grant—as sense long miss'd
Things that are now perceiv'd,
And much may still exist
Which is not yet believ'd—
Grant that the world were full of Gods we cannot see;
Things that are now perceiv'd,
And much may still exist
Which is not yet believ'd—
Grant that the world were full of Gods we cannot see;
"All things the world which fill
Of but one stuff are spun,
That we who rail are still,
With what we rail at, one;
One with the o'er-labour'd Power that through the breadth and length
Of but one stuff are spun,
That we who rail are still,
With what we rail at, one;
One with the o'er-labour'd Power that through the breadth and length
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