Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/87

 seemest; art, like the rest, a dream, Yet, since thou canst think that, since thou mayst control thy pride, thou standest clear of Nature.

So, once he saw the problem of human life. Then, tossed as he was from thought to thought in those days when evil things held sway, he recurred, in another sphere of thought, to his view of the necessity for the steady pursuit of one aim, clearly conceived in the soul. Here, he mingled it up with one of the common angers of men who suffer and know no reason for their pain—an anger which no doubt, had stirred in him at intervals. He took the story of Mycerinus, and treated it with a brief nobility of imaginative and sympathetic thought which was rare in so young a poet. The king's father had been unjust, cruel, a wicked king, He had lived long and happily. The son had believed in justice, kindness, good government, and practised them; yet the gods condemned him to die in six years. He had governed himself, sacrificed himself, and this was his reward for giving up the joy of life. "Then have I cleansed my heart in vain." There is then no justice, no morality in the gods. Or they are themselves slaves of a necessity beyond them, or careless, in their leisured pleasure, of mankind. I scorn them; and, men of Egypt, if you wish to please them, do wrong, indulge in injustice, be like my father, then they will give you length of days. For me, I will give my six years to revel, to youthful joys, and so farewell.

Nor does Arnold, in that passing mood, altogether