Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/274

236 We rest our faculties,

And thus address the gods:

"True science if there is,

It stays in your abodes!

Man's measures cannot mete the immeasurable all.

"You only can take in

The world's immense design;

Our desperate search was sin,

Which henceforth we resign,

Sure only that your mind sees all things which befall."

Fools! That in man's brief term

He cannot all things view,

Affords no ground to affirm

That there are gods who do;

Nor does being weary prove that he has where to rest.

Again: Our youthful blood

Claims rapture as its right;

The world, a rolling flood

Of newness and delight,

Draws in the enamoured gazer to its shining breast;

Pleasure, to our hot grasp,

Gives flowers after flowers;

With passionate warmth we clasp

Hand after hand in ours;

Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.

At once our eyes grow clear!

We see, in blank dismay,

Year posting after year,

Sense after sense decay;

Our shivering heart is mined by secret discontent.