Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/282

244 Only the loved Hebe bears

The cup about, whose draughts beguile

Pain and care, with a dark store

Of fresh-pulled violets wreathed and nodding o'er;

And her flushed feet glow on the marble floor.

EMPEDOCLES.

He fables, yet speaks truth!

The brave impetuous heart yields everywhere

To the subtle, contriving head;

Great qualities are trodden down,

And littleness united

Is become invincible.

These rumblings are not Typho's groans, I know!

These angry smoke-bursts

Are not the passionate breath

Of the mountain-crushed, tortured, intractable Titan king;

But over all the world

What suffering is there not seen

Of plainness oppressed by cunning,

As the well-counselled Zeus oppressed

That self-helping son of earth!

What anguish of greatness,

Railed and hunted from the world,

Because its simplicity rebukes

This envious, miserable age!

I am weary of it.

—Lie there, ye ensigns

Of my unloved pre-eminence

In an age like this!

Among a people of children,

Who thronged me in their cities,