Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/297

Rh Over tombs, amid graves,

See! on the cumbered plain

Clearing a stage,

Scattering the past about,

Comes the new age.

Bards make new poems,

Thinkers new schools,

Statesmen new systems,

Critics new rules.

All things begin again;

Life is their prize;

Earth with their deeds they fill,

Fill with their cries.

Poet, what ails thee, then?

Say, why so mute?

Forth with thy praising voice!

Forth with thy flute!

Loiterer! why sittest thou

Sunk in thy dream?

Tempts not the bright new age?

Shines not its stream?

Look, ah! what genius,

Art, science, wit!

Soldiers like Cæsar,

Statesmen like Pitt!

Sculptors like Phidias,

Raphaels in shoals,

Poets like Shakspeare,—

Beautiful souls!

See, on their glowing cheeks

Heavenly the flush!

—Ah! so the silence was!

So was the hush!