Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/77

Rh Light bring no blindness,

Love no unkindness,

Knowledge no ruin,

Fear no undoing!

From the cradle to the grave,

Save, oh! save.

HUMAN LIFE.

mortal, when he saw,

Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,

Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly,—

"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law;

The inly-written chart thou gavest me,

To guide me, I have steered by to the end"?

Ah! let us make no claim,

On life's incognizable sea,

To too exact a steering of our way;

Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,

If some fair coast has lured us to make stay,

Or some friend hailed us to keep company.

Ay! we would each fain drive

At random, and not steer by rule.

Weakness! and worse, weakness bestowed in vain!

Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive;

We rush by coasts where we had lief remain:

Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.

No! as the foaming swath

Of torn-up water, on the main,

Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar