Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/87

Rh The prompt stern goddess

Shakes her head, frowning:

Time gives his hour-glass

Its due reversal;

Their hour is gone.

With weak indulgence

Did the just goddess

Lengthen their happiness,

She lengthened also

Distress elsewhere.

The hour whose happy

Unalloyed moments

I would eternalize,

Ten thousand mourners

Well pleased see end.

The bleak, stern hour,

Whose severe moments

I would annihilate,

Is passed by others

In warmth, light, joy.

Time, so complained of,

Who to no one man

Shows partiality,

Brings round to all men

Some undimmed hours.

RESIGNATION.

TO FAUSTA.

To die be given us, or attain!

Fierce work it were, to do again.