Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/95

Rh This world in which we draw our breath,

In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.

Blame thou not, therefore, him who dares

Judge vain beforehand human cares;

Whose natural insight can discern

What through experience others learn;

Who needs not love and power, to know

Love transient, power an unreal show;

Who treads at ease life's uncheered ways:

Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise!

Rather thyself for some aim pray,

Nobler than this, to fill the day;

Rather that heart, which burns in thee,

Ask, not to amuse, but to set free;

Be passionate hopes not ill resigned

For quiet, and a fearless mind.

And though fate grudge to thee and me

The poet's rapt security,

Yet they, believe me, who await

No gifts from chance, have conquered fate.

They, winning room to see and hear,

And to men's business not too near,

Through clouds of individual strife

Draw homeward to the general life.

Like leaves by suns not yet uncurled;

To the wise, foolish; to the world,

Weak: yet not weak, I might reply,

Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye,

To whom each moment in its race,

Crowd as we will its neutral space,

Is but a quiet watershed

Whence, equally, the seas of life and death are fed.