Poem by Matthew Arnold

To the Duke of Wellington

ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED.

Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life
Stand never idle, but go always round;
Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground,
Moved only; but by genius, in the strife

Of all its chafing torrents after thaw,
Urged; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand,
The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand;
And, in this vision of the general law,

Hast labored, but with purpose; hast become
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm,--
For this, thy track across the fretful foam

Of vehement actions without scope or term,
Called history, keeps a splendor; due to wit,
Which saw one clew to life, and followed it.

1. Religious Isolation
2. To George Cruikshank
3. Written in Butler’s Sermons
4. Quiet Work
5. Rachel

Print

1151 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version