| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The World and the Quietist |
| | | Matthew Arnold (1822–88) |
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| “WHY, when the world’s great mind | |
| Hath finally inclin’d, | |
| Why,” you say, Critias, “be debating still? | |
| Why, with these mournful rhymes | |
| Learn’d in more languid climes, | 5 |
| Blame our activity | |
| Who, with such passionate will, | |
| Are what we mean to be?” | |
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| Critias, long since, I know | |
| (For Fate decreed it so), | 10 |
| Long since the world hath set its heart to live; | |
| Long since, with credulous zeal | |
| It turns life’s mighty wheel, | |
| Still doth for laborers send | |
| Who still their labor give, | 15 |
| And still expects an end. | |
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| Yet, as the wheel flies round, | |
| With no ungrateful sound | |
| Do adverse voices fall on the world’s ear. | |
| Deafen’d by his own stir | 20 |
| The rugged laborer | |
| Caught not till then a sense | |
| So glowing and so near | |
| Of his omnipotence. | |
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| So, when the feast grew loud | 25 |
| In Susa’s palace proud, | |
| A white-rob’d slave stole to the Great King’s side. | |
| He spake—the Great King heard; | |
| Felt the slow-rolling word | |
| Swell his attentive soul; | 30 |
| Breath’d deeply as it died, | |
| And drain’d his mighty bowl. | |
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