| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems | | Self-Deception |
| | [First published 1852. Reprinted 1855.]
SAY, what blinds us, that we claim the glory | |
| Of possessing powers not our share?— | |
| Since man woke on earth, he knows his story, | |
| But, before we woke on earth, we were. | |
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| Long, long since, undower’d yet, our spirit | 5 |
| Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God: | |
| Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit; | |
| Ask’d an outfit for its earthly road. | |
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| Then, as now, this tremulous, eager Being | |
| Strain’d, and long’d, and grasp’d each gift it saw. | 10 |
| Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing | |
| Stav’d us back, and gave our choice the law. | |
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| Ah, whose hand that day through heaven guided | |
| Man’s blank 1 spirit, since it was not we? | |
| Ah, who sway’d our choice, and who decided | 15 |
| What our gifts, 2 and what our wants 3 should be? | |
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| For, alas! he left us each retaining | |
| Shreds of gifts which he refus’d in full. | |
| Still these waste us with their hopeless straining— | |
| Still the attempt to use them proves them null. | 20 |
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| And on earth we wander, groping, reeling; | |
| Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. | |
| Ah, and he, who placed our master-feeling, | |
| Fail’d to place our 4 master-feeling clear. | |
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| We but dream we have our wish’d-for powers. | 25 |
| Ends we seek we never shall attain. | |
| Ah, some power exists there, which is ours? | |
| Some end is there, we indeed may gain? | |
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