| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems | | Courage |
| | [First published 1852. Not reprinted by the author.]
TRUE, we must tame our rebel will: | |
| True, we must bow to Nature’s law: | |
| Must bear in silence many an ill; | |
| Must learn to wait, renounce, withdraw. | |
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| Yet now, when boldest wills give place, | 5 |
| When Fate and Circumstance are strong, | |
| And in their rush the human race | |
| Are swept, like huddling sheep, along; | |
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| Those sterner spirits let me prize, | |
| Who, though the tendence of the whole | 10 |
| They less than us might recognize, | |
| Kept, more than us, their strength of soul. | |
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| Yes, be the second Cato 1 prais’d! | |
| Not that he took the course to die— | |
| But that, when ’gainst himself he rais’d | 15 |
| His arm, he rais’d it dauntlessly. | |
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| And, Byron! let us dare admire, | |
| If not thy fierce and turbid song, | |
| Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire, | |
| Thy fiery courage still was strong. | 20 |
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| The sun that on thy tossing pain | |
| Did with such cold derision shine, | |
| He crush’d thee not with his disdain— | |
| He had his glow, and thou hadst thine. | |
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| Our bane, disguise it as we may, | 25 |
| Is weakness, is a faltering course. | |
| Oh that past times could give our day, | |
| Join’d to its clearness, of their force! | |
| | | Note 1. Cato: who committed suicide at Utica rather than yield to Julius Caesar. [back] | | |
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