| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems | | The Second Best |
| | [First published 1852. Reprinted 1867.]
MODERATE tasks and moderate leisure, | |
| Quiet living, strict-kept measure | |
| Both in suffering and in pleasure— | |
| ’Tis for this thy nature yearns. | |
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| But so many books thou readest, | 5 |
| But so many schemes thou breedest, | |
| But so many wishes feedest, | |
| That thy poor head almost turns. | |
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| And (the world’s so madly jangled, | |
| Human things so fast entangled) | 10 |
| Nature’s wish must now be strangled | |
| For that best which she discerns. | |
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| So it must be! yet, while leading | |
| A strain’d life, while overfeeding, | |
| Like the rest, his wit with reading, | 15 |
| No small profit that man earns, | |
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| Who through all he meets can steer him, | |
| Can reject what cannot clear him, | |
| Cling to what can truly cheer him! | |
| Who each day more surely learns | 20 |
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| That an impulse, from the distance | |
| Of his deepest, best existence, | |
| To the words ‘Hope, Light, Persistence,’ | |
| Strongly stirs and truly burns! | | | | |
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