Immortality

1867

Foiled by our fellow-men, depressed, outworn,We leave the brutal world to take its way,And, Patience! in another life, we say,The world shall be thrust down, and we upborne.

And will not, then, the immortal armies scornThe world's poor, routed leavings? or will theyWho failed under the heat of this life's daySupport the fervors of the heavenly morn?

No, no! the energy of life may beKept on after the grave, but not begun;And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing,—only he.His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

From The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold, via the English Wikisource transcription.

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