Mycerinus
"Not
by
the
justice
that
my
father
spurn'd,
Not
for
the
thousands
whom
my
father
slew,
Altars
unfed
and
temples
overturn'd,
Cold
hearts
and
thankless
tongues,
where
thanks
are
due;
Fell
this
dread
voice
from
lips
that
cannot
lie,
Stern
sentence
of
the
Powers
of
Destiny.
"I
will
unfold
my
sentence
and
my
crime.
My
crime—that,
rapt
in
reverential
awe,
I
sate
obedient,
in
the
fiery
prime
Of
youth,
self-govern'd,
at
the
feet
of
Law;
Ennobling
this
dull
pomp,
the
life
of
kings,
By
contemplation
of
diviner
things.
"My
father
loved
injustice,
and
lived
long;
Crown'd
with
grey
hairs
he
died,
and
full
of
sway.
I
loved
the
good
he
scorn'd,
and
hated
wrong—
The
Gods
declare
my
recompense
to-day.
I
look'd
for
life
more
lasting,
rule
more
high;
And
when
six
years
are
measured,
lo,
I
die!
"Yet
surely,
O
my
people,
did
I
deem
Man's
justice
from
the
all-just
Gods
was
given;
A
light
that
from
some
upper
fount
did
beam,
Some
better
archetype,
whose
seat
was
heaven;
A
light
that,
shining
from
the
blest
abodes,
Did
shadow
somewhat
of
the
life
of
Gods.
"Mere
phantoms
of
man's
self-tormenting
heart,
Which
on
the
sweets
that
woo
it
dares
not
feed!
Vain
dreams,
which
quench
our
pleasures,
then
depart
When
the
duped
soul,
self-master'd,
claims
its
meed;
When,
on
the
strenuous
just
man,
Heaven
bestows,
Crown
of
his
struggling
life,
an
unjust
close!
"Seems
it
so
light
a
thing,
then,
austere
Powers,
To
spurn
man's
common
lure,
life's
pleasant
things?
Seems
there
no
joy
in
dances
crown'd
with
flowers,
Love,
free
to
range,
and
regal
banquetings?
Bend
ye
on
these,
indeed,
an
unmoved
eye,
Not
Gods
but
ghosts,
in
frozen
apathy?
"Or
is
it
that
some
Force,
too
wise,
too
strong,
Even
for
yourselves
to
conquer
or
beguile,
Sweeps
earth,
and
heaven,
and
men,
and
Gods
along,
Like
the
broad
volume
of
the
insurgent
Nile?
And
the
great
powers
we
serve,
themselves
may
be
Slaves
of
a
tyrannous
necessity?
"Or
in
mid-heaven,
perhaps,
your
golden
cars,
Where
earthly
voice
climbs
never,
wing
their
flight,
And
in
wild
hunt,
through
mazy
tracts
of
stars,
Sweep
in
the
sounding
stillness
of
the
night?
Or
in
deaf
ease,
on
thrones
of
dazzling
sheen,
Drinking
deep
draughts
of
joy,
ye
dwell
serene?
"Oh,
wherefore
cheat
our
youth,
if
thus
it
be,
Of
one
short
joy,
one
lust,
one
pleasant
dream?
Stringing
vain
words
of
powers
we
cannot
see,
Blind
divinations
of
a
will
supreme;
Lost
labour!
when
the
circumambient
gloom
But
hides,
if
Gods,
Gods
careless
of
our
doom?
"The
rest
I
give
to
joy.
Even
while
I
speak,
My
sand
runs
short;
and—as
yon
star-shot
ray,
Hemm'd
by
two
banks
of
cloud,
peers
pale
and
weak,
Now,
as
the
barrier
closes,
dies
away—
Even
so
do
past
and
future
intertwine,
Blotting
this
six
years'
space,
which
yet
is
mine.
"Six
years—six
little
years—six
drops
of
time!
Yet
suns
shall
rise,
and
many
moons
shall
wane,
And
old
men
die,
and
young
men
pass
their
prime,
And
languid
pleasure
fade
and
flower
again,
And
the
dull
Gods
behold,
ere
these
are
flown,
Revels
more
deep,
joy
keener
than
their
own.
"Into
the
silence
of
the
groves
and
woods
I
will
go
forth;
though
something
would
I
say—
Something—yet
what,
I
know
not;
for
the
Gods
The
doom
they
pass
revoke
not,
nor
delay;
And
prayers,
and
gifts,
and
tears,
are
fruitless
all,
And
the
night
waxes,
and
the
shadows
fall.
"Ye
men
of
Egypt,
ye
have
heard
your
king!
I
go,
and
I
return
not.
But
the
will
Of
the
great
Gods
is
plain;
and
ye
must
bring
Ill
deeds,
ill
passions,
zealous
to
fulfil
Their
pleasure,
to
their
feet;
and
reap
their
praise,
The
praise
of
Gods,
rich
boon!
and
length
of
days."
—So
spake
he,
half
in
anger,
half
in
scorn;
And
one
loud
cry
of
grief
and
of
amaze
Broke
from
his
sorrowing
people;
so
he
spake,
And
turning,
left
them
there;
and
with
brief
pause,
Girt
with
a
throng
of
revellers,
bent
his
way
To
the
cool
region
of
the
groves
he
loved.
There
by
the
river-banks
he
wander'd
on,
From
palm-grove
on
to
palm-grove,
happy
trees,
Their
smooth
tops
shining
sunward,
and
beneath
Burying
their
unsunn'd
stems
in
grass
and
flowers;
Where
in
one
dream
the
feverish
time
of
youth
Might
fade
in
slumber,
and
the
feet
of
joy
Might
wander
all
day
long
and
never
tire.
Here
came
the
king,
holding
high
feast,
at
morn,
Rose-crown'd;
and
ever,
when
the
sun
went
down,
A
hundred
lamps
beam'd
in
the
tranquil
gloom,
From
tree
to
tree
all
through
the
twinkling
grove,
Revealing
all
the
tumult
of
the
feast—
Flush'd
guests,
and
golden
goblets
foam'd
with
wine;
While
the
deep-burnish'd
foliage
overhead
Splinter'd
the
silver
arrows
of
the
moon.
It
may
be
that
sometimes
his
wondering
soul
From
the
loud
joyful
laughter
of
his
lips
Might
shrink
half
startled,
like
a
guilty
man
Who
wrestles
with
his
dream;
as
some
pale
shape
Gliding
half
hidden
through
the
dusky
stems,
Would
thrust
a
hand
before
the
lifted
bowl,
Whispering:
A
little
space,
and
thou
art
mine!
It
may
be
on
that
joyless
feast
his
eye
Dwelt
with
mere
outward
seeming;
he,
within,
Took
measure
of
his
soul,
and
knew
its
strength,
And
by
that
silent
knowledge,
day
by
day,
Was
calm'd,
ennobled,
comforted,
sustain'd.
It
may
be;
but
not
less
his
brow
was
smooth,
And
his
clear
laugh
fled
ringing
through
the
gloom,
And
his
mirth
quail'd
not
at
the
mild
reproof
Sigh'd
out
by
winter's
sad
tranquillity;
Nor,
pall'd
with
its
own
fulness,
ebb'd
and
died
In
the
rich
languor
of
long
summer-days;
Nor
wither'd
when
the
palm-tree
plumes,
that
roof'd
With
their
mild
dark
his
grassy
banquet-hall,
Bent
to
the
cold
winds
of
the
showerless
spring;
No,
nor
grew
dark
when
autumn
brought
the
clouds.
So
six
long
years
he
revell'd,
night
and
day.
And
when
the
mirth
wax'd
loudest,
with
dull
sound
Sometimes
from
the
grove's
centre
echoes
came,
To
tell
his
wondering
people
of
their
king;
In
the
still
night,
across
the
steaming
flats,
Mix'd
with
the
murmur
of
the
moving
Nile.
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold (born December 24, 1822, Laleham, Middlesex, England—died April 15, 1888, Liverpool) English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted especially for his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the “Barbarians” (the aristocracy), the “Philistines” (the commercial middle class), and the “Populace.” He became the apostle of “culture” in such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869). His literary career -- leaving out the two prize poems -- had begun in 1849 with the publication of The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems by A., which attracted little notice -- although it contained perhaps Arnold's most purely poetical poem "The Forsaken Merman" -- and was soon withdrawn. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (among them "Tristram and Iseult"), published in 1852, had a similar fate. In his poetry he derived not only the subject matter of his narrative poems from various traditional or literary sources but even much of the romantic melancholy of his earlier poems from Senancour's Obermann. His greatest defects as a poet stem from his lack of ear and his frequent failure to distinguish between poetry and prose. His significant if curious estimate of his own poems in 1869 was that they represented "on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century."