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Poems: Lyric, dramatic, and elegiac poems
Poems Lyric dramatic and elegiac poems Author:Matthew Arnold Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FKAGMENT OF AN "ANTIGONE." The Chorus. Well hath he done who hath seized happiness ! For little do the all-containing hours, Though opulent, freely give... more ». Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unpray'd, Declines her ministry, and carves his own; And, justice not infringed, Makes his own welfare his unswerved-from law. He does well too, who keeps that clue the mild Birth-Goddess and the austere Fates first gave. For from the day when these Bring him, a weeping child, First to the light, and mark A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home, Unguided he remains, Till the Fates come again, this time with death. In little companies, And, our own place once left, Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid, By city and household group'd, we live; and many shocks Our order heaven-ordain'd Must every day endure : Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars. Besides what waste he makes, The all-hated, order-breaking, Without friend, city, or home, Death, who dissevers all Him then I praise, who dares To self-selected good Prefer obedience to the primal law, Which consecrates the ties of blood; for these, indeed, Are to the Gods a care; That touches but himself. For every day man may be link'd and loosed With strangers; but the bond Original, deep-inwound, Of blood, can he not bind, Nor, if Fate binds, not bear. But hush ! Hsemon, whom Antigone,Eobbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon's law, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride—pale, imploring, Waiting her passage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes. Hcemon. No, no, old men, Creon I curse not! I weep, Thebans, One than Creon crueller far ! For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate ; But thou, too-bo...« less