Explore "Courage" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 wail, renounce, withdraw.
Yet now, when boldest wills give place, / When Fate and Circumstance are strong, / And in their rush the human race / Are swept, like huddling sheep, along; / Those sterner spirits let me prize, / Who, though the tendence of the whole / They less than us might recognize, / Kept, more than us, their strength of soul.
Yes, be the second Cato17 prais'd!
Not that he took the course to die --
But that, when 'gainst himself he rais'd / His arm, he rais'd it dauntlessly.
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.
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.
Our bane, disguise it as we may, / Is weakness, is a faltering course.
Oh that past times could give our day, / Join'd to its clearness, of their force!