Explore "The World and the Quietist" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To Critias / Why, when the World's great mind / Hath finally inclin'd, / Why, you say, Critias, be debating still?
Why, with these mournful rhymes / Learn'd in more languid climes, / Blame our activity, / Who, with such passionate will, / Are what we mean to be?
Critias, long since, I know, / (For Fate decreed it so), / Long since the World hath set its heart to live.
Long since, with credulous zeal / It turns Life's mighty wheel; / Still doth for labourers send, / Who still their labour give; / And still expects an end.
Yet, as the wheel flies round, / With no ungrateful sound / Do adverse voices fall on the World's ear.
Deafen'd by his own stir / The rugged Labourer / Caught not till then a sense / So glowing and so near / Of his omnipotence.
So, when the feast grew loud / In Susa's palace proud, / A white-rob'd slave stole to the Monarch's side.
He spoke: the Monarch heard: / Felt the slow-rolling word / Swell his attentive soul.
Breath'd deeply as it died, / And drain'd his mighty bowl.