Explore "Shakespeare" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, / Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill / That to the stars uncrowns his majesty, / Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, / Making the Heaven of Heavens his dwelling-place, / Spares but the cloudy border of his base / To the foil'd searching of mortality: / And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, / Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, / Didst walk on earth unguess'd at. Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure, / All weakness which impairs, all griefs that bow, / Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.