Explore "Fragment of Chorus of a Dejaneira" by Matthew Arnold on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
O frivolous mind of man, / Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts, / Though man bewails you not, / How I bewail you!
Little in your prosperity / Do you seek counsel of the Gods.
Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone.
In profound silence stern, / Among their savage gorges and cold springs / Unvisited remain / The great oracular shrines.
Thither in your adversity / Do you betake yourselves for light, / But strangely misinterpret all you hear.
For you will not put on / New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe, / And purged, considerate minds.
And him on whom, at the end / Of toil and dolour untold, / The Gods have said that repose / At last shall descend undisturb'd, / Him you expect to behold / In an easy old age, in a happy home; / No end but this you praise.
But him, on whom, in the prime / Of life, with vigour undimm'd, / With unspent mind, and a soul / Unworn, undebased, undecay'd, / Mournfully grating, the gates / Of the city of death have for ever closed --
Him, I count him, well-starr'd.