ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS 69
Years Hence
TTEAES hence, perhaps, may dawn an age
I More fortunate, alas ! than we.
Which without hardness will be sage,
And gay without frivolity.
Matthew Arnold
Rest In Peace
STUEW on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew.
In quiet she reposes :
Ah ! would that I did too.
Her mirth the world required :
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound ;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabined, ample Spirit,
It fluttered and failed for breath.
Tonight it doth inherit
The vasty Hall of Death.
Matthew Arnold
So Small a Thing ?
Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought,
to have done ? Matthew Arnold
The Lustre of Your Name
BORN, as you are, citizens of a great State, and brought up, as you
have been, with habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to
face the greatest disasters, and still to keep unimpaired the lustre of
your name.
The hand of Heaven must be borne with resignation, that of the
enemy with fortitude. Remember that if your country has the
greatest name in all the world it is because she never bent before
disaster. Do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your present
sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and
whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men of the
greatest communities. Pericles to the Ancient Greeks