Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=37661" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Mycerinus</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,<br>Not for the thousands whom my father slew,<br>Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,<br>Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;<br>Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,<br>Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I will unfold my sentence and my crime.<br>My crime--that, rapt in reverential awe,<br>I sate obedient, in the fiery prime<br>Of youth, self-govern'd, at the feet of Law;<br>Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings,<br>By contemplation of diviner things.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> My father loved injustice, and lived long;<br>Crown'd with grey hairs he died, and full of sway.<br>I loved the good he scorn'd, and hated wrong--<br>The Gods declare my recompense to-day.<br>I look'd for life more lasting, rule more high;<br>And when six years are measured, lo, I die!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yet surely, O my people, did I deem<br>Man's justice from the all-just Gods was given;<br>A light that from some upper fount did beam,<br>Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven;<br>A light that, shining from the blest abodes,<br>Did shadow somewhat of the life of Gods.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Mere phantoms of man's self-tormenting heart,<br>Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed!<br>Vain dreams, which quench our pleasures, then depart<br>When the duped soul, self-master'd, claims its meed;<br>When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows,<br>Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Seems it so light a thing, then, austere Powers,<br>To spurn man's common lure, life's pleasant things?<br>Seems there no joy in dances crown'd with flowers,<br>Love, free to range, and regal banquetings?<br>Bend ye on these, indeed, an unmoved eye,<br>Not Gods but ghosts, in frozen apathy?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Or is it that some Force, too wise, too strong,<br>Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile,<br>Sweeps earth, and heaven, and men, and Gods along,<br>Like the broad volume of the insurgent Nile?<br>And the great powers we serve, themselves may be<br>Slaves of a tyrannous necessity?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars,<br>Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight,<br>And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars,<br>Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night?<br>Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen,<br>Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Oh, wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be,<br>Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream?<br>Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see,<br>Blind divinations of a will supreme;<br>Lost labour! when the circumambient gloom<br>But hides, if Gods, Gods careless of our doom?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak,<br>My sand runs short; and--as yon star-shot ray,<br>Hemm'd by two banks of cloud, peers pale and weak,<br>Now, as the barrier closes, dies away--<br>Even so do past and future intertwine,<br>Blotting this six years' space, which yet is mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Six years--six little years--six drops of time!<br>Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane,<br>And old men die, and young men pass their prime,<br>And languid pleasure fade and flower again,<br>And the dull Gods behold, ere these are flown,<br>Revels more deep, joy keener than their own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Into the silence of the groves and woods<br>I will go forth; though something would I say--<br>Something--yet what, I know not; for the Gods<br>The doom they pass revoke not, nor delay;<br>And prayers, and gifts, and tears, are fruitless all,<br>And the night waxes, and the shadows fall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king!<br>I go, and I return not. But the will<br>Of the great Gods is plain; and ye must bring<br>Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil<br>Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise,<br>The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> --So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn;<br>And one loud cry of grief and of amaze<br>Broke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,<br>And turning, left them there; and with brief pause,<br>Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way<br>To the cool region of the groves he loved.<br>There by the river-banks he wander'd on,<br>From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees,<br>Their smooth tops shining sunward, and beneath<br>Burying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers;<br>Where in one dream the feverish time of youth<br>Might fade in slumber, and the feet of joy<br>Might wander all day long and never tire.<br>Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn,<br>Rose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down,<br>A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloom,<br>From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove,<br>Revealing all the tumult of the feast--<br>Flush'd guests, and golden goblets foam'd with wine;<br>While the deep-burnish'd foliage overhead<br>Splinter'd the silver arrows of the moon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It may be that sometimes his wondering soul<br>From the loud joyful laughter of his lips<br>Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man<br>Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale shape<br>Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems,<br>Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl,<br>Whispering: A little space, and thou art mine!<br>It may be on that joyless feast his eye<br>Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within,<br>Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength,<br>And by that silent knowledge, day by day,<br>Was calm'd, ennobled, comforted, sustain'd.<br>It may be; but not less his brow was smooth,<br>And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom,<br>And his mirth quail'd not at the mild reproof<br>Sigh'd out by winter's sad tranquillity;<br>Nor, pall'd with its own fulness, ebb'd and died<br>In the rich languor of long summer-days;<br>Nor wither'd when the palm-tree plumes, that roof'd<br>With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall,<br>Bent to the cold winds of the showerless spring;<br>No, nor grew dark when autumn brought the clouds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> So six long years he revell'd, night and day.<br>And when the mirth wax'd loudest, with dull sound<br>Sometimes from the grove's centre echoes came,<br>To tell his wondering people of their king;<br>In the still night, across the steaming flats,<br>Mix'd with the murmur of the moving Nile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Matthew+Arnold">Matthew Arnold</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=37661" data-title="Mycerinus de Matthew Arnold" data-description="Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,/Not for the thousands whom my father slew,/Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,/Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;/Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,/Stern sentence of ..."></div>
</div>
</div>