Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;
That we must feign a bliss
Of doubtful future date,
And while we dream on this
Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?
2 August 2015
To Have Enjoy'd the Sun
Matthew Arnold, "Empedocles on Etna" (lines 397-406), The Poems of Matthew Arnold (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 111:
