| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | New Poems, 1867 | | Immortality |
| | [First published 1867.]
FOIL’D by our fellow men, depress’d, outworn, | |
| We leave the brutal world to take its way, | |
| And, Patience! in another life, we say, | |
| The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne! | |
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| And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn | 5 |
| The world’s poor, routed leavings; or will they, | |
| Who fail’d under the heat of this life’s day, | |
| Support the fervours of the heavenly morn? | |
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| No, no! the energy of life may be | |
| Kept on after the grave, but not begun; | 10 |
| And he who flagg’d not in the earthly strife, | |
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| From strength to strength advancing—only he, | |
| His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, | |
| Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. | | | | |
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