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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FRAGMENT OF AN 'ANTIGONE', by MATTHEW ARNOLD Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Well hath he done who hath seiz'd happiness Last Line: To achieve his son's deliverance, o my child. | |||
THE CHORUS WELL hath he done who hath seiz'd happiness. For little do the all-containing Hours, Though opulent, freely give. Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unpray'd, Declines her ministry, and carves his own: And, justice not infring'd, Makes his own welfare his unswerv'd-from law. He does well too, who keeps that clue the mild Birth-Goddess and the austere Fates first gave. For from the day when these Bring him, a weeping child, First to the light, and mark A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home, Unguided he remains, Till the Fates come again, alone, with death. In little companies, And, our own place once left, Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid, By city and household group'd, we live: and many shocks Our order heaven-ordain'd Must every day endure. Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars. Besides what waste He makes, The all-hated, order-breaking, Without friend, city, or home, Death, who dissevers all. Him then I praise, who dares To self-selected good Prefer obedience to the primal law, Which consecrates the ties of blood: for these, indeed, Are to the Gods a care: That touches but himself. For every day man may be link'd and loos'd With strangers: but the bond Original, deep-inwound, Of blood, can he not bind: Nor, if Fate binds, not bear. But hush! Haemon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon's law, Polynices, Robs of a lov'd bride; pale, imploring, Waiting her passage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes. HAEMON No, no, old men, Creon I curse not. I weep, Thebans, One than Creon crueller far. For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate: But thou, too-bold, headstrong, pitiless, Ah me!--honourest more than thy lover, O Antigone, A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse. THE CHORUS Nor was the love untrue Which the Dawn-Goddess bore To that fair youth she erst Leaving the salt sea-beds And coming flush'd over the stormy frith Of loud Euripus, saw: Saw and snatch'd, wild with love, From the pine-dotted spurs Of Parnes, where thy waves, Asopus, gleam rock-hemm'd; The Hunter of the Tanagraean Field. But him, in his sweet prime, By severance immature, By Artemis' soft shafts, She, though a Goddess born, Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die. Such end o'ertook that love. For she desir'd to make Immortal mortal man, And blend his happy life, Far from the Gods, with hers: To him postponing an eternal law. HAEMON But, like me, she, wroth, complaining, Succumb'd to the envy of unkind Gods: And, her beautiful arms unclasping, Her fair Youth unwillingly gave. THE CHORUS Nor, though enthron'd too high To fear assault of envious Gods, His belov'd Argive Seer would Zeus retain From his appointed end In this our Thebes: but when His flying steeds came near To cross the steep Ismenian glen, The broad Earth open'd and whelm'd them and him; And through the void air sang At large his enemy's spear. And fain would Zeus have sav'd his tired son Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand O'er the sun-redden'd Western Straits: Or at his work in that dim lower world. Fain would he have recall'd The fraudulent oath which bound To a much feebler wight the heroic man: But he preferr'd Fate to his strong desire. Nor did there need less than the burning pile Under the towering Trachis crags, And the Spercheius' vale, shaken with groans, And the rous'd Maliac gulph, And scar'd Oetaean snows, To achieve his son's deliverance, O my child. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA; A DRAMATIC POEM by MATTHEW ARNOLD GEIST'S GRAVE by MATTHEW ARNOLD HAWORTH CHURCHYARD by MATTHEW ARNOLD LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS by MATTHEW ARNOLD MEMORIAL VERSES by MATTHEW ARNOLD |
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