The poetical works of Matthew Arnold/The Progress of Poesy

by Matthew Arnold

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A VARIATION.

Youth rambles on life's arid mount,
And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,
And brings the water from the fount,—
The fount which shall not flow again.

The man mature with labor chops
For the bright stream a channel grand,
And sees not that the sacred drops
Ran off and vanished out of hand.

And then the old man totters nigh,
And feebly rakes among the stones.
The mount is mute, the channel dry;
And down he lays his weary bones.