Matthew Arnold

To the Duke of Wellington

ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED

Because thou hast believ’d, the wheels of life  
Stand never idle, but go always round:  
Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground,  
Mov’d only; but by genius, in the strife  
Of all its chafing torrents after thaw,  
Urg’d; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand,  
The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand:  
And, in this vision of the general law,  
Hast labour’d with the foremost, hast become  
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm;      
For this, thy track, across the fretful foam  
Of vehement actions without scope or term,  
   Call’d History, keeps a splendour: due to wit,  
   Which saw one clue to life, and follow’d it.

First published 1849

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