The reflective mind of Arnold meditated it, —
"the world that seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain." —
So Rupert Brooke, —
"But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains."
And yet, —
"Oh, never a doubt but somewhere I shall wake;"
again, —
"the light,
Returning, shall give back the golden hours,
Ocean a windless level. . . ."
again, best of all, in the last word, —
"Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them."