And you, ye stars, <br />Who slowly begin to marshal, <br />As of old, in the fields of heaven, <br />Your distant, melancholy lines! <br />Have you, too, survived yourselves? <br />Are you, too, what I fear to become? <br />You, too, once lived; <br />You too moved joyfully <br />Among august companions, <br />In an older world, peopled by Gods, <br />In a mightier order, <br />The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven. <br />But now, ye kindle <br />Your lonely, cold-shining lights, <br />Unwilling lingerers <br />In the heavenly wilderness, <br />For a younger, ignoble world; <br />And renew, by necessity, <br />Night after night your courses, <br />In echoing, unneared silence, <br />Above a race you know not— <br />Uncaring and undelighted, <br />Without friend and without home; <br />Weary like us, though not <br />Weary with our weariness.<br /><br />Matthew Arnold<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-song-of-empedocles/
